By Casey Neill
Operation Newstart Group has celebrated its 50th intake of students who struggle in everyday schooling.
The Martin Culkin Theatre at Dandenong High School hosted the event on Friday 24 March.
Operation Newstart South Eastern youth worker Caroline Wagner said a police officer founded the program with the Department of Education and Training in Frankston in 1998.
The South-East arm started in term one of 2004, and has since worked with 381 students deemed to be “at significant educational risk”.
They’re aged 14 to 16 and have failed to attend school regularly over a significant period of time, are at risk of school expulsion, or are at risk of not successfully completing high school.
Eight students enter the program and work with a teacher, a youth worker and different facilitators in a variety of outdoor adventure activities and indoor reflective workshops.
Over eight weeks, students attend Operation Newstart Wednesday to Friday and their school on Monday and Tuesday.
The program focuses on the young person’s relationship with self, family, school, broader systems and the community.
Students complete a follow-up 12 months after completing the program.
Up to 90 per cent of the students have successfully graduated from the program, gone back to school and turned things around.
Operation Newstart South Eastern has 17 feeder schools in the Greater City of Dandenong.
It’s a partnership between the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD), Southern Metropolitan Region, Cleeland Campus of Dandenong High School, The Department of Human Services (DHS), The South East Local Learning and Employment Network (SELLEN) and headspace Dandenong.
