GROW

Who we are

Growing Regional Opportunities for Work.

GROW is an initiative of Give Where You Live Foundation and is made up of businesses, government and community organisations working together to change the outlook for areas of high unemployment in the G21 region, including Norlane, Corio, Whittington and parts of Colac.

The GROW Initiative is working towards a future where everyone who wants to work has the opportunity and support to work. GROW is a place-based, local, trusted, independent, social procurement intermediary in the G21 region and a certified Social Enterprise.

GROW is designed to deliver outcomes for people facing barriers to employment and to businesses seeking to deliver social value to communities that they are operating in, helping to make our local communities and economy more equitable. We have an evidence-based focus and prioritisation of cohorts and communities facing the greatest individual and systemic barriers to workforce participation, these priority cohorts vary slightly across the five regional areas based on external data and our deep local knowledge of the stories behind the data.

What we do

GROW has a priority focus on supporting employment pathways and job opportunities for people experiencing long-term unemployment and supporting suburbs with higher levels of disadvantage in our region, through enabling targeted and supported employment opportunities.

We work with employers to assess and improve their inclusive employment practices (e.g. recruitment, training, on-the-job conditions and support) and identify employment pathway opportunities and bias their job vacancies towards jobseekers with barriers to employment. We:

• Work with employment services, training organisations and community organisations, to identify and support job seekers with barriers to employment, to become job ready.
• Support both the employers and job seekers with wraparound supports, for a period of time, when an employment pathway or job placement is undertaken, to ensure placements are supported, barriers are worked through and given the best chance of success.
• Work with businesses to look at their current expenditure and opportunities to direct their spend towards social suppliers (e.g. social enterprises and aboriginal enterprises) and local suppliers, leading to additional indirect employment pathways and outcomes.