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Growing Careers Project: a world of opportunities for students

Growing Careers Project

The Growing Careers Project aims to support young people living in disadvantage by connecting them to The Smith Family’s career support programs. The Growing Careers Project is supported by funding from the Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment.

The project will run from 2021 until 2024 and will see The Smith Family working in close collaboration with a number of schools across the country.


It will offer over 76,000 places for students to participate in multiple career programs across their secondary school journey, which could encompass anything from a short career-focused activity, to several weeks of one-on-one mentoring via an online platform – or spending a few days in a workplace.

We’ll be following student participation across the four years of the project, to understand how they’re progressing in their education. We’ll look at what’s resonating with them from a careers’ perspective and what more we can do to support their career pathways when they leave school.

Why is this program important?

• Young people’s involvement in work, training or study post-school is heavily influenced by what happens to them in school.1

• Young people living in disadvantage are less likely to complete Year 12 and less likely to be in work, training or post-school study than their more advantaged peers.2

• Employer engagement while still at school has a positive impact on academic results, student motivation and student aspirations.1

1. It’s Who You Meet: Why Employer Contacts at School Make a Difference to the Employment Prospects of Young Adults by Dr Anthony Mann, Education and Employers Taskforce, 2012
2. OECD (2018) Education at a Glance 2018: OECD Indicators. Paris: OECD Publishing.