Educating young people is the responsibility of the entire community, not just schools. In order to realise this collective responsibility, there is an increasing focus on Australian schools developing partnerships with business and the broader community.
It is within this context that the Australian Government established the School Business Community Partnership Brokers (Partnership Brokers) program to build partnerships that support young people to reach their full educational and social potential. The program commenced in 2010 and is delivered by a national network of Partnership Broker organisations operating in 107 regions across Australia.
Partnership Brokers are currently supporting over 2000 partnerships involving more than 5000 partner organisations. While these numbers indicate a growing culture of partnering between schools and their communities, the numbers alone don’t tell us much about the impact of the Partnership Brokers program and the benefits these partnerships are delivering.
Within this context, Social Ventures Australia was commissioned to undertake a Social Return on Investment (SROI) analysis of five Partnership Broker regions. SROI is a framework that provides an internationally recognised methodology to measure the social, economic and environmental impact of an organisation or program, such as the Partnership Brokers program. Attached is the summary report – an overview of the evaluation process and key findings.
To download further documents related to this evaluation (the approach, and regional outcomes) visit the Department of Education, Employment & Workplace Relations website
For more information about the Partnership Brokers program visit the Youth Attainment and Transitions website