Why Are We Here?
Have you ever read a report or gone to a workshop, and left feeling motivated, with a notebook full of ideas on how you could do it better?
You return to work optimistic and energised , only to be diverted by unexpected developments, putting out fires and navigating all the complexity that happens every day when providing high-quality support services.
Three months later, you are left feeling despondent because little changed, and you can’t even find where you put the notebook?
After many years working with, for, and in community we know that feeling.
That reality is also why we created AIR.
Every day the sector is handed down an abundance of reports, new frameworks, advice, best practice strategies and mandatory requirements. A staggering amount of information is constantly arriving via meetings, webinars, and inboxes.
But all that information you now have does not come with the extra resources to make the change happen.
AIR is built to provide what you don’t have – practical support and resources on the ground-level to help turn all that rhetoric into reality.
While we can support you with high-level approaches for workforce planning and methodologies for recruitment and retention – we also deliver programs that sit across the table with local jobseekers to ensure they are ready to meet sector needs.
We offer quality and compliance coaching, regardless of whether that looks like a large organisation with complex service arms or helping an independent support worker build their first complaints policy.
The AIR founders are passionate about a future where the regional community services sector is better resourced and recognised for its skill and contribution.
Want to know more about our ‘why’? Check out our Vision and our Mission.
Or share the vision by joining as a member of our regional collective.
So What Makes Us Any Different?
Real not Rhetoric
Lots of businesses out there have great intentions, want to make the world a better place and have inspiring mission statements.
We know talk is cheap and backing it up is harder. So everything we say, we want to stand behind in practical ways.
Function over flash and grit instead of bull…well…dust.
Proudly Regional
AIR is passionate about Regional Queensland – and we aren’t afraid to tell people!
We live and work in Regional Queensland and know firsthand it is not a level playing field.
Solutions for metropolitan issues being rolled out to the ‘rest of Queensland’ do not always recognise the added needs of providers outside of SEQ.
Raising the visibility of the unique needs of the regional assistance sector is a core goal of AIR.
We don’t see regional Queensland as the ‘rest of Queensland’ but the best of Queensland!
Who Are We Really?
A business directory would describe AIR as a “social enterprise providing development services for the community sector”.
But we think AIR’s Values describe it best.
If AIR was a person, we think it would be the mate you confide in who doesn’t judge, listens to where you are now and says “can I help?”.
That one you can count on to show up and shift your furniture when your house gets flooded, or who helps you go through your shoebox of receipts when it comes to tax time.
The one who is slow to give up when something really matters and is there to remind you, and to remind others, of your worth.
If we sound like your people, why not follow AIR’s journey by joining as a member of our regional collective?
Melinda’s passion for social assistance was first ignited while working in the Not-For-Profit sector in Central Western Queensland in the 1990s.
In the decades that have followed, she has used her skill sets and stubborn streak to speak up on sector issues, with roles in Communication, Service Provision, Workforce Projects, and State positions in Sector Development.
She has a Bachelor of Public Health (Health Promotion Specialisation) and has a particular interest in the enhancement of psychological safety and wellbeing of community workers.
She now fuels her love of learning with a complete lack of restraint in signing up for micro-learning courses.
Her special passion at AIR is in changing the way we communicate policies, quality systems and safeguarding so they feel real, relatable – and truly reach – the frontline workers.
You can connect with Melinda on LinkedIn or via melinda@assistindustries.com.au
Andy credits her passion and drive for regional communities to growing up a “farm kid”, with her family owning and working on farms; everything from cane, fruit, small crops, and livestock.
Her education was no less varied, having seen everything from learning in the demountable classroom in the town of Delany’s Creek, to private schooling and Business College in Brisbane.
Like many regional youth, she supported herself through university, which saw early morning farmwork cutting lettuce, and pouring beers at Gatton’s Imperial Hotel by night.
She graduated with a Diploma of Business, Hospitality & Marketing. Also holding qualifications in Retail, Administration, Employment Services, Disability, Mental Health, TAE and EFT/Matrix Reimprinting.
She has worked extensively in the community sector with a primary focus on employment, training, and project management and is a qualified SESA Assessor.
A gifted connector, Andy has a passion for building and sustaining regional networks and creating safe spaces for services to collaborate and support their community.
She is well known in Fraser Coast for facilitating a breakfast network for providers, which has been running for two decades.
“I just love bringing people together, especially when they share the same passion for working with people and seeing them achieve great things, no matter how big or small”.
You can connect with Andy on LinkedIn or andy@assistindustries.com.au
Driven by Social Purpose
We may be a small startup, but we think whatever our size or bank balance, there must still be ways to give back to the regions we work in.
So that’s why we made the N.O.W. vow.
It is where we at AIR get to practice what we preach and pay forward whatever we can through our N.O.W. (Not Only Words) vow.
Whether this involves a project to balance disadvantage a community contribution or an in-kind service – we pledge to do what we can, with the resources we have now.