This year, Sureway Employment & Training is celebrating 20 years of providing support to jobseekers and employers through the delivery of Employment Services.
Currently, Sureway provides Disability Employment Services (DES) at 44 locations across Australia. We are proud to announce that as of July 1st, 2018 we are expanding our DES services to more than 70 locations across regional NSW, SA and VIC.
Sureway are committed to providing high quality services that aim to change lives and build strong communities. The upcoming expansion will provide more Australians with a greater choice and control of their services.
As part of our expansion, we welcome Paralympic Gold Medalist Scott Reardon as our Disability Employment Services Brand Ambassador.
Sports-mad Scott Reardon was raised in a small NSW country town named Temora. Scott, like any kid had free and unrestricted dreams of what he wanted to achieve throughout his life. Scott was a rising star in Rugby League when a freak accident put a hold on his football career. At the young age of 12, Reardon caught his shoelace in the power take-off shaft of a tractor, severing his right leg through the knee.
At a 2018 conference Scott exclaimed “in a short period of time I went from this kid who had huge aspirations of being the best rugby league player and the best athlete I could possibly be until a handbrake kind of got put on, I didn’t really truly understand what my life was going to be and what I was going to be able to do”.
At such a young age, with so many fears and uncertainties Scott prevailed and showed the power of positivity. Scotts resilience and instinctive strong character chose to stand up and fight for the life he wanted to live.
“At 12 years old I remember pulling myself up, look we got a choice to make here. I could sit home and complain about the rest of my life, or I can get back out and I can live life to the best I possibly can”
Not only did Scott opt for mental resilience, he showed immense physical determination also.
“Within six months of my accident I was back water skiing again. About ten months after I lost my leg I won two silver medals at the Australian national championships for water skiing”.
Scotts total achievements in waterskiing are second to none.
“I won a total of 11 World Championship medals over a six-year career in in waterskiing”
Scotts next chapter began when he was casually watching television one night.
“In 2008 when I turned on the TV one night, the Beijing Paralympic Games were on. The men’s T40 100 meters came on, that’s the classification that I’m a part of. I remember the race being run in twelve point three two seconds. I remember thinking yeah that’s pretty quick, but I reckon I can run faster than that”
From here Scott was accepted into the Australian Institute of Sport. Like water skiing, Scott achieved the ultimate pinnacle in the sport.
“I’ve been able to pretty much achieve everything that there is to achieve in the sport. I’ve held every record in the book, I’ve won every championship in the book”
Not only does Scott strongly believe in taking opportunities, he also emphasizes the need to provide opportunities too. While Scott knows there was a lot of hard work involved in his success, he is humble in suggesting that his success ultimately came down to opportunities.
“I’m so very, very grateful of what I’ve been able to do, but this all came about because I had an opportunity. I 100% stand here to say losing my leg was the best opportunity that I’ve ever been given”.
“That’s what’s drawing me to be the Brand Ambassador for Sureway”
Scott is working with Sureway to create a change in the way employees and employers view individuals with disabilities. We want to encourage a shift from negative opinions to positive ones and begin to think that “disabled means incapable, to have a disability is very different to being disabled”.
Along with Scott, we aim to emphasise the necessity to see the value in somebody rather than their disability to spark a change in the way contemporary workplaces operate. Behind every individual with a disability is kindness, passion and motivation to succeed and we want to give everybody the opportunity to work.
Through our expansion, we will provide our clients with comprehensive support to find and keep a job. We will support both the employer and employee to manage any challenges that may come with a disability and help to ensure that they can operate to their full capacity.
Providing everyone, disability or not, with the opportunity to work not only improves their lives, but also improves our community.
We are both very optimistic about our partnership and the benefits it will bring to the community.
“It’s really a start of something big I think between Sureway and myself”.
