Annexe Education and Outreach Programs

Background

In 1997 and 1998, the Christian Brothers began working with Community Youth Justice organisations to support vulnerable young people in Cherbourg.

In 1999 a new Co-ordinator, who came from the Cherbourg Community, was appointed to Cherbourg/Murgon Youth and Community Combined Action (YACCA). From 1999 and 2000, two Christian Brothers working with Cherbourg/Murgon YACCA began a series of education related programs focussing on literacy, numeracy and personal development, for secondary school students who for one reason or another were not attending school. These operated from 1999 to 2001 and included the Boys’ Outreach, Girls’ Outreach, Re-schooling, and Future Options programs.

In 2002, because of a strategic goal to establish a more formal education link for the young people, YACCA and the Christian Brothers formed a partnership with Murgon State High School to establish the Annexe Education Program at the YACCA premises in Stephens Street, Murgon. Financial support for staff and resources came from Murgon State High School, the then Department of Education, Science and Training’s Pilot for Partnership Outreach Education Model, the Christian Brothers, and YACCA. This continued until the end of 2007.

In a 2006 review of the program, a group of 25 young people in the community was identified as not being picked up by any agency in terms of schooling, work, training or support. These young people were not only disengaged from education but were also at-risk because of:

• disconnection from their family and community
• mental health issues, or
• involvement in risk-taking behaviours such as substance abuse or crime.

They were considered to be the most at-risk young people from this community.

In 2007, at a meeting of the peak groups concerned with this specific group of 25 young people and with the other groups of young people already accessing education through the Annexe Program and other agency programs, Education Queensland made a commitment to supporting the Alternative Education Program at the Annexe.  Education Queensland provided two teachers and a significant amount of teacher-aide time along with the operating resources to support the program.

Education Queensland is now providing in 2008, two teachers and three part-time teacher-aides from Murgon State High School to run the Annexe Program as part of the Education and Training Reform agenda to have all young people in school, work or training.

The Christian Brothers who previously worked in the education program have, from the invitation of the Cherbourg community, changed their focus to supporting and developing the group of 25 who had been identified at high risk in the review. The Outreach Program is planned to be a non-school program, both metaphorically and literally. It is focussed on supporting young people to engage in education and training, as well as pre-employment activities and courses. It will utilise flexible non-school engagement strategies to provide support to each of these young people to access services which may assist them to re-engage in a positive way with their families and community and other services such as health and counselling.

As the Christian Brothers are not Indigenous, they honour the request of the Cherbourg community to work in collaboration with Indigenous co-workers so that all can see and know that the very vulnerable young people are being treated with respect and worked with safely. The need for Indigenous co-workers to engage with the young people at any time, whenever or wherever that might be, is integral to establishing a connection and being able to influence the young people to take advantage of services that are planned to be available.

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