Video for 'Program team in South-west Sydney supporting students'

Susanna Tieu:

Hi, I'm Ms Tieu, I'm one of the careers advisors here at Bonnyrigg High School.

Fiona McKinnon:

My name is Fiona, I'm one of the SBAT mentors in Southwest Sydney and Bonnyrigg is one of eight high schools that I'm working with.

Susanna Tieu:

My role within the EPPP is to obviously help students find their passion and find a career that they would pursue and love. And essentially I meet with Fiona once a fortnight and give her a list of students that need help finding an employer so that we can get them started in pursuing a school-based apprenticeship or traineeship.

Fiona McKinnon:

So my role then is to come in and meet with those students that Susie's already identified. And then we meet one-on-one and have conversations about how we can reach their goals.

Cynthia:

I'm Cynthia from Bonnyrigg High School and I'm looking into doing certificate three in Early Childhood Education and Care. My top priority has always been to help those who need it.

Fiona McKinnon:

So I first met Cynthia in term three of last year when I started in my role as SBAT mentor, I came out to the school and spoke to students about the SBAT program and those that had expressed interest in an SBAT and Cynthia is one of those students. So then I moved into meeting with her one-on-one every fortnight and we were looking at the kids pursuing their goals and taking a proactive approach to looking into an SBAT.

Cynthia:

So when I first started the school based traineeship, I was looking at childcare and I came back to school witha whole sheet of childcares, but due to COVID, many of them weren't accepting.

Susanna Tieu:

So this year's a new year. We're looking at going back to childcare only because that's actually where her passion lies. And I know that she's going into wanting to come possibly a primary school teacher as well. So if she is able to land in a SBAT in childcare, then that's a really good kickstart for her career. We try to encourage them to look at what they're good at and then do some research on businesses around the local area that they're interested in working for, approach them, see if they could do some work experience and we can start the conversation there. If they happen to have them on work experience, then I give them paperwork and liaise with Fiona in regards to connecting with the apprenticeship networks and the student and the employer.

Fiona McKinnon:

For me, when I'm out in community, one of my roles is to promote the SBAT program amongst all stakeholders. The students, your parents, and community and business. So one of my roles is to go out and look for employers willing to look at an SBAT and send them information about it. There's still a lot of people that don't know about the program. So we're trying to engage them and just let more people know about it.

Susanna Tieu:

If you don't know what you want to do, I would suggest go out on work experience. Go out on multiple work experiences until you find something you are good at and you love and that is when you know, you're not going to work a day inyour life

End of transcript.