Friday, February 29, 2008

A Community Employment what?

Its suddenly dawned on me - at Day Six in Darwin, and the fourth post here, no less - that I haven't even defined what a Community Employment Broker is and does.
Using the formal and very, very public service definition, a Community Employment Broker "co-ordinates the delivery of employment-related DEEWR services within a designated community so that all job seekers with a participation requirement are engaged in an activity."
Got all that? It's probably won't make much sense if you're from outside the public service, and even less so if you're outside the social security/employment services portfolios.
In simple terms, a Community Employment Broker works with a remote Indigenous Community to help people find training, work experience and, hopefully, long-term employment and social participation.
The role was created as part of the Australian Government's Northern Territory Emergency Response in late 2007, and aims to provide local support for local people. The big difference between a Community Employment Broker and traditional (Government) roles is that the Broker lives in the community in which they're working.
By actively living in a remote community, a Community Employment Broker helps overcome the 'fly in, fly out' syndrome, allowing for a longer-term approach to be taken, and providing a accurate, current and 'on the ground' perspective.
Obviously, as every Indigenous community is different, there's no typical day for a Community Employment Broker, but most days are spent meeting with community members and representative groups, employment and training providers, other Government agencies and anyone else involved in employment-related business.
In between that, there's a stack of reporting and a lot of travel - in my case, 490 kilometres to the nearest town.

No comments: