The Swan Friendship Club is an organisation that aims to provide recreational activities, meaningful employment, training and life skills programs to people with disabilities in community settings, while offering them an opportunity to belong to a club, make friends and learn lifelong skills that will assist them to reach their full potential.
Some 14 years ago a young lady after observing her siblings with friends having fun, asked her mother “Where are my Friends” This was the starting point…
In the year 2000 after talking to other parents with students with Special needs and observing the lack of opportunity for interaction and friendship for young people with disabilities, the Swan Friendship Club was born.
The club organised various workshops allowing young adults still attending high school to experience various activities including cooking, crafts, sport, Drama, dance and music. The programs operated mostly in the City of Swan and Bassendean in Church halls. Fundraised was undertaken by holding sausage sizzles and monthly dances. With parental support the club commenced a weekly program offering friendship and games in a church hall. Swan Friendship Club became incorporated a year later in 2001, in compliance with the Associations rules and regulations.
When the formal years of high School concluded it was time for participants to take up work or post school options.
It soon became evident that life skills learning was required to assist these young adults to reach their full potential, helping them to strive for an independent meaningful life.
The Club applied and received a grant from the City of Swan to commence a weekly life skills program in the Ascension Church Hall in Midland. With 10 participants, a paid social support worker and volunteers, the Club commenced a craft and cooking skills program. This program was very successful allowing the team to assist with the Meals on Wheels at the Midland Senior Citizens centre.
An opportunity was made available in 2006 when the owner of Centrepoint Shopping Centre offered a shopfront location in Centrepoint Shopping Centre, rent free for the Swan Friendship Club to set up the Friendship Café to teach hospitality skills as well as breaking down barriers for young adults with special needs through social integration.
Funding from the Department of Education and Training allowed Swan Friendship Club to partner Midland Tafe to offer participants a modified formal training course and complete work experience within the café environment.
The Café’s point of difference is it provides home style cooking on the premises, marketed and sold through the café and catering service. The aim is to grow the Café/Catering service, this will enable the Café to train and employ a larger number of people with disabilities. The partnerships that are developed along the way will enable participants to develop employability skills with the aim of working within the hospitality industries.
These services will target those people with disabilities still at school or who have left school and those finding it difficult to maintain employment or who are wishing to undertake work readiness skills that are activity linked to employment in the hospitality field.
It is anticipated that:-
- There will be a model of service delivery that provides a transition to work program through the Friendship Café and Catering Service.
- The service will be embedded within the community.
- Existing partnerships and development of new supports for the project will be in place.
The greatest change in these individuals has been where they have worked in the Friendship Café and seen the results of their cooking effort sold in the café or used for catering purposes. It has become evident over the past 7 years, how the positive attitude of the general public to accept the café’s vision and the support of people with disabilities in the work place.
The social enterprise known as The Friendship Café and Catering Service aims to:-
“Operate as a financially viable social enterprise, to provide sustainable pathways to work for people with disabilities. It will do this by providing work experience, training and transition to work to achieve economic and social inclusion in the community.
It will achieve this goal by:-
- building partnerships and alliances that support , transition to work employment and vocational training
- maintaining the Friendship Café and Catering Service as the public face that demonstrates the inclusion of people with disabilities through work and training opportunities.
- continue to partner with Cyril Jackson Senior Campus Education Support Centre (a Registered Training Organisation) to provide accessible training in hospitality skills that builds successful learning and competent trainees.
- enhancing the public awareness of the capacity of people with disabilities to be a contributor rather than a recipient of services.
The Café's and Catering Services’ work readiness program will increase as the numbers of people with disabilities that find work and are included in mainstream activities within the community. This will enhance the capacity of young people with disabilities to have a positive public profile and seen as contributors rather than recipients of services, as well as assisting the wider community to better understand the impact of disability.
This is what makes the Swan Friendship Club “A place of belonging, to develop friendships and learn lifelong skills to reach full potential”
