Employment Services
We’re generating evidence to help transform employment services so they better support people facing the greatest barriers to work.
Our employment services program is a multi-year research initiative funded by the Paul Ramsay Foundation (PRF).
The first phase sought to understand why Australia’s employment services system often struggles to support people with complex needs. Working alongside more than 70 stakeholders, practitioners and people with lived experience, we identified opportunities to re-design the system and developed practical, evidence-informed solutions.
One of these solutions became the Building Agency and Trust (BAT) pilot, a person-centred case management model designed to strengthen trust, increase agency and improve employment outcomes.
The second phase moved from design to implementation, testing the BAT model in real-world employment services to understand both its impact and what it takes to unlock person-centred practice in employment services.
Phase one – Reimagining Employment Services (2023)
In 2023, we completed a mixed-methods research project that focused on understanding the challenges facing Australia’s employment services system and co-designing practical solutions for reform.
Watch the webinar recording (March 2024) discussing our findings from the first project or click to view our detailed reports of each phase:
2) Explore
3) Solution prototypes and implementation plans.
Phase two – Building Agency and Trust pilot (2024-26)
We tested over six-months a person-centred case management model through a cluster randomised controlled trial to understand whether it improves outcomes for job seekers and how it can be implemented within existing services.
Why this work matters
Together, these projects provide a comprehensive evidence base for person-centred employment services.
Rather than stopping at identifying problems, this program demonstrates how promising ideas can be translated into practical service models and evaluated, providing policymakers, providers and practitioners with implementation guidance to support future reform.
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