Pioneering new approaches to assist newly arrived young people’s transitions into education or work.

Youth unemployment was a significant concern during the 1980s and into the 1990s in Australia. Since the 1970s, the types of jobs available were changing, with the decline of manufacturing and technological changes meaning that many jobs young people were previously employed in were no longer as easy to find. Unemployment rates had been as high as almost 30 percent amongst young people in Australia in the mid 1980s. In Victoria in 1993, the unemployment rate amongst teenagers (aged 15 to 19 years) was at 28.7 per cent and for young adults (between 20 – 24 years) was at 19.5%.¹

In this context, newly arrived and refugee young people were particularly vulnerable to unemployment. In 1992, when EYIN was first granted funds to work with two English Language Schools to develop an on-site program to support young people’s transitions to school or work, the Australian economy was declared to be in recession. Research has shown that young people and recent migrants are more likely to experience unemployment during a recession, and the impacts of youth unemployment can be long lasting, particularly if young people are not engaged in education or training.² EYIN’s work with refugee young people to support their transitions to education or employment, while important in any economic circumstance, was critical in this context.

In 1993, EYIN became one of the first community organisations to be co-located and operating within English Language Schools, beginning in the west and south east of Melbourne and expanding to the north east in 1996. Within these schools, newly arrived young people undertook intensive English language learning. This was typically for a period of six months, before entering a mainstream school or in preparation for further training or employment. EYIN’s approach was to provide early support to assist these young people in making that transition and involved the provision of one-on-one support for refugee young people, as well as developing an evidence base of the education and training needs of young refugees.

Refugee young women faced particular challenges in finding employment. Concerned about the impact of unemployment on refugee young people in the western suburbs of Melbourne, the EYIN worked collaboratively with the Footscray Young Women’s Housing Service to undertake a research project that engaged young women of refugee background, including single parents, in identifying the barriers affecting their access to education, training, employment and support services. Locally, young people in the western suburbs of Footscray and Sunshine were experiencing higher unemployment rates than the Victorian average in 1993 and women from non-English speaking countries were the most disadvantaged in the labour market, due to their concentration in manufacturing, an industry in decline in Australia since the 1970s.

Single mothers were over-represented amongst refugee families and faced particular challenges accessing employment while they raised children typically without the assistance of the family and social networks they had left behind. The report documented a range of ways in which mainstream education, employment and training programs and supports didn’t meet the needs of refugee young women. Ultimately, the project called for ‘the development of coordinated, comprehensive orientation information, English language and transition services for refugee young women.’³