Panyappi Indigenous Youth Mentoring Program Evaluation

Panyappi Indigenous Youth Mentoring Program Evaluation
impact on families – understanding and influencing young people’s everyday environments.
Indigenous youth mentoring programs would be well advised to adopt and promote a
family-inclusive approach, arguing for it in any funding application and ensuring they
were resourced sufficiently to be family-inclusive.
Leadership opportunities
Recommendation 5
Panyappi has developed two levels of mentoring, a primary focus on young people and a
secondary focus on the mentors. This has highlighted the importance of supporting new
Indigenous workers to develop the confidence and skills to continue with a career in
human services. This may involve formal and informal study, gaining experience in several
human service areas, learning advocacy skills and applying for more senior positions. The
mentors currently with Panyappi indicated a desire to contribute to their communities in
this way. It is an example of younger people, the mentors, being supported by more
senior community members in starting to develop the skills to become leaders for their
communities. In turn, the mentors provide a role model to their clients of what could
take place in their future, which brings them back to cultural identity and commitments
and away from destructive behaviour. Although recruitment of Indigenous workers was a
deliberate program strategy, the development of leadership skills was not planned and is
an unexpected but welcome outcome.
Building and sustaining Aboriginal employment and leadership in human services is
important for at least three reasons. The Department of Human Services has
acknowledged that they have insufficient Aboriginal workers and need to recruit them.
Aboriginal workers do not always stay in their positions due to a lack of support and
cultural understanding in workplaces, especially if they are isolated workers or small
teams in mainstream organisations. Those people who are current workers tend to be
older, especially those in senior positions, and have been involved for a long period of
time. This results in a gap in the 20-40 year age group, a time when foundations are
created for people to move into leadership and advocacy positions within the human
services and the community.
Recommendation 7
Establishing a new program
Similar to the experience of many Australian mentoring programs, and as a very new
initiative for youth-focused Indigenous services in South Australia, it took some time to
establish credibility, build needed partnerships, gain cooperation from key stakeholders,
and consolidate a stable and appropriately skilled staff base. 73 The time and energy
required to do this was recognised by all stakeholders. Once that occurred and Panyappi
achieved a stable position, it was able to move forward as a program.
73 ibid, p.66.
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Recommendation 8