YOUTH LIVING IN SOCIAL HOUSING AREAS ACHIEVING EMPLOYMENT OUTCOMES THROUGH PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL ENTERPRISES

The rates of disengagement from school and youth unemployment rates continue to rise in Australia and internationally. Social enterprises, that is, intermediate labour market programs guided by a social mission, are one method that is successfully addressing these issues and assisting young people to obtain employment in the open labour market or to re-engage with education. BoysTown is a not-for-profit organisation that operates social enterprises for marginalised young people in lower socio-economic areas which contain high concentration of social housing estates. The social housing in Australia is managed by State Government who view the type of housing as welfare accommodation for low income earners or people with support need. Griffith University collaborated with BoysTown on an Australian Research Council linkage project to assess the personal development outcomes as well as the employment and education outcomes achieved by young people in the social enterprises. Of the 542 participants in the study, 34% (n = 184) were living in social housing. The focus of this paper will be on this cohort and the social enterprise work that they do in social housing areas. These participants were dealing with barriers such as intergenerational unemployment, limited work history, early school leaving, and low qualifications. Surveys implemented with young people at their entry and exit points of the social enterprises indicated statistically significant improvements in a range of psycho-social and cultural as well as cognitive-motivational outcomes for participant. Furthermore, a high number of these young people achieved sustainable employment and education outcomes. Moreover, feedback from community and Government stakeholder indicated that the social housing community experienced flow-on benefits such as residents taking better care of their properties after seeing the work of the social enterprises on their homes and community areas. The findings of this study support the use of social enterprises in engaging young people from social housing and assisting them to obtain sustainable employment and education outcomes.