South East Community Links practitioners and local settlement service providers recognised a consistent lack of awareness and engagement with public transport, particularly within the City of Casey, for newly arrived communities with English as an additional language. This has been an issue for some time.
Access to transport is one of the key drivers to achieving social and economic inclusion, further improving life satisfaction and financial independence. Transport difficulties are consistently identified as a factor that restricts Australian families’ capacity to access services and participate in activities (Carbone, Fraser, Ramburuth, & Nelms 2004; Cortis, Katz, & Patulny, 2009).
With encouragement from our local community, SECL decided to trial a public transport training model to test the effectiveness of providing in-language resources and support to existing and newly arrived women living in the City of Casey.