That’s why BackTrack and Joblink Plus are both excited about a new partnership that will mean a permanent full-time teacher for BackTrack’s participants.

Joblink will fund a literacy and numeracy teacher’s salary for five years – a new position for a new staff member who will start in the new year.

Founder and chief executive Bernie Shakeshaft said this would allow BackTrack’s young people to develop these important skills.

“It means more schoolwork for them – ha ha, I haven’t told them yet,” he said.

“Because we’ve got such a big difference in literacy and numeracy and where each individual’s up to, I suspect the way it’s going to look is more intensive work with similar groups … kids that are more suitably matched where they’re up to.”

Mr Shakeshaft said this would provide a foundation for BackTrack’s approach of “take it from the classroom and put it into a practical setting”.

“When you see the welding teacher go, ‘This is how we use Pythagoras’s theorem to get something square’, and use it, all of a sudden the penny drops.”

Community partnerships manager Emily Roy said Joblink Plus was happy to team up with an organisation with “a proven record … in terms of their commitment to the Armidale community, in particular, but the whole region”.

“What we’re really interested in these days is not necessarily always swooping in and doing something new ... but looking at who’s already there in communities and who’s been doing consistent, really needed work for a while and [thinking] ‘How can we come alongside and do that together?’ she said.

“Collaboration’s the name of the game in community services.”

Ms Roy said the partnership was long-term and sustainable.

“Young people in particular really love to know that the person who’s helping them now is going to be there next week, next month and next year,” she said.

“In communities where often services are being centralised back into cities or services are disappearing altogether, it’s more important than ever that existing, long-term members of communities like Joblink Plus and BackTrack can work together to ensure our regional communities are still getting the services and support that they need.”

Joblink Plus special projects executive Tim Coates said “it’s the synergy of the organisations that works”.

“Across the [Joblink Plus] footprint with the 80 locations, it’s very important to have those sustainable relationships,” he said.

“Whether it’s a women’s refuge in Orange or whether it’s … Armidale with BackTrack, it doesn’t matter – it’s just got to fit with what Joblink does as an organisation and the principles of the organisation.

“More importantly, it’s got to be sustainable – that’s the key to this. 

“If we can’t fund it in a sustainable way, we’re not going to do it. One-off hits are not the solution.”

Mr Shakeshaft agreed.

“We’ve had over 1000 young people through the program … as long as it takes to get that kid through: the cycle of the legal system; often they’re kicked out of education,” he said.

“These are not short-fix problems, but what we model really works.

“We’re mentoring other communities: Condoblin, Lake Cargelligo, Dubbo and, most recently, in Bourke – people are looking for answers, you know?”

Some BackTrack participants travelled from Armidale to Tamworth this morning for a bit of grooming at Joblink’s 2340 Barber Shop.

Mr Shakeshaft said it was also an opportunity for them to see social enterprise in action.

He said this might spark their interest to become involved in a social enterprise in their home city or to devise their own project.