Social Work, Op-Shops, and Job Training: Becoming Work-Ready in a Different Way

Introduction

Developed by a social worker, the Holland Foundation Op-Shop operates the STEP program, offering participants broad-based training in retail, office administration, job search/resume writing/interview skills; embedded in a strength-based community development approach. All dimensions of the running of the shop are integrated in the training program and participants are guided along all the steps involved in successfully running a business. Referred to as volunteers, they are involved in every aspect of keeping the Op-Shop open and flourishing; learning is experiential and based on a peer-to-peer/skill-share STEP training approach, while the social work educated Director and volunteer mentors provide oversight and guidance.

The genesis of this chapter is reflected in the way it has been visually structured for this publication; on the one hand, it draws from the reflections by Grant Holland, founder and Executive Officer of the Holland Foundation Op-Shop, as elicited in an extended interview by the editors of this chapter and on the other hand, from the independent evaluation carried out in 2017 by the Borderlands Cooperative (Shuttleworth & Boulet, 2017, p. 13) In order to illustrate the convergence and dialogue between Grant’s motivation towards and recontextualizing of alternative ways of practicing social work, and the story of the workings of the Op Shop, his reflections have been kept separate from the more descriptive and evaluative sections dealing with the work of the Op Shop itself.

This structure also assists in appropriately identifying the rather unique genesis and situation of the Holland Foundation and illustrates how from a relatively privileged position, social work and social workers can reconfigure their advantage towards the empowerment of those less fortunate and marginalized. In an Australian environment in which privatized but government funded employment services rake in multiple millions for their owners and shareholders for rather dubious on-the-ground results, it is hoped that this small initiative illustrates that small alternative projects can be more successful, however precarious their sustainability may appear to be.