New Perceptions, Renewed Orientation and Positive Valuing: The Power in Children's Learning about How Ideas Connect

Abstract

Understanding and promoting engagement in work transition for disaffected youth is critical in growing national and regional wellbeing and economic strength. Findings from a recent national project exploring outcomes from BoysTown's social enterprise programs notably include its successful placement and retention in jobs for large numbers of young Australians previously seen as socially-disconnected youth. Significantly, its data indicate shifts that enable predictive modelling of youths most likely to succeed in such interventions, and indicate important gains in wellbeing and social behaviour that are associated with their improved work skills, readiness and participation. In this paper we examine changes in youths' decision-making during their engagement in the social enterprises and theorise the importance of such changes in initiating the larger move for these youth from disaffection to social-reconnection.