Skilling First Nations employees to enter workforce

Australian Training Works Group Pty Ltd (ATW) is providing training and employment opportunities for hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, many in remote locations, while supporting skill-gaps in Queensland businesses.

Its action in skilling up young and long-term unemployed job seekers, giving them a career path and enabling them to help Queensland businesses prosper, delivers the Queensland Government’s procurement approach of ‘Putting Queenslanders first’.

General Manager, Daijah Martens said ATW is a 100 percent Indigenous owned and managed Group Training Organisation in Queensland. It has offices in Cairns, and Brisbane.

Our trainees and apprentices work for host employers, while an RTO partnership facilitates accredited training.

ATW provides a culturally appropriate ‘wrap around support model’ to aid with completion of training and retention, including an outreach service and working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander support agencies.

“A young person is supported all the way through their apprenticeship,” Daijah said.

ATW has placed over 400 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander trainees and apprentices into different occupations, including within Queensland Government departments, tier 1 companies, and in geographically remote areas.

To help employers, ATW has expanded into a full-scope employment services company since establishment in 2016, providing labour hire, workforce planning for major projects and delivering non-accredited training such as pre-employment training programs to prepare job seekers for work.

“We’ve got job seekers on one side and employers on the other, and we do all of the background work to make sure that when we connect them, we get good outcomes in terms of retention”, Daijah said.

“The labour-hire is a great vehicle for re-engaging long-term unemployed people, particularly mature-aged people, in jobs.”

ATW’s success includes facilitating three pre-employment and pre-apprenticeship programs for First Nations job seekers who gained a Certificate 1 in Construction; mentoring 64 First Nations trainees for the Department of Housing. ATW is working closely with the Department to create further opportunities for traineeships and apprenticeships across Queensland.

Partnering with the Department of Youth Justice, Employment, Small Business and Training, ATW was instrumental in having a Certificate II in Indigenous Housing Repairs and Maintenance traineeship declared effective from July 2023. ATW is working with the Department of Housing to create traineeships in community in partnership with remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander councils.

ATW has been working in collaboration with the Department of Housing finding host employers for displaced Wujal Wujal community members who were relocated to Cairns after the flood and traineeships with Council for community members returning to Wujal aiding the filling of employment gaps in community and building community capacity.

Apprentices, trainees and direct recruits have worked for both principal and sub-contractors on the Kidston Pumped Storage Hydro Project, while ATW is the preferred supplier for Indigenous employment as part of Genex Power’s Indigenous Engagement Strategy for the project.

ATW is also creating a training facility for First Nations peoples in Cairns to transition participants to real jobs in construction, renewable energy and Indigenous councils in remote Far North Queensland.

ATW is an exemplar of the Buy Queensland approach and putting Queenslanders first by providing local benefits through the creation of a pipeline of apprentices, trainees and other employees who are critically needed to address the gap in Indigenous employment and to deploy to projects creating positive local impact.

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