Jodie Belyea (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Earlier this week Julie Ware, Rebecca Wilmott and the dedicated team at the Brotherhood of St Laurence opened the Thrive Hub, in Frankston. In her opening address, Julie Ware, from the Brotherhood of St Laurence, described the hub as a place for young people in Frankston, where they can get meaningful support and assistance:

The Hub is a service designed to meet the unique needs of individuals from the one place—combining access to employment and training opportunities with a range of services including mental health, drug and alcohol, homelessness, education and disability supports—

The Thrive Hub—

is aimed at knocking down barriers and building capability and resilience.

Last month I also attended the Brotherhood of St Laurence's Community Investment Committee, led by Rebecca Wilmott. The aim of the committee is to engage employers and community service organisations in the co-design and creation of local solutions like the Thrive Hub for young people experiencing disadvantage so they can transition into work.

The Thrive Hub and the Community Investment Committee are critical initiatives delivered in Dunkley to address the issues of youth disengagement and youth unemployment. Youth unemployment in Dunkley sits at 16 per cent, which is double the national average. The committee brings together representatives and experts from headspace, the David Scott School, the Frankston Mornington Peninsula Local Learning and Employment Network, Totally Workwear, Lendlease and Chisholm TAFE. This meeting supports the people participating to understand the barriers for young people into unemployment, which include transport accessibility and disengagement of young people from secondary school post COVID.

Bek, the head of Youth Transitions, highlighted the issue of disengagement from school. She regularly receives phone calls from distressed parents about their 13-year-olds refusing to go to school. She stated to me, 'We are seeing the effects of COVID on young people in significant numbers.' That is a comment I continued to hear as a parent and across the Dunkley by-election campaign. Bek explained that the Thrive Hub is a person centred service that has been established to provide connections both to young people and their parents. It is a one-stop shop linking young people and parents to the service system, ensuring they receive the help they need when they need it—like Tayah, who spoke at the launch of the Thrive Hub.

Tayah is 17 years of age and shared with those at the event that she had disengaged from school. After engaging with the team at the Brotherhood, she was supported to identify her goals and chose to complete a number of microcredentials. The process of being supported to identify goals empowered her to return to education and re-engage in the love of learning. Thanks to the guidance and support from Brotherhood staff, Tayah has completed a traffic control course and has taken up a traineeship with Lendlease at the Frankston Hospital redevelopment. She is currently undertaking a cert II in construction, working four days for a plumber, and plans to complete a cert IV, after which she will undertake an apprenticeship. This is an exceptional story. Tayah's transformation comes from the provision of individual support from Brotherhood staff. Their commitment to supporting young people to live up to their potential is central to the success of young people like Tayah.

The Thrive Hub model is focused on building respectful and supportive relationships between young people, their parents and staff. This focus is central to the success of the service. Having worked with young people to deliver employment, training and personal development programs for 20 years in Frankston, across the state and nationally, I know the value and impact of place based collaborative initiatives that provide a one-stop shop for young people, their parents and carers.

Congratulations to the Brotherhood of St Laurence for establishing this initiative. I am pleased that the Thrive Hub is located in Dunkley. As the federal member for Dunkley, I will advocate for this initiative and the opportunity we have to support more young people so that no-one is left behind and our young people can get ahead.