[Sub ID 4885] Impact Hub (The Social Deck)

Submission ID: 4885
Organisation name: The Social Deck
Contact name: Mr Steven Speldewinde
State: QLD
Contact email: steve@thesocialdeck.com

Which priority group of the Try, Test and Learn Fund does your idea support?
Young carers, Young parents

What need or issue are you trying to address?
Having a baby at a young age can disrupt education and increase the barriers to finding and keeping a job. This can lead to long-term welfare dependency and poorer life outcomes for young parents and their children. Being a carer can impact on a person’s ability to participate fully in education, training and employment with potential consequences for long term employment prospects.

Both young parents and young carers face barriers in participating in the workforce due to the need to have flexible working arrangements to accommodate their circumstances in life.

In regional areas across Australia people are often tied to specific industries, and these industries such as mining, tourism and agriculture, are commonly unstable leading to unstable employment. However, the skills people have and the knowledge young people have already created within themselves is often transferable to new ideas and business.

To effect change, we need to consider how we view, and accommodate, those that need assistance to grow their potential in ways other than relying on availability of employment in more traditional industries. Welfare has, at its base, a range of programs that target education and subsidisation, however these have not resulted in addressing intergenerational welfare as they often lack practical empowerment.

What is your idea?
We will create an Impact Hub, an online and physical space that connects young parents and young carers with opportunities for flexible work and opportunities to upskill that are available through the myriad of sharing economy platforms (e.g. Airtasker, AirBnB, Careseekers, Snappr, Greensocks etc).

The online space will focus on mapping shared economy opportunities against the flexible work requirements (including non-standard hours, differing transport requirements etc) of young parents and young carers in regional locations. The physical space (or spaces) will focus on removing barriers faced by young carers and young parents to taking advantage of these opportunities. Under-utilised community resources such as mini-buses, spare computers, camera equipment, gardening and cleaning equipment will be made available to young carers and parents to enable them to take advantage of sharing economy opportunities.

The physical space(s) will also provide opportunities for young carers and parents to upskill in a targeted way based on common skill requirements identified through the online platform (e.g. graphic design, photography, data entry, cleaning, gardening etc). Local businesses will be encouraged to engage with the Impact Hub to provide opportunities for young carers and parents to deliver valuable services to those businesses.

Further, young carers and parents will be encouraged to create microbusinesses specifically designed around a flexible workforce. It provides people the tools and location to establish and incubate their ideas with support for things like finding investment and marketing a product or service. The Impact Hub can generate new businesses and solutions for the local region, which would offer additional work for local people. For example, creating technology products addressing local transport issues or making recyclable bags when the state goes plastic free.

Underpinning the idea is a core social change approach that would allow us to trial new ways of addressing barriers and perceptions associated with long-term unemployment