“Can communities and society be strong if our children and young people are not?”. (Fiona Stanley, 2003)

I am fortunate to be a part of a mentoring program for Making Trax, which is an Innovation Fund project funded by Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR).  

Making Trax is a highly innovative and exciting project aimed at young men aged 16-25 who face barriers to successful participation in the community as a result of childhood trauma, violence, abuse and neglect.

The program uses a very interactive and holistic approach, and works on the premise that long term change for people with significant barriers to work and participation will only be achieved with a long term approach that looks at the whole person, rather than just focusing on developing work skills.

Through group activities, mentoring and individual counselling the program aims to assist these young men to:

• Identify the impact of these experiences
• Explore such impact on their subsequent ability to successfully participate in personal relationships, parenting and employment
• Identify and address learned behaviours which have arisen as a result of their life experiences, and develop strategies to overcome the negative impact of such behaviours
• Provide skilled and committed mature male program leaders, mentors and role models to positively assist them to address the barriers caused by such life experiences
• Build the capacity of each individual to successfully participate in the community, and to participate in future program development

The project will be delivered initially at three Community College Victoria (CCV) member sites in Yarra Junction, Bairnsdale and Benalla over a twelve month period, and subject to positive evaluation and approval from DEEWR, rolled out to a further two CCV member sites for the following twelve months.

The project will develop and trial a model which can potentially be offered to Job Services Australia providers for their Stream 4 clients.