Supporters
In Australia, there can be major challenges in completing study or achieving gainful employment, challenges that are intensified for young people experiencing mental ill-health.
Ongoing innovation is needed to support young people with mental ill-health to engage with education and employment opportunities.
This work would not be possible without the valuable support of our community partners.
RACV
RACV have partnered with Orygen to help support young people with mental ill-health in regional Victoria to achieve their education and employment goals.
With RACV’s generous support, Orygen have expanded their capacity to innovate and support quality individual placement and support (IPS) programs for more young people by establishing a Youth IPS Centre of Excellence.
The centre drives innovation and best practice through research, implementation and fidelity support, workforce training, conferences and scholarship opportunities, and engagement of employers, education providers and the career sector in IPS.
In addition, RACV’s partnership will also enable Orygen to roll-out a modified version of the YOTES digital career platform for secondary schools in regional Victoria. YOTES in Schools will increase the capacity of school-based career practitioners to support students to achieve their career goals.
TAL Community Foundation
TAL Community Foundation currently supports the employment and education team to support the growth of evidence-based employment and education programs. In 2021 funding from TAL will support an educational transition project with the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VTAC). Orygen researchers and the employment and education partnerships team are working with VTAC to understand the impact of mental ill health on educational transition.
In 2019, TAL employees raised additional funds to renovate the Orygen managed headspace centre in Sunshine, Victoria.
Helen Macpherson Smith Trust
Helen Macpherson Smith Trust provided funding for the team to develop YOTES, a web-based career support platform for young people attending headspace centres experiencing barriers to obtaining and remaining in employment or education due to mental ill-health.
YOTES is designed to assist young people with mental ill-health to explore their career, education and employment opportunities in a safe online space. The platform provides users with access to a team of online career specialists and youth peer workers and helps young people build career confidence and enterprising skills through a range of career activities within the system.
Gina Chinnery and Dr Magenta Simmons led the YOTES project with colleagues Professor Mario Alvarez (Orygen Digital), Professor Eóin Killackey (Head, Functional Recovery), and Professor John Gleeson from the Australian Catholic University.