Aboriginal Community Strategic Planning & Policy Unit

The main activities of the Community Engagement Team over 2006/07 have been:

• working with the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) to promote participation in the 2006 Census to ensure an accurate count of the local Aboriginal community;

•  undertaking a separate Community Census to examine the accuracy of the ABS count; (we will do some comparison work with the ABS data in the near future) 
  

•  undertaking a community survey about governance, the issues faced, and services used, by the Aboriginal population in Shepparton; and

•  distributing the SPPU newsletter to households and Aboriginal and mainstream organisations.

Members of the Community Engagement Team have also found casual employment:

•   for the State election

•   as a research assistant on a partnership evaluation project for a State Government Department; and

•   on a Social Capital Social Exclusion project with ANU’s Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research

•   found employment as the project officer embedding Aboriginal issues in the local library

•   enrolled in a traineeship in Business Administration;

•   become involved in cultural awareness workshops for medical students at the University of Melbourne;

•   become involved as Shepparton Show Me ambassadors – a local Council initiative that employs casual staff to work at events, festivals and throughout the Central Business District collecting information, promoting Council’s sponsored events and being an ambassador for Shepparton.

The team overwhelmingly report their experience of being involved has been positive.