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Community Development Manager - Flexible location

Community Refugee Sponsorship Initiative
  • Suitable for mid-career professional (at least 5 years prior professional experience)
  • Contract role September 2020 to June 2022*
  • Flexible hours: between 0.6 and 1.0 FTE
  • Location: flexible within Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia or Queensland
  • Remuneration: approximately $80,000 to 85,000 pa (FTE) (negotiable) plus superannuation
  • Industrial Instrument: Social Home Care and Disability Services Award (Job Grade 5)

Your official employer will be the Refugee Council of Australia, but you will work exclusively on the Community Refugee Sponsorship Initiative which has separate staff and its own independent governance structure involving other partner organisations.

About us

Community refugee sponsorship is a practice that enables individuals in local areas to come together and form a sponsor group, which commits to providing financial, emotional and settlement support to refugee newcomers arriving in Australia, typically for a 12 month period. The sponsor group becomes deeply and directly involved in supporting refugees to get set up with the fundamentals in their new communities, apply their skills, realise their goals and ultimately contribute back to their new communities. That means helping refugees with things like meeting refugees at the airport and helping with local orientation, finding and setting up a home, enrolling children in school, opening bank accounts, registering with government services, accessing medical treatment, gaining a driver’s license, learning English, securing qualifications and finding work or starting a business. Sponsorship often evolves into long-lasting friendships, with sponsors providing emotional support as well.

This practice was first developed in Canada where community members have now sponsored and welcomed more than 325,000 refugees since the late 1970s in addition to those entering under the government-funded resettlement program. The practice is now spreading around the world with countries including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, New Zealand and Argentina now all having established community sponsorship schemes or pilot programs.

CRSI is a joint venture formed in April 2018 between a number of civil society organisations bound by a shared vision to expand refugee protection and ‘welcome’ in Australia: Save the Children Australia, Refugee Council of Australia, Amnesty International Australia, Welcoming Australia, Rural Australians for Refugees and the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce. By operating as an independent initiative with a separate governance structure, CRSI is able to work towards its specific goals in ways that are distinct from the activities of its founding members while also leveraging the diverse strengths and networks of its members.

CRSI aims to demonstrate that community refugee sponsorship is a viable and transformative way to harness the resources of ordinary Australians to support successful refugee settlement and ultimately see this form of sponsorship successfully implemented as a common practice in communities around Australia. In doing so, CRSI also aims to ensure ongoing public support for Australia’s humanitarian migration program and compassionate future policies with respect to people fleeing persecution.

About the Community Development Manager

CRSI is currently advocating for a new sponsorship program to be introduced by the federal government and seeks to activate aspects of this program at a community level in the near future. In the meantime, we plan to implement a small ‘Local Community Group Mentorship Program’ which will link community groups with refugees already in Australia who would benefit from local wrap-around support from members of their local community.

The Community Development Manager will be responsible for:

  • Preparing and training community members to become refugee sponsors, including as participants in a preliminary local mentoring program
  • Leading ‘train the trainer’ initiatives, as the lead trainer
  • Promoting community refugee sponsorship in metropolitan and regional communities around Australia
  • Supporting the development of partnerships between sponsor groups, settlement agencies and other community organisations involved in refugee sponsorship
  • Monitoring and supporting sponsor groups/mentor groups as they welcome and assist refugees

Key selection criteria

To be selected for this role, the applicant must meet the following selection criteria:

  • Effectiveness in planning, project management and partnership building
  • Fluency in English and excellent verbal and written communication skills
  • Excellent interpersonal skills
  • Strong organisational skills, ability to prioritise and meet deadlines and high level of computer literacy.
  • Experience delivering training to community volunteers or other diverse audiences
  • Experience establishing and managing successful partnerships in the community sector
  • Ability to work effectively with minimal daily supervision and to work in a collegial team environment spread across a variety of locations
  • Ability to inspire and mobilise individuals to engage in effective, practical action

The following criteria is highly desirable but non-essential:

  • Understanding of refugee issues and the refugee sector and demonstrated capacity to work with people from diverse cultures
  • Experience working in regional Australia
  • Experience working with a migrant settlement agency
  • Relevant tertiary qualification(s) and/or practical experience in a relevant field (eg social work or community development).

Candidates from refugee backgrounds who meet the above criteria are strongly encouraged to apply.

Further details of the role can be found in the attached position description.

How to apply

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