ANDREW SCHOLEFIELD
Education Manager at Encounter Youth
Awarded a Melbourne Business School Scholarship for the New Leaders Development Program, 2019
What sort of work does your organisation do?
Encounter Youth supports South Australia’s young people to make a positive difference in the world. We take a holistic approach to supporting young people across our three programs: Our well-known management of the annual Schoolies Operation, ensuring safe end-of-year celebrations for year 12s through our harm minimisation strategies and 500+ volunteers; our Hindley Street Program, supporting young people in vulnerable situations in the Adelaide CBD every Saturday night; and Encounter Youth Education™, providing effective, preventative alcohol and other drug education to secondary school communities. Describe a typical day's work.
My primary role is leading the education team in the delivery of our alcohol and other drug education program in high schools. This can involve strategic planning and professional development for my team, connecting with schools, the education department and other stakeholders and the delivery of the program itself. This year, much of my time has been spent project managing a rapid move of our traditional face-to-face program delivery to an Online Learning Platform to ensure continued service delivery despite the impacts of COVID 19. Alongside my main responsibilities to my team, I also provide strategic support to the CEO, COO and other programs in areas of grant writing, research and development, and evaluation of program impacts. What were some of the key learnings from the course?
My key learnings from the course were: - An increase in my own self-awareness and my ‘default’ way of working and leading others; in terms of both the strengths and the possible blind-spots
- A greater capacity to understand others and the key strengths that people bring to the table with their different personalities, backgrounds and ways of operating
- The development of skills and resources to help me adapt my leadership to better suit the needs of the people I am leading
How has it impacted / changed / benefited your role and your organisation as a whole?
The skills and strategies that I developed through the New Leaders Development Program have helped me to more effectively manage my team and increased my capacity to provide support and training for other leaders in the organisation. How did you come to be working in the not-for-profit sector?
My background is in research and I completed my PhD in biology just before I began working in the not-for-profit sector. Realistically, I enjoyed the learning and development, and the subject interested me but what was missing was purpose. This heavily influenced my choice to join the NFP sector, as my main point when looking for a job was that the position had a positive purpose and made a real contribution to society. I had first volunteered with Encounter Youth eight years before joining the staff team, so I could clearly see the alignment of my values and those of the organisation. The alignment of values, a clear purpose and a positive impact all came together. What do you feel is most needed to sustain and build the impact of the not-for-profit sector?
I believe that the not-for-profit sector attracts people with huge hearts for a positive impact in the world, but I also believe that at times, this can come at the expense of those with strengths in strategic thinking and long-term, sustainable development. This is, thankfully, not the case in my current organisation, but one that I have observed across much of the sector. I believe that the not-for-profit sector could be sustained and built by: - Growing and developing people to be effective leaders of other people
- Investing in and building capacity within the sector for effective evaluation of programs and outputs to ensure resources are spent where they are most effective
- Building the business structures within not-for-profit organisations to be financially sustainable
What is something interesting / unique / unusual about you?
I come from a very large family, with three brothers and four sisters. Now that several of us have partners and children of our own, family dinners can be quite a loud and chaotic affair!
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