• Team: North Queensland Team
• Location: Cairns
• Salary: Level 4 ($85,120 to $91,586) Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award. Salary sacrificing available.
• Reports to: Team Leader North Queensland Team
• Contract: Fixed-Term until 04 July 2025 Parental Leave cover. Part time 3 days per week (subject to probation)

Our Vision

Healing the past, nurturing the future.

Our vision is for refugee survivors of persecution to live lives liberated from the harms of torture, trauma and human rights injustice. We exist to nurture meaningful futures by assisting refugee survivors to heal, belong and thrive in our community.

Our Values

Kindness

We care.

In all our work, survivors of torture and trauma come first.

Optimism

We believe in meaningful futures.

We are committed to healing being a journey of growth across mind, body and spirit.

Perseverance

We don’t give up.

We understand that healing requires time, patience and courage for individuals, families and communities.

Justice

We believe that to heal and belong are human rights.

We collaborate to build opportunities so that survivors of torture and trauma can belong and thrive in our community.

Role Purpose

The primary purpose of this role is to support young people from refugee backgrounds to heal, belong and thrive in a fair Australian community.

The QPASTT Youth Strategy has six strategic outcomes that will guide this role:

1. Young people are healthy.
2. Young people are safe.
3. Young people belong to family, community, place and culture.
4. Young people are empowered and have a strong sense of identity.
5. Young people are valued.
6. Young people live in a just society where they have equity of opportunity.

The purpose of this role is to innovate to support young people to achieve their individual and collective goals in the context of these strategic objectives.

Character

We are looking for an experienced youth worker who is passionate about promoting wellbeing for young people from refugee backgrounds.

You will have the ability to:

• quickly build rapport to engage young people;
• have an understanding of the strengths they possess and the challenges they face;
• work alongside young people to support them to thrive in their communities and within the wider Australian community.

You will be compassionate, patient and courageous in managing a range of vulnerabilities experienced by young people, their families and communities, and advocate to change systems to ensure all thrive and belong.

We believe in a culture of respect. We are looking for someone who is comfortable working with young people from diverse cultural, religious, gender and sexuality backgrounds.

Responsibilities

1. Develop and maintain positive and authentic relationships with young people from refugee backgrounds and their families in both school and community settings.
2. Support young people from refugee backgrounds through one-on-one support. This will include completing a needs and aspirations assessment, implementing support to achieve identified needs and aspirations, linking and referring to other agencies when appropriate, identifying and managing risks (including risk of self-harm and suicide ideation).
3. Advocate for young people within internal and external systems.
4. Co-develop and facilitate group work and events.
5. Provide psychoeducation to enable young people and their families to understand and engage recovery focused support.
6. Create innovative responses to the needs of young people through the development and facilitation of group work and events, implementing co-creation practices and frameworks.
7. Work with the team and individually to develop and implement a range of activities and programs run by QPASTT or in partnership with other agencies, supporting cross-team collaborations and creating written documentation and promotional materials.
8. Ensure quality service delivery including accountability with contractual and organisational requirements. This includes the writing of case notes and documentation detailing development and implementation of interventions delivered.
9. Build and foster collaborative partnerships with other agencies and stakeholders, including family members, community leaders and other organisations.
10. Abide by the vision and values of QPASTT, including our Code of Conduct as well as the policies and procedures of the organisation.
11. Support research and evaluation initiatives of the organisation.

Requirements

We especially encourage young people from refugee backgrounds with relevant experience to apply.

1. Degree level qualifications in Social Work, Human Services, Youth Work, Community Work, Education, Psychology, Occupational Therapy or related area of expertise.
2. Demonstrated experience working with young people, particularly from a refugee background, and delivering culturally safe support.
3. Capacity to understand and work with marginalised young people, or those who are at risk of being marginalised, creating innovative responses.
4. Ability to respond to varying needs of young people, and their families, in both a school and community setting and be responsive to needs in creating and/or implementing interventions.
5. A commitment to utilising recovery frameworks and implementing the QPASTT Youth Strategy, applying the core values of healing, belonging, thriving and justice.
6. Experience in, and ability to, work in partnership with young people and service providers to develop innovative strategies for intervention and support such as group work and events.
7. Desirable – event and project management skills.
8. Desirable - stakeholder engagement to create multifaceted programs and referral pathways.

Conditions of Employment

1. Current Positive Notice Blue Card and provision of an annual federal police check.
2. Current Queensland C Class driver’s licence.
3. Occasional out of hours work. Occasional travel to other QPASTT offices.
4. The period of probation will be six months.

Should you wish to speak with someone about this role, please contact Tanya Van Bael, Senior Leader on [email protected] using the subject line: Youth Worker - Cairns enquiry via EthicalJobs or 07 3391 6677.

A position description is attached.