Women’s Activities & Self-Help House

Conducted by the Women's Activities & Self-Help (WASH) House in Mt Druitt, this project targets sole female parents with children aged 13 years and over.

The purpose of the project is to empower Western Sydney female lone parents, especially those with school aged children, to consider their pathway, networks and other resources that will aid the increase in confidence and participation in the community, education, training and employment.

Project Description

Why was this project developed?

This project was initially established as a result of the Australian’s Working Together initiative (launched by Centrelink) and Blacktown City Council’s Mount Druitt Area Action Plan adopted in June 1999, which highlighted 3 key areas:

• Building Business and Jobs
• Promoting Mt Druitt
• Improving the Neighbourhood

The consultation for this action plan comprised of: community workshops (with over 70 people in attendance), a community survey (with over 150 responses); interviews with 20 key community representatives and meeting with key stakeholders (40 representatives of government agencies and local community organisations).

As a result of these consultations a committee of key funding stakeholders was formed comprising the Department of Housing, Premier’s Department, St Vincent de Paul, TAFE, Blacktown City Council, The WASH House Community Centre, DEWRSB and FaCS. The committee determined the priority group with the greatest level of influence on future generations in Mt Druitt was the lone parent (in particular female lone parents).

This group is isolated within the community and therefore cannot establish the networks required to develop self-awareness and confidence in participating in the community and employment. Research undertaken by the Australian Urban Research Institute supports this premise of isolation: ‘Lone parents in public housing have a lower sense of community as they have no autonomy or control over their housing and may have been located with little reference to past or present friendship ties.’ (Lone parents, social wellbeing and housing assistance: positioning paper; AHURI, Swinburne/Monash Research Centre; Terry Burke March 2001).

As mentioned above, this project is aimed at connecting lone parents with a network that can ‘facilitate cooperation for mutual benefit’. (Putnam 1993:167). This connectedness will improve options and examples to families, particularly children, especially in inter-generational welfare dependent families. This suggests that young people with parents who are welfare recipients are more likely than other young people to receive income support themselves.

Anecdotal evidence from various consultations implies that although there have been big steps in community renewal in the Housing Estates with such examples as community gardens, traineeship programs and parenting classes there are still issues re generational welfare dependency and the lack of mechanism for lone parents to expand beyond their local boundaries and open new options to their pathways in life.

The JET (Jobs, Education and Training) program administered by Centrelink provides assistance with access to educational, vocational training, employment opportunities and childcare. JET involves the lone parent to discuss with a JET Adviser a practical plan for the future.

However as Vic Pearse of Parenting Payment and Labour Market Branch FaCS wrote in a paper presented at the July 2000 Seventh Australian Institute of Family Studies Conference, ‘While these programs have successful outcomes for participants, they are voluntary and their take-up is low in some groups. The Department of Family and Community Services is particularly concerned that those most at risk of long periods in receipt of income support are not accessing assistance. A criticism of these programs has been that they mainly assist the more motivated customers who are better able to assist themselves anyway’.

This project has much broader objectives and outcomes than that of JET. The outcomes are related to ownership of the local issues, and how the members of the community deal with those issues. The benefits to the individual by becoming part of this project are the creation of a support system both through the business network and through the local community to achieve goals. The JET program is an outcome for this project and the JET program does not measure its outcomes on increased social capital and improved community capacity. This project aims to establish a self-directed group to identify the participant’s immediate environment and through this find their place in that environment; it is through this process that the lone parent is in a position to commence formulating a practical plan for the future.

This project will empower female lone parents, especially those with school-aged children, to consider their pathways for the Australians Working Together initiative in a positive and supporting environment. Through the establishment of learning circles for lone parents, participants improve access to other networks and resources for personal benefit.

Results/Evaluation

Outcomes are as follows:
Number of Participants - 32
Entered Paid Employment - 14
Training - 10
Voluntary Work - 2
Possible establishment of Small Business - 2
Interview Stage / Job Applications - 4

These statistics highlight the positive aspects of this program and have enabled the participants to:

• Become fully independent (no longer relying on the pension)
• Develop positive self-esteem and self-respect
• Develop and nurture a more positive relationship with their families, particularly their children (breaking down the cycle of inter-generational welfare dependent families)
• Provide better opportunities for their children – improving the overall quality of life
• Become positive role models for their children
• Develop and enhance the skills necessary to network within the community and build solid relationships with community workers, other participants, local business and fellow work colleagues.
  

How will the outcomes of the project be sustained

In the event that recurrent funding is not received by the conclusion of this project, the following initiatives are being put in place:

• The learning circle model can be picked up by other community groups/agencies at the cost of the facilitator (in house due to the training of community representatives).
• Lone Parents Manuals (Facilitator’s & Participant’s Handbooks) will be available to the community at a minimal cost.
• TAFE has also expressed an interest in considering adoption of the learning circle model.
• Learning Circle participants and community workers can also be trained to continue running this type of project/model.
• Corporate sponsorship will be sought for future career mentoring and providing venues for learning circles.
• Job Network Members will be approached to either purchase the manuals in order to provide appropriate training in-house, or WASH House will look at proposing to conduct the training for Job Network Member clients (Job Network Members to outsource some of their training through the WASH House).
• WASH House to build partnership with local Indigenous agency or agencies which would enable us to run a learning circles program within the Indigenous community. WASH House would employ an Indigenous worker as the facilitator for this specific program.

For further information

Contact	:	The W.A.S.H House
Address	:	Lot 5, Kelly Close, Mt Druitt NSW 2770
Phone	:	(02) 9677 1962

WWW

:

http://www.washhouse.org.au