Orygen welcomes the focus on providing youth-specific employment supports in the final report of the Select Committee on Workforce Australia Employment Services, Rebuilding Employment Services.
Orygen provided a submission to this inquiry in which we highlighted the employment support needs of young people experiencing mental ill-health, the cost effectiveness of early intervention, and the strengths of youth-focussed models of employment support embedded in health and community services, such as Individual Placement and Support (IPS).
As such, it was heartening to see Recommendation 11 of the report call for the Commonwealth Employment Services System to include a specific youth service for people under 25 years of age, and that this Youth Employment Service should be delivered by providers with experience and skills in working with this age group and, where possible, be collocated with other youth services.
Further, the report recognised that mental ill-health can be a significant barrier to a young person’s engagement in training and employment and recommended the Australian Government look to the ‘IPS in headspace’ model as an approach that could inform implementation of similar measures to embed pre-employment support within human and health services such as mental health, homelessness and family violence (Recommendation 9).
If implemented, Orygen believes this focus on providing youth specific employment supports and, where appropriate, embedding those within other youth-friendly services will deliver greater outcomes for young people across Australia. It will also avert longer term risks to Australia’s economic and social situation which could emerge if we don’t actively support this generation into meaningful and productive employment.