About us

drummond street’s (ds) youth services (the drum) is contracted by the City of Melbourne (CoM) to deliver youth services across the CoM municipality. As our youth service footprint includes Carlton, North Melbourne, Kensington and the CBD. We also deliver youth services in Richmond and Collingwood 

We are dynamic team, delivering an innovative co-design model in a youth services context. Our model centres young people in the production, delivery and evaluation of our programs. Our value and programs reflect a passion and commitment to achieving social change for young people and the communities they identifying as belonging to.

ds is committed to ensuring our workforce reflects the communities we work within. We strongly encourage people from the following background/s to apply:

• First Nations people
• Identifying as LGBTQI+
• People of colour (e.g. identifying as cultural, religious and/or ethnically diverse)
• Speaks one or more community languages
• Is or has been a public housing resident 

What you will bring:

• Qualifications in youth work, social work or community development
• A demonstrated commitment to Child Safe Standards
• A passionate for and experience in collaborating with young people experiencing complex disadvantage including racism, sexism, Islamophobia transphobia and homophobia
• A commitment to centring young people’s knowledge and voices through co-design
• A demonstrated history of delivering assertive engagement programs for children and young people
• Vision and energy to plan, promote, delivery & evaluation of youth programs

ds is committed to Child Safety. All short-listed candidates are subject to child safety screening and assessment against the Child Safety Standards as part of our recruitment process. This includes having a valid Working with Children Card (WWCC) and completing a criminal history check. 

About the vacancy

The Youth Development Practitioner position (1 EFT/full time) role is responsible for using co-design to plan, promote, deliver and evaluate assertive engagement activities. We are seeking professionals who are passionate about young people and engagement activities and have a proven track record of delivering youth programs. The role involves:

• The co-design, delivery and evaluation of engagement programs across inner city public housing estates for young people online (because of the pandemic) and face to face as restrictions change
• Collaborating with young people to design and deliver online content and events with FreeZa and Engage funding
• Supervising and supporting youth peer leaders and/or students
• Working with Carlton Primary School to co-design, deliver and evaluate after school activities
• Ensuring young people have a voice in their community and within local government
• Building relationships in programs with the intention of connecting participants with support when needed
• Supervised by the Coordinator of COM Estate programs you will reports for our funders and the ds executive 

Other information about the workplace and roles:

• All positions with the drum youth service require evening work and occasional weekend work
• Currently, working remotely but ordinarily we are based in inner-city Melbourne, including inner city public housing estates including Carlton, North Melbourne and Kensington as well as sites with Melbourne CBD, and collaborating to support our work in Collingwood & Richmond
• These are contract positions until 30.06.2020 with the possibly of extension subject to funding
• ds is committed to ongoing professional development of staff
• ds offers an attractive remuneration package, negotiable based on your experience
• We can provide salary packaging opportunities up to $16,050 to significantly increase your take-home pay!

To discuss this role confidentially, please contact Dalilah Thalib, the Coordinator of COM Youth Services on the Estates @ [email protected] or 0429 537 682 or Chantelle Higgs, General Manager of the Youth and Community Team @ [email protected] or 0488 559 007.

Key selection criteria

All section criteria must be addressed for your application to be considered. Please address the selection criteria in your cover letter. Please limit the cover letter to three pages (at a maximum).

1. Our team’s values are Social Justice, Decolonisation, Accountability, Critical Practice, Compassion & Respect. Pick one value and discuss its why its important to your youth and community work practices
2. Outline your Youth Work, Social Work, Community Development or other relevant work experience or qualifications. Discuss how you use these in your work with young people
3. Discuss your understanding of Child Safe Standards and how you apply this when running programs for children and young people
4. Discuss your history of supervisor or supporting First Nations young people, young people of colour and/or public housing residents to design and deliver events or activities  
5. Provide examples of programs/activities for young people of color you have designed, delivered, promoted and evaluated.
6. Discuss what responsibilities are involved in running programs and activities for children and young people. Outline your methods for doing this.
7. How do you identify young people needing support and how do you respond to their needs?
8. Discuss your history of building partnerships and stakeholder resources to increase resources available to young people.
9. Provide examples illustrating strong written and oral communication skills (e.g. reports and/or presentations)
10. Has a Victorian driver’s license 

Highly desirable

1. You identify as belonging to one/ more of the community’s ds assertively engages
2. Speaks more than one community language

Further information

Further information about the youth services team and our work can be found here http://thedrum.ds.org.au/. To learn more about the wider drummond street please view our website here.