Legal Services Board funds Aboriginal employment program
Work removing barriers to employment for Aboriginal people will be extended thanks to a new grant from the Victorian Legal Services Board.
Building on the success of work done through the existing partnership with RMIT, the CIJ and Woor-Dungin, we are now embarking on a new phase of our Aboriginal Ex-Offender Employment Program, thanks to a grant from Victoria’s Legal Services Board. The project, “Reducing barriers to employment for Aboriginal people: rethinking the role of criminal record checks”, will ramp up our work tackling discrimination around old and irrelevant criminal history for Aboriginal job seekers.
This will include providing information and training to Aboriginal job-seekers and employers about the requirements of criminal record checking, to reduce discrimination and facilitate access to employment. We will also continue our research identifying and promoting best practice among employers who have been hiring people with a criminal record. Ultimately, we plan to establish a virtual employment ‘hub’ to link Aboriginal people with a criminal record to organisations that can support them to become job ready and prospective employers with Aboriginal employment providers.
The CIJ’s Associate Director Stan Winford, and Professor Bronwyn Naylor and Associate Professor Georgina Heydon from RMIT’s Graduate School of Business and Law continue to be involved with this work, along with members of the Woor-Dungin team.
