Moving to a regional or rural area for work when you've never set foot in that area before can be daunting - there's housing to find, work to find for a possible partner, schools for children, and no social connections. So daunting, in fact, it can stop people from accepting job offers.
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On the flip side, regional companies can find it hard to find the right employee to fill a role and have to seek outside of the area.
Enter Kate Dunn, Taree's "community connector".
Kate's role is part of a program called Attract Connect Stay, designed to attract and retain health professionals to rural areas.
Kate's role was initially a joint initiative between Team Taree and the area's Allied Health group, AH202. However, while the service is still specialising in health and allied health, they quickly realised other people coming to the area for work, and other businesses, needed the assistance of a community connector.
As a result, it is a service now open to all organisations.
"At the moment it's funded by people who are actually using the service, so organisations like MidCoast Council have partly funded it; Dundaloo, Early Connections, Mission Australia, CatholicCare, Team Taree. There's a whole range of people," Kate said.
"There is seed money from multiple organisations who were who were obviously looking for it to be an improvement for the whole area, not just their organisation."
Helping people settle
Kate helps organisations with recruiting people, or finding the right people herself, for a participating organisation.
"I will sometimes speak to candidates before they've even applied for a role or if an organisation wants them to apply," Kate said.
Once a person has accepted a position, Kate will work with them before they arrive. She will educate them about the Mid Coast, talk about where they want to live and what the options are, and finding a place to live. If a partner needs to find employment, Kate will source employment for the partner.
"Whatever the profession is, I will work with the partner to help them gain employment as well and then I'll also link them in for their children. So helping the family choose what school they want to go to, after school activities, social connections for all the family members, whether they're from a different nationality, linking them in with the same nationality, just looking at the whole picture," Kate explained.
"So then they're integrated quickly, so they can focus on their work."
The service began in July 2023 and is well utilised. In the past three months alone, Kate has helped 35 people who have moved here for a role, along with helping their partners and children.
They come from everywhere
Kate said she loves that so many people are moving to the area.
"We have stories where people come for positions they might come for temporary positions a few times, and then they fall in love and then they decide to stay. But then we also have people that just look at us on a map and they're like location and that's where they're gonna go."
A lot of people come from cities - Newcastle, Sydney, the Gold Coast, the Central Coast. Kate says there are a variety of reason they have chosen to move here, mostly because they want a change, or the cost of living in a city has become too high.
Kate has even settled multiple families settling from overseas from places such as India and Pakistan, South Africa, the UK and Ireland.
"I's actually incredible, even for me being a local for a long time, It's incredible to see how many people are coming from out of area for roles here every week. We've got multiple people coming from all over the world to come to work here, which is pretty amazing," Kate said.
"Our region actually has amazing job opportunities for people, potentially roles that aren't available in other areas. We've got them here, which is great."