Sean - Operations Manager, Macleay Options
My name’s Sean Carson and I'm the operations manager at Macleay Options. We've been around for 60 years and a lot of our staff have been around for almost just as long. So we've seen that was an issue with guys moving on out of here and we had to do something about it.
Sam - Senior Project Officer, Regional Industry Education Partnerships
Macleay Options is a great employer. They employ people with additional needs into supported employment. When I first met with Sean and the crew at Macleay Options, they had identified that they really wanted to forge some strong partnerships with the schools to get a pipeline of students coming into their workplace.
Leanne, Head Teacher Support, Melville High School
Previously we had to go and find our own work experience for students, which was always quite difficult. So a lot of the kids did miss out. We’re now connecting with the RIEP program, it's forging those connections between the school and the workforce and giving our students the opportunity to do those things that we haven't been able to previously provide for them.
Sam
What we identified with Macleay Options was that it was really important for the schools to have a look and I guess get a really good visual about what was available for their students. So we initially did the careers advisors and the learning support staff tour. From there we extended that to students and parents and then any students that were interested then participated in work experience.
David - Year 10 student, Melville High School
The thing that made me excited was probably the vast variety of stuff and I ended up choosing to do woodworks over the other things. Sean is a really nice person. He taught me how to use the drill properly.
Sean
Yeah, working with Sam has been really great. I think it'll be a long standing relationship with her and Macleay Options. Just already what we've got out of it. It's connected us with so many more students that will become potential staff and the relationships that we build with them from starting it from year ten in school to when they're at retirement age it’ll be a long standing relationship that we just keep growing and growing and growing.
Contact
Get in touch with the RIEP program today. Contact riep@det.nsw.edu.au.