Community Colleges Australia (CCA) is pleased to announce the winners of the 2016 Community Education Innovation Prize, recognising the leading programs in Australia’s community education sector.
ACE Community Colleges took out the 2016 prize for their program “Licensed and on the Road”, which offers free driving lessons to Aboriginal people in Lismore NSW. The lessons are delivered by qualified Indigenous driving instructors. The program was created in response to the high level of driving offences and road crashes in Aboriginal Communities on the North Coast. In the past year, the program enrolled 324 participants and assisted 78 Aboriginal people to obtain their Provisional P1 licences.
The Port Macquarie Community College was highly commended for their “Integrating Community Mental Health and Adult Community Education Programs”, which provides case assessment and management, social and emotional wellbeing support, pastoral care, and learning and life development pathways for people experiencing mental illness in Port Macquarie, NSW.
Community Colleges Australia was impressed by the high calibre of submissions made to the 2016 award, with eight submissions progressing to the shortlist stage. Judges assessed each entrant on four criteria including innovativeness, community benefit relative to the size of the project, the extent to which the project to provides a model for similar organisations and the communication of the project’s background, goals, activities and outcomes.
The winners were announced at the CCA Conference Gala Awards Dinner, held at “Dockside”, Darling Harbour in Sydney on Wednesday, October 19.
The other six finalists for the Community Education Innovation Prize were from Central Coast Community College (Ourimbah NSW), Coffs Coast Community College (Coffs Harbour NSW), Hornsby Ku-Ring-Gai Community College (Hornsby NSW), Kiama Community College (Kiama NSW), South Coast Careers College (Eurobodalla Adult Education Centre, Bateman’s Bay NSW), and Western Riverina Community College (Griffith NSW).
Community Colleges Australia (CCA) advocates for greater recognition of, and enhanced support for, Australia’s community education sector. CCA’s vision sees Australia’s diverse and dynamic communities achieving their social, economic and cultural aspirations, informed and empowered through learning. As the national “voice” of not-for-profit community education providers, CCA represents the sector’s capabilities and achievements to a range of government portfolios on the benefits achieved by community learning provision.
Jan Levy, ACE Colleges (centre) receiving the award from Nathan Brown, Coverforce (right) with Don Perlgut, Community Colleges Australia.