Amanda Jakiel (right) in the Royal Women’s Hospital Women’s Health Information Centre with Maureen Johnson and daughter Mabel, 11 months.
	Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency Extended Care Program Coordinator Joanne Borg with extended care worker Helen Archibald.

Other students to complete their studies in 2000 were Yvonne Anderson, Melanie Atkinson, Nicole Cassar, Jean Pearce, Judith Gadd, and Tina Takagaki.

Ms Borg is now Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency (VACCA) Extended Care Program Coordinator after finishing her Diploma of Community Services (Welfare Studies) at Northern Metropolitan Institute of TAFE.

And Nurse Jakiel is taking part in the Royal Women’s Hospital Graduate Nurse Program, which sees her working this year in the hospital’s Women’s Health Information Centre, a gynaecology ward and the reproductive biology unit.

Nurse Jakiel studied for her Bachelor of Nursing degree at Australian Catholic University’s Aquinas Campus in Ballarat.

Both Ms Borg and Nurse Jakiel have praised the scholarship scheme.

‘There is no way I would have been able to study without the scholarship,’ said Ms Borg, who began work at VACCA five years ago as the statewide permanent care worker.

VACCA is a Statewide agency which provides culturally-appropriate, quality services to Aboriginal children, their families and their communities.

‘Study was an avenue in which I could help my Aboriginal community and develop a theoretical framework for my work.

‘With the support of my agency I can now incorporate my skills and the theory.’

Nurse Jakiel hopes to specialise in midwifery after her year developing her clinical skills.

The students were the first intake—in January 1999—under the Indigenous Training and Recruitment Initiatives Program (INTRAIN) scheme.

The INTRAIN scheme is a key element of the Koorie Services Improvement Strategy (KSIS), launched in 1998.

The KSIS strategy seeks to develop a range of initiatives—to complement existing Departmental and public service programs and strategies—aimed at improving employment opportunities and careers for Aboriginal people.

INTRAIN scholarships provide Aboriginal Victorians with financial support and work placements in key areas relevant to the programs of the Department.

Priority areas for 1999 and 2000 scholarship categories were health and related fields, medicine, nursing, social work, community development and management, public policy and policy administration.

One of the six 2001 scholarships—awarded to Marlene Burchill, Julie Hodgkin, Misty-Rayna Jenkins, Diane Singh, Kim Warde and Susan Williams—is funded as part of the Department’s Juvenile Justice New Initiatives.

It seeks to attract Aboriginal young people to careers in Juvenile Justice, both within the Department and within Aboriginal community organisations.

Aboriginal workers are important to Juvenile Justice’s focus on developing culturally-relevant responses to Aboriginal young people in custodial and community-based programs.