THE organisation set up to help disadvantaged women find and keep work will close its Morwell doors next month.
Fitted for Work provides a personalised clothes fitting service for women looking for a job and helps build their confidence with mock interviews and life skills training.
From 15 October it will no longer operate out of its Collins Street shopfront, however the organisation’s Melbourne head office has moved to reassure the Gippsland community, the assistance will continue in the form of a “mobile service”.
According to a statement by Fitted for Work, the outfitting service would be “incorporated into an enhanced Transition to Work program that will be delivered across various training venues in the Gippsland area”.
“Rather than coming to a physical location in Morwell, we’ll be taking that service out to a mobile service,” Fitted for Work national client services manager Amanda Carlile told The Express.
“We are looking to organise local drop-off points for donations and for clothing storage facilities,” she said.
Ms Carlile said the decision came after a drop in client numbers over the past 18 months and feedback that some women were finding it difficult to get to the Morwell store because of transport and childcare restrictions.
“We feel by having a mobile service, we can reach more women and it’ll be more flexible for them as well.”
The Morwell office was set up in 2010 as the national not-for-profit organisation’s only regional facility and services up to 20 women a month from across Gippsland.
Ms Carlile said the first mobile fitting would likely take place about eight weeks from the shop’s closure and referrals would still operate in the same manner.
Fitted for Work’s only paid Valley worker, Morwell program manager Sharon Dean would lose her job under the new structure and eight volunteers would have significantly less opportunity to provide their services.
Ms Dean declined to comment.
According to the statement, a ‘workplace familiarisation program’ will also be available to Morwell clients through Fitted for Work’s corporate partners.
