Transcript No Slide Title

Navigating VET
the experience of ‘at risk’ youth
CVCAL Frankston
Dr George Myconos, senior researcher, BSL, Research and Policy Centre, Fitzroy
[email protected]
Linda Smart, Senior Project Manager, Children Youth and Families
[email protected]
BSL CVCAL course profile
Location: Frankston High Street Centre
2012 fully accredited Community VCAL
Offering the VCAL with a mixed cohort of 50 ‘intermediate’ (y 11 equivalent),
and ‘senior’ (y 12 equivalent) students.
Academic outcomes in 2011: 10 out of 11 seniors graduated; 12 intermediates
progressed to senior; 1 to work; 1 unemployed.
All enrolled in at least one VET course; 1 has a school based apprenticeship and
5 have a school based traineeship.
Attendance: Approximately 90% with authorized absences; 76% when all
absences are tallied.
Staffing: 2 VIT teachers, Student Well Being Officer, Youth Projects Officer,
Educational Support Officer, Administration Officer and Coordinator.
Student issues
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Low income/living independently
Problems at home
Family responsibilities
Substance abuse
Criminal behaviour
Pregnancy/carer responsibilities
Violence, abuse and trauma
Illness
Predisposing risk factors
Cumulative Cycle of
Disengagement
Bullying, victimisation and alienation
Family conflict
Abuse and/or neglect
Student has an
adverse reaction to
precipitated event,
truancy or exhibits
challenging
behaviour
Negative
perceptions of
school
environment
Trauma
Grief and loss
Substance abuse
Mental health issues
Homelessness
School responds to
symptom of
problem rather
than addressing
the underlying
cause
Disengagement
from any learning
environment
Caring/ parent responsibilities
Criminal involvement
Intergenerational disadvantage and/or
unemployment
Inappropriate
disciplinary
consequences or
inadequate support
School related issues
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Learning difficulties
Bullying
School environment
Poor relations with teachers, other
students and authority
The feeling of school
“you walk in and you have to walk through
these big gates. It’s kind of like walking into a
jail. You walk in and this depression just goes
onto you, you’re just ‘I don’t want to be
here’” (Sue)
Lost at school
“[my] school was a place where anybody can
become nobody” (Eve)
Hostility
“Some of the teachers...were always angry.
But we can’t really learn from them when
they’re constantly angry and I had a teacher
that always talked about how much he hated
teaching, so you can’t really learn from
someone who hates teaching.
... it kind of makes it hard for people to want
to be at school when no one wants to be
there”. (Alex)
Pettiness
“I came home in tears because a teacher yelled
at me and gave me detention because I
needed to go to the toilet – I got a detention
for needing to go to the toilet and I walked out
of the class. I’m not a bad kid, I won’t just
walk out of class for no reason” (Dina)
Fairness
“I just didn’t like the school at all…the teachers
were like made to look better than the students,
like they had different rules to us, like they were
allowed to do certain things that we weren’t
and I thought that was like silly, like earrings
and rings, yeah I just didn’t like how the
teachers treated a lot of the kids” (Caitlin)
Equality
“they didn’t really treat you equally. They
looked down at you. And they would pick at
every single little thing”. (James)
“School is a very depressing place…the whole
like ‘you’re the kids, we’re the adults’
[aspect]”. (Eve)
Approach
Six approaches to underpin this model of
education:
- New beginnings
- Holistic awareness of young person
- Relationship and belonging
- Responding to needs and duality of experience
- Choice ownership and negotiation
- Positive expectations
Feeling at home
“I found out everyone practically had the same
problems I had; they couldn’t cope at school
because of dramas they were having there and
then they got here and it was like it was a
better environment for everyone. Yeah,
everyone just fitted in.” (Angela).
Contrast
“They treat us like young adults here and
at school you’re just bad children”
(Sharon)
Normality
“It’s more like you’re friends with them, but they’re
also your teachers. It’s like you can have a
conversation with them and you can tell them what’s
going on without worrying about what they’re going
to say about it.” (Michael)
“I liked how the teachers were just normal like. We
were treated like just normal people they work
with…I don’t know how to explain it but it’s just a
whole different environment here.” (Sonia)
“
Transformation
It’s a great school compared to normal school. I like
coming here, and actually get up in the morning and I’m
not like “Oh, I’ve got to go to school.” It’s “Oh, I’ve got to
go to school.” Have my cup of coffee and come to
school.” (James)
“Like I've got a different personality. I am not what I used
to be at high school getting in to trouble and mucking
around. I actually do my work. I get it finished…I just feel
like I've got a whole new personality inside me which is
good. I feel like a whole new person.” (Eve)
Initial conceptualisation of student needs
• Literacy and numeracy
skills
• IT skills
• Team work and
communication skills
• Work readiness
(interview skills,
appropriate work wear
and physical
presentation, resumes,
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understanding of
employee rights and
responsibilities)
Self-management skills
Increased motivation
Increased self-efficacy
Links to broader
community and
community services
Student needs
• Positive relationships •
with adults
• Positive experiences in •
the workforce
•
• Understanding of career
transitions and pathway •
options
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• Health awareness and
sexual health education •
Mental Health Care
Plans
Regular GP and dentists
Health Care Cards and
Youth Allowance
Case workers
Drug and alcohol
workers
Family services workers
Pedagogical approaches
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Adult learning environment
Holistic Care - relationships with external services
Team teaching
Open door policy and heightened availability to
students
• Emphasis on teamwork and communication skillbuilding through negotiated activities and projects
• Flexibility in the timetable to nurture and support
individual trajectories
• Creating a safe space to enjoy learning
Initial challenges
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Trust issues/abandonment.
General low self-efficacy and motivation.
Mobile phone use and cyber bullying.
Lack of career pathways and/or interest in career
pathways.
• Overwhelming number of critical wellbeing issues.
• Limited general knowledge or global awareness.
• Hesitance or refusal to work in teams.
Anxiety
“I haven’t been to that [RTO] yet because I was scared
last week…I was just scared to go. Yeah it was really
scary and I was sitting like, should I go? I was that
scared, I made myself sick and I just didn’t
go.”(Victoria)
“The only time you ever get to talk to the teacher is if
you actually go find them and ask them to come and
look at your stuff.” (Nadine)
Literacy
“I could do a book in my two days of working [but] I’m
not - because it’s worded differently, they’re using
bigger words, and it’s like I don’t know what that
word is, and I have to keep going back to the
dictionary...like it’s taking me extra time to do it,
because I’m so confused at it, like it’s the same as
what I’ve done, but it’s just so different. So I’ll read a
sentence and I’ll understand two words in the whole
sentence.” (Monica)
Confidence
“Well, I’ve become more mature since I’ve come here. I
wasn’t very mature when I was at [my school]. I was
more of like muck around, class clown sort of person,
but now, come here, it’s more matured up and like I’ve
come out of this year with like a first aide certificate,
which I probably wouldn’t have got if I was by myself,
and yeah, just basic skills I’ve touched up on and got
better at, so yeah, I’m coming out with everything I
wanted to come out with basically, and I’ll have my Cert
III hopefully by the end of this year. I think it’s actually
four or six weeks left, but yeah”.
An eco-systemic model of youth
engagement in education (CVCAL)
Adverse Life Circumstances
Trauma and negative life events
Poor primary relationships
Poverty
Family and social disadvantage
Reduces primary effects
Primary
effects
Cycle/spirals
of success
Positive Responses of
Educational Systems and
other social institutions
Reduces primary symptoms
Developing
personal, social
and education
capabilities to
build resilience
Reduced conflict
At home/key
relationships
School /work
engagement
Improved employment
options
Participation and
Social Inclusion
Pathways and transition support
“Even other students didn’t understand it. One of
the other ladies, she was 24 or something. She didn’t
understand the work…And then I go up, “Can I have
help...I don’t really understand any of the work.”
[trainer...]‘No, you have to do it yourself.
You should understand
how to do your work.’ (Linda)
Assistance
“Before I came here I was trying to do something and I
actually did the whole test you do in TAFE and I got in, but
then I was too scared to actually go and do TAFE because
of my anxiety. That was quite a while ago so I haven’t
actually been to TAFE. (Julie)
I was doing bricklaying. I didn't really get my Certificate
because I'd wake up at five, no earlier than that, 4.30 of a
morning just to get there [by 8 AM] because it takes like I
don't know, two hours from Frankston train station to
Holmesglen. I was supposed to do that for four months or
something and I couldn't cope. (Joel)
Improving outcomes
RTOS delivering training at High Street Frankston
TAFE to provide a mixed trade ‘taster’ course (teaching
cabinet making, brick laying and carpentry skills)
School Based Apprenticeships and Traineeships, which
provide paid employment and the credits towards the
certificate.
Adjusting staffing duties attention to coordinating VET
and to career guidance and pathway support.
Collaboration with VET
. between schools
Collaborative case management
and training organisations.
Overcoming bureaucratic and cultural obstacles
arising out of absence of ID etc., and students’
unease with the VET settings.
Better information sharing: database management,
record-keeping, protocols and resources that equip
the training organisations to better adjust to high
needs student
Collaboration with VET
A cultural shift throughout the VET sector that leads to a
higher priority for pastoral care.
Trainers and teachers should be up-skilled and
encouraged to be proactive when pastoral care and
welfare issues arise.
Better and more targeted professional development for
those working in CVCAL and for those in VET that enables
collaboration.
More flexible programs (pre vocational learning and
Taster courses) and course design in TAFEs for younger,
high needs, students.
VET and Pedagogical approach
Traumatised young people
Gaps in education
Disengaged
Quality in training
Capacity to provide quality services
Funding
Choice and resources
Shared care.
Responsive to individuals needs
Quality services
Systems responses
• Assumes particular social and relational capacities
– Ie the world is a safe and predictable place
– Works for 80% of learners
• Does not recognise the effects of trauma and
adverse life circumstances on young people
– Triggers for YP  behaviours reactions negative
responses
• Inadvertently Sets up cycles of failure and shame