Opinion Articles

SOUL MATTERS: Employment Services Overhaul A Marginal Call
By Catherine Mahony

As a member of a minority group with an unemployment rate of about 80%, I don't take my job for granted.

As a blind person, I know the importance of specialist support enabling me to obtain and sustain a job. I would be very concerned if those services were no longer available to me. I would also be concerned for the staff of the service provider with whom I work, who gives me much needed practical and emotional support.

In 2000, when I began working for CatholicCare (formerly Centacare) in the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, I became aware of a number of other jobseekers who experience multiple barriers to employment and the important work of CatholicCare in supporting these clients. Recently CatholicCare learned that it was unsuccessful in the 14-month tender process to provide these services as part of the Federal Government's new model of employment services.

More than 25% of current providers within the Job Network were unsuccessful. Like other organisations, CatholicCare has questions about the tender process and grave concerns about the impact on its clients of this new model of service delivery.

I have questions about a society in which I fear we are, yet again, giving priority to economic outcomes over a personalised approach where individual clients are valued and supported.

In CatholicCare's nurturing environment many clients have been successful in addressing complex barriers and completing pathways to training, education and employment.

CatholicCare lost its funding as part of what is described as a four billion dollar overhaul of the current Job Network. The new model, known as Job Services Australia : People, Skills, Jobs, claims to be a ‘one stop shop' which will offer personalised services for highly disadvantaged jobseekers.

When the successful applicants were announced earlier this month, concerns were raised in many quarters including the Federal Opposition, the Greens, Family First, Catholic Services Australia (representing Centacare and other Catholic Church agencies), the Australian Council of Social Services and the Employment Services Union. Some sectors have called for an independent review.

There is a lot here that makes me uneasy. As a person with a disability which daily challenges me - to function, solve problems and sometimes even perceive the world differently - I know how easy it is to be overlooked, even by those with fine intentions. The more significant the difference and disadvantage experienced by a person, the more likely it is that a one-stop-shop approach will not work. In fact, it has the capacity to marginalise further the very people it sets out to support.

As a church that takes Jesus as our example, we must meet and work with those on the edges, as he did.

The overhaul of the current Job Network is not complete yet. Soon the Disability Employment and Vocational Services Network providers will undergo a similar tender process.

I wait with concern to see how the new Employment Services will unfold.

Catherine Mahony is the Media Officer for the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.

*This article was published in The Newcastle Herald, 20th April 2009