
Cade Lucas
Marie Dowling had already decided on a career change when she passed a flyer on a notice board in Yarraville in the middle of 2024.
“I was a self-employed gardener, but I decided to get out of the sun and retrain to be a teacher aide,” she recalled.
“Last year when I was studying, from March until September, I saw a flyer at the Yarraville Community Centre and contacted Shelley then.”
Shelley was Shelley Hosking, the community engagement coordinator at Council of the Ageing (COTA) Victoria and Seniors Rights Victoria, and the flyer was advertising their employment support program for women over 50.
And now, almost 12 months on, Ms Dowling is a fully qualified teacher aide preparing to return to work at a Maribyrnong primary school when classes resume at the end of this month.
It’s a career change she said had been made quicker and easier by having an employment mentor like Ms Hosking to guide her through it.
“I may have (gotten the job without the program) but it just provided an extra person to help me and it was very targeted at women over 50 like me,” Ms Dowling said.
“Shelley just helped me to rejig my CV, practice job interview techniques, re-write cover letters and just built my confidence because when you’re over 50 you can feel a bit invisible.”
According to education and engagement manager at COTA and Seniors Rights Victoria, Frankie Freeman, the invisibility felt by women over 50 was one of the reasons why the employment support program was established.
“The program was developed initially after identifying that older women have increased economic challenges relative to other cohorts, namely: lack of superannuation (approximately 25 per cent less compared to men); long term unemployment rates, often relating to caring roles; underemployment; and the compounding effects of ageism and sexism in the workplace setting.”
Ms Freeman said older women in Melbourne’s west were considered particularly vulnerable to these challenges, which is why they, along with women in Melbourne’s south-east, aged 50 to 64, were eligible.
Once assigned a mentor, participants receive support with in resume writing, job applications and job interviews, but Ms Freeman said the strength of the program was that it was tailored to the individual.
“We support our participants to identify and achieve employment or training goals that are important to them,” she said.
Details: cotavic.org.au/our-programs/employment-support.