St Paul’s Community Hub has a huge impact on the school and wider communities and earlier this year Deloitte undertook a Social Return on Investment (SROI) study of the National Community Hubs Program of which our Hub is obviously a part of. Their work is now complete, and I’m delighted to be sharing the key results with you. In simple terms, Deloitte found that:
Hubs have a significant and measurable impact on quality of life, improving confidence, social participation, engagement and connections for hub participants which in turn leads to better life outcomes
Hubs provide a critical volunteer workforce, with one in three hub participants volunteering within the hub or school; they also directly help participants find employment
Hubs make schools more welcoming and culturally inclusive, and increase participation of families in school activities
Hubs improve access to health and support services
Hubs improve English language competency and in turn, participation in society and work
Hubs improve school readiness and reduce vulnerability for children, leading to improved learning outcomes
Hubs reduce the need for schools to provide educational support.
Each one of these benefits has a dollar value attached to it, and overall, the study found that hubs delivered nearly $33.9 million in benefits to Australian society in 2019 – generating a return of $2.20 for every dollar invested in the hubs program. This is an outstanding result, of which we should all be very proud. What is particularly pleasing is that the Deloitte study demonstrates the worth of every single part of the hubs’ model – engagement, early childhood, English and employment, and shows that everyone – communities, school, families, children – benefits.
I have attached the report to our latest newsletter for your information. There’s a lot to digest in there. The Deloitte team will be presenting at the Connect.Share.Learn. online forum (held on Tuesday 14th) to explain the study and answer our questions.
There has never been any doubt that our St Paul’s Hub or the Hub network as a whole
has lasting impacts on the lives of students and families but it is good to see that
investment sketched out in a dollar amount.
