School and beyond

As part of the Australian Government’s Career Advice Australia initiative, Community Active Careers is the National Industry Careers Specialist for the Community Services and Health industries.

Community Active Careers is “committed to providing quality career education and helping all young Australians make a smooth transition through school and on to further study, training or work” and has a terrific e-newsletter that you can subscribe to.

Thanks for your email responses to the SkillsOne post from last week - it is an amazing resource, that last month won a global Webby Award for “Best Association Website 2008.” These awards were presented at a ceremony in New York last week.

If you are just starting out in exploring the online world and how it relates to education, Judy O’Connell set out some simple explanations on an easy-to-navigate website last year (in support of in-school workshops she was delivering.) Visit this site, and start with just one topic – it will amaze you how easy some of the tools are to use today, both for your own work outside the classroom, and to support student learning.

One of my favourite tools is del.icio.us. You can use it as you do your “favourites” in Internet Explorer, but the advantages are you can access them from any computer, and you can share them too – with colleagues, students and across schools. My del.icio.us account is here – you can see what my interests are – VET, mentoring, careers, special education and early childhood topics. You can follow my bookmarks, or others too. It’s a great tool!

The Youth Peer Education Mentor Network, based in western Sydney, was revived last year under Kellie Darley as chairperson. The Network will be having its first 2008 meeting in March, at the offices of the Smith Family in Parramatta. We would be delighted to have any representatives of western Sydney mentoring and peer initiatives join us in planning our direction and support for members in 2008. For more information, please leave me a comment in the blog below and I will contact you directly.

January in the US is National Mentoring Month which highlights mentoring and the positive impact it can have on young people’s lives (visit mentor for some terrific links, resources and case-studies.)

In Australia, too, the case for youth mentoring is finally getting some of the attention it deserves. As part of newly elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s promised “Education Revolution”, mentoring will play a role as detailed in the new policy document “Mentors for our Students.” It documents a pilot program, planned for 25 sites in communities across Australia, which aims to harness the expertise of newly retired professionals and tradespeople to mentor young people, with a focus on helping young people to consider a career in the trades.

This is a terrific idea but the funding opportunities are limited to Local Community Partnerships. Let’s hope those LCPs, new to mentoring, that secure funding are wise enough to tap into the accumulated knowledge and experience of existing, sustainable mentoring programs (such as those listed on the Youth Mentoring Network’s website). This opportunity is too precious to youth mentoring in Australia to squander - let’s work to support these programs to make sure the pilot is a success!