Organisation: City of Wanneroo
Job Title: Diversity Officer – Inclusion
Word Limit: 2 pages
Location: City of Wanneroo
Having worked within the City of Wanneroo now for nearly three years as a Youth Officer/Activities
Officer, I have gained considerable relevant experience in community development activities. In
addition, as the owner of my own dance school, I have worked with other community and
government organisations to run community events, which have served to benefit the community in
this area.
Within my Youth Officer role, I have assisted with the delivery of youth programs, directly working
with and developing the skills of young people within the City of Wanneroo. This involves
encouraging them to be part of the programs we offer, listening and understanding as well as giving
them skills to create a better life for themselves. Equally, as part of my dance school, I partnered with
Ausdance WA and the City of Perth to plan, train for and implement two community events which
encouraged participation. One such event was a flash mob at the Perth Cultural Centre which
involved community members learning the dance, then performing this within a crowd at the centre.
Participants were engaged and pleased with the result, and happy to be given an opportunity to be
involved and to build their confidence for both dancing and in their lives in general.
In addition to community events and dance classes, my dance school also runs school holiday
programs for kids aged 5 to 12. These programs require excellent planning and development skills
and attention to detail in ensuring all compliance paperwork is completed and enforced. Running a
strong school holiday program requires insurances in place, planning with venue vendors for different
days and ensuring working with children and qualification requirements are confirmed with carers. In
addition, we run evaluations of the program each holiday to see where we can improve, taking into
account the children’s and parent’s feedback. This type of program planning has developed my
project planning experience and skill, ensuring a great program is delivered each time.
As a youth worker, I am consistently communicating and working with people from diverse
backgrounds and cultures, with some of them coming from a non-English speaking background. As
someone who has come to Australia from another country, I have an excellent understanding of what
it feels like to be in a new environment, with a new language and new culture. In my role, I educate
youth on sexual health, making them aware of how to protect themselves, give them skillsets to be
better individuals and encourage them to make a go of their new surroundings. I do this in a way
which is sensitive to their backgrounds and by adapting my communication style to suit my audience.
One example of working in this area was my involvement in the Butler Bonanza, held in a low socio-
economic part of the city where particularly African youths are living. The Butler Bonanza was
designed to engage them and expose them to the range of services which were available to them,
but in a fun environment where they could be involved in sporting activities. This was teamed with
information and advice around mental health initiatives, counselling support and where they should
go if they are feeling isolated or struggling in any way. We also ran skating competitions, and music
and dance classes to gain buy in from our target audience.
This event was extremely successful with lots of participants, and served to inform and engage
people successfully. One of my major strengths is the ability to build rapport and engage people,
particularly young people, into participating in helpful programs through high level and intelligent
communication and negotiation skills.
I also use my communication and negotiation skills when working and managing a range of
volunteers in my youth worker role. When we are anticipating a large turnout to our community
centres, or when a staff member is sick and cannot attend, I often successfully coordinate and work
with a range of volunteer staff. I treat volunteers in a similar manner to the paid employees and
appreciate that they volunteer their time to gain a sense of providing services to assist others. The
volunteers often need significant management and direction through communicating clearly and
concisely in which I excel. In addition, I work with other councils in relation to funding and
partnership programs and in booking venues for our events. This sometimes involves great
negotiation skills by thinking through the benefits that the other council will get from being involved
in my initiative.
As well as the analysis involved in evaluations and feedback of my dance school, for both holiday
programs and weekly dance classes, I have also developed excellent problem solving skills within my
youth worker role. My problem solving skills are best demonstrated in my work within the
community centres, when dealing with youths who are fighting or require assistance with their
problems. On one occasion, I had a young person talk to me about the fact that her boyfriend had
broken up with her. Although as an adult, these issues seem minor, to a youth these issues are
important and feel as if their lives are torn apart and their behaviour can be an overreaction. I talked
to this girl, acknowledged her feelings and provided her with advice, ensuring her that she would not
feel like this forever. Giving them a sense of hope is something small, but a very important gift that I
can contribute in such situations. During my tenure within this role, I have worked through problems
for a broad range of youth issues, including providing them with some perspective and skills to use
their own problem solving abilities along the way. During times where fighting breaks out in any of
the centres, I also use my leadership and teamwork skills to ensure all members of the team are safe,
and the youth that are not involved are kept safe. This is achieved by taking control of the situation,
communicating clearly with all people concerned and calming the parties down as required.
In running my successful dance business, I have a range of budgets which need to be regularly
monitored and reconciled. One such budget exists for marketing and advertising. I take it upon
myself to monitor this budget, in addition to thinking of innovative ways that I can deliver the same
quality services, whilst utilising effective marketing strategies and keeping within or below budget.
For every event that I organise, there is a working budget put in place to determine how much staff
are going to cost, in addition to equipment, venue hire, insurances and transport costs. For certain
events, this will determine the entry price for the audience, and often I can attain funding and
sponsorship to contribute to the overall costs of events.
I possess competency in Microsoft Office packages, including Word, Excel and Outlook. The Word
skills I possess enable me to write and send out newsletters and correspondence, as well as event
updates for my business. Utilising Excel, I maintain and update databases and spreadsheets and I
keep all of my enrolment details on an Excel spreadsheet for the dance studio. In addition, I have
strong skills on the council intranet, in Outlook and webmail, and I am able to use these programs
effectively for diary and task management, in addition to sending emails.
Within my youth worker position, I have shown my willingness to work in a range of locations in the
city, including community centres and am more than happy to work in any service unit across the city
should it be required. I have a current national police clearance and possess a C class vehicle licence
as required for this role.
