Fourteen mature age women recently displaced from the workforce have embarked on an exciting re-skilling and employment pathway.
The group refocused their work and life experience, towards meaningful and rewarding employment opportunities in Childcare and Early Education.
Sunshine Coast training organisation Skills Generation has joined with local stakeholders, including childcare centres, employment service providers, job seekers and the Australian Government’s Local Jobs Program, to deliver the Generations Connect Pre-employment Project.
The collaborative initiative has been developed in direct response to local needs.
It is specifically related to mature age female job seekers and childcare employers.
Women in the 45-and-over age group represent one of the highest unemployed cohorts on the Sunshine Coast, and nationally represent one of the fastest growing groups experiencing homelessness.
The childcare sector is facing increasing workforce pressure, struggling to meet their labour needs with suitably qualified employees.
Skills Generation Director, Leonie Murray, saw the potential to bring these two groups together, to address local labour market needs, by harnessing the valuable work and life experience mature female job seekers offer.
‘’With high numbers of mature aged women recently displaced from the workforce on the Sunshine Coast, and significant current and projected workforce shortages in the Early Childhood Sector, there is an opportunity to leverage the extensive work and life experience of this talented pool of prospective employees,” she said.
“The merger of valuable work and life experience with industry training in childcare will produce professionals dedicated to the care and early education of our young learners.”
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The Generations Connect project provides highly-supported training, work placements, individual mentoring, and significant engagement between job seekers and childcare professionals through guest presentations, networking and excursions.
The aim is to make participants job-ready for roles in childcare, providing rewarding and meaningful employment.
“Childcare and early education professionals need qualifications but for many mature aged job-seekers the idea of returning to training after a long break from formal education can be daunting,” Ms Murray said.
“Generations Connect provides participants with a soft landing into training with a highly supported learning environment, helping individuals to regain confidence and control”.
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Childcare is often considered a young person’s profession but Generations Connect disrupts that stereotype.
“Skills Generation undertook research with local childcare centres to gauge their views on having more mature workers in their services and all agreed that a workforce that represents a diverse range of ages and experiences is highly valued,” Ms Murray said.
It was announced in the May budget that the Local Jobs Program has been expanded, with funding now available across all 51 employment regions.
The Minister for Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small and Family Business, the Hon Stuart Rob MP, cited Generations Connect in his budget communications as a project that has successfully brought together key organisations to work together to develop and deliver solutions to move job seekers into meaningful work, filling gaps in training and up-skilling job seekers to meet local employer needs.
