Reaching out to Doxa cadets

Volume 9 Number 9 September 9 - October 14 2013

 

A small team of Melbourne PhD students has worked with the Doxa Youth Foundation to suggest better ways for them to reach their target audience of disadvantaged youth. By Rebecca Hobden.

The Doxa Youth Foundation has brightened the lives of over 60,000 disadvantaged young people across the state, through education-related programs.

One of these programs is the Doxa Cadetship, which works with high-achieving Year 12 VCE students from 400 of Victoria’s most disadvantaged secondary schools. The cadetship assists them with entrance into university and with pursuing a professional career, through the support of over 50 corporate partners.

Young people involved in the cadetship come from a diverse range of backgrounds and have experienced significant adversity. Circumstances can range from poverty, homelessness, regional isolation, family or personal illness, drug and alcohol affected family members, family breakdown, financial hardship, or being the primary carer for a family member.

Yet all these individuals share the desire to improve their opportunities through university education. Since the program began 20 years ago, around 170 cadets have graduated from the University of Melbourne through the program, and now hold professional roles in national and international corporations.

Doxa’s partner companies often require students with degrees in law, finance, engineering and science, and the University of Melbourne has many respected and highly sought-after courses that suit these needs.

Doxa, which is a small, philanthropic, not-for-profit-organisation, recently teamed up with five Melbourne PhD candidates, as part of the Graduate Certificate in Advanced Learning & Leadership (GCALL).

Their project investigated how Doxa can better define and access their target group and whether they are offering the best practical services to meet the needs of this group.

The interdisciplinary team consisted of: Jaclyn Pearson, a microbiologist; Elizabeth Madden, a podiatrist; Naja McFadden, a horror film specialist; Peter Mee, a geneticist; and Huachun Zou, an epidemiologist. Together they produced a thorough, implementable solution for Doxa, which they will use in delivering their strategic plan into 2015.

The team interviewed a variety of academics and cadetship graduates, concluding that Doxa will need to revisit their definition of ‘disadvantaged’.

“Our research showed that not all eligible students identify themselves with this terminology, thus limiting their spectrum of choice,” Peter Mee says.

While some students simply do not see themselves as ‘disadvantaged’, others were found to be nervous or uncomfortable with identifying themselves as such. 

“Some students from refugee backgrounds may not want to draw attention to their troubled past, hoping for a new start in Australia,” Jaclyn Pearson says. 

“Others’ parents may take offence to the term and won’t let them apply for the cadetship on the basis of pride.”

The team’s research also highlighted that students who may be experiencing difficulties at home see school as a ‘safe zone’, therefore applying for a cadetship through the school is a process that will need to be re-evaluated.

Changing the language and designing a more transparent application process that helps students to identify their ‘disadvantage’ will allow those who are most deserving of cadetships to come through.

Both Doxa and the PhD students have benefited greatly from this collaboration.

“Doxa is a small passionate team, trying to produce the biggest impact with limited resources,” Murray Wilson, Doxa’s Chief Operating Officer says. 

“Rather than stagnate or deliver programs which are slightly off the mark, their research has enabled us to stay as relevant as possible.”

The GCALL’s focus on working with partner organisations allows PhD students to develop a broad array of transferable skills, such as leadership, interdisciplinary problem-solving and teamwork, and to apply the expertise gained during their PhD to an authentic industry context.

www.doxa.org.au/

 

www.gradresearch.unimelb.edu.au/gcall/