Five young people with a disability are taking part in new pre-employment training program called Skills2Work – the first program of its kind in Victoria.

The program has been developed by WISE Employment, a not-for-profit organisation that has over 22 years experience providing employment services to members of some of our most marginalised communities.

It is a six month program that takes participants through a series of general vocational and lifestyle modules including retail, hospitality, business and warehousing.

What is different about the program is that is combines training in the classroom with real experience in real workplaces.

Skills2Work participant, Mark Gullery, is 21 years old and has a learning disability.

Mark admits that at times it has been difficult to look for a job.

He has had three jobs that “didn’t work out” because he believes he needed more experience.

Mark has just started the retail module of the program and is learning about teamwork, communication, time management and retail management.

Mark has an interest in landscape gardening and is hoping to do his work experience at a gardening centre.

WISE Learning and Development Services’ training consultant, Paige Launikonis, believes the program is different because it gives young people with a disability the chance to trial different types of jobs over the course of the program.

“Often many young people don’t know what they would like to do, so this program helps expose them to a lot of different options – there’s no pressure to take a job,” she said.

“Many of our participants may have been unsuccessful in finding or maintaining employment in the past.”

“Skills2Work helps them to develop real skills in a real workplace.” Mark says Skills2Work appealed to him because he got to get out of the classroom and have “a go” at the job in a real work environment, maybe even find a job at the end of program.

“I’ve done training in the classroom before but with this you get to go into workplaces as well,” Mark said.