Case Study: School Business Community Partnership Brokers Program

What: Building Capability, Partnering Training

Why:

In 2010 the Australian Government established an innovative approach to helping young people achieve Year 12 or equivalent qualifications and reach their full potential, by forming strategic partnerships between schools, businesses, community groups and parents and families.

Previous programs had resulted in low level interventions and generally required coordinators or career counselors who had funding attached that could provide individual support to schools. While there was some connection between schools and businesses in some areas the relationships tended to be focused around one off events such as career expos

How:

The Government through the Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) (now the Department of Education & the Department of Employment) established a national network of Partnership Broker organisations to help build locally relevant partnerships that would harness community resources and share responsibility for young people’s learning and development.

The focus for these Partnership Broker organisations was to be the catalyst for building broader and more strategic partnerships involving multiple partners from communities across Australia. The Partnership Brokers had no funds attached and were charged with the task of enabling these partnerships to be formed and building partnering capacity between the partners to ensure sustainability.

DIXON Partnering Solutions supported this initiative from 2010 to 2014, through the delivery of partnering skills training across Australia, the design of a range of partnering tools and templates, developing initial case studies, and providing strategic advice.