Community Mentoring – Building Community Capacity

McGowan LF¹*

1. Launceston City Council/Dept of Education, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia

Co-Pilots is a community mentoring program developed out of a partnership agreement between the Launceston City Council and the Department of Education, Esk District. It aims to develop skills, confidence and pathways to learning and work in students at-risk of disengaging or underachieving in mainstream education.

The program is entering into its fifth year of operation in 2005 with fifteen schools and agencies adopting the program throughout the state. The continued expansion of the program is clearly related to the benefits and real impact that the program is having for young people and the general community.

Co-Pilots is;

• Providing options for catering to the learning needs of a greater proportion of students
• Creating the development of networks for lifelong learning by interagency co-ordination and partnerships between education department, local council, universities and local businesses
• Helping create ‘the village to raise the child’, encouraging social responsibility
• Providing opportunities for authentic learning and achievement, developing connectedness in the community and developing resilience
• Addressing the cause not just the symptoms of social disconnection by developing skills in the community that are being taught to others

The impact of the program in our community has been recognised in 2004 by receiving the Community Development Category Award and the Gold Award for the State at the Local Government Awards Tasmania in May and the Youth Engagement Category Award at the National Local Government Awards in November.

Click here to view the full paper