Employment, Skills and Training

Our response includes an overview of challenging environment young people face in their transition to a meaningful work life; supporting young people into suitable, sustainable employment; the nature of mutual obligations, activation, compliance and enforcement; and the architecture of employment services.

The submission focusses on the unique circumstances young people and people with disability who face adversity in gaining sustainable and meaningful employment, and the issues confronting the not-for-profit sector and its workforce in maintaining viable services.

We believe that pre-employment programs can be valuable supports for parents and other groups who have spent time out of the workforce. ParentsNext could be enhanced by several recommendations covering the program's compulsory participation requirements and eligibility; women's economic equality and workforce participation; addressing structural and cultural barriers; and funding and service delivery arrangements.

In this submission we highlight the need to make the future Disability Employment Services program more accessible and integrated better with the NDIS, with flexible entry pathways that cater to changing employment capacities and aspirations of individuals. The future model needs to be more person-centred and place greater emphasis on finding good-quality employment, rather than compliance and enforcement.

Mission Australia’s submission highlights our ongoing concerns about the Targeted Compliance Framework (TCF) and its impact on participants in the ParentsNext program, recommending that the program be made voluntary and noting that we will continue to monitor the effects of the TCF through our services.