Case study - The Smith Family | NIDA Corporate

Case study - The Smith Family

The Smith Family has been working with NIDA Corporate Training for two years in an innovative partnership to offer public speaking and presentation preparation for their employees.

The Smith Family is a national, independent children’s charity helping disadvantaged Australians to get the most out of their education, so they can create better futures for themselves.

Working at the grassroots level with families, there is a need for The Smith Family to advocate on behalf of these families, and to represent their needs, their barriers and their successes.

For Program Coordinator, Belinda Devine a growing part of her role is to talk to supporters and stakeholders about how The Smith Family responds to challenges faced by the families they work with, and the charity’s need to expand to be able to reach more families in need.

‘There are many good news stories and achievements involved in my work with families that need to be fed back to those supporting my community,’ Belinda says.

'Being offered the NIDA Corporate Training was a wonderful opportunity for me both professionally and personally, as it gave me the opportunity to focus on my communication and presentation style – an important element in showing our supporters how The Smith Family is helping Australian families.'

Being a Learning for Life Program Coordinator, the majority of Belinda’s work is ‘on the ground’ working directly with students, parents, schools and community partners, but increasingly she found herself presenting to a variety of audiences about the work The Smith Family does in her communities of Richmond and Collingwood. ‘The NIDA training has equipped me with the skills and confidence to prepare for and deliver these presentations.’

'The training identified the areas of my communication style that I need to work on, and also my strengths and how I can consolidate these. I learned a great deal not only from the wonderful facilitator, Morgan but also the other women taking part in the training.

Since attending the training I’ve delivered a presentation to one of our corporate partners, our face2face advertisers and I’ve been filmed for a corporate video. I feel better equipped to deliver professional presentations to potential supporters and stakeholders, and I also feel more confident in my informal day-to-day interactions with community members.'

NIDA Corporate Training helped Belinda build the skills she needed to share The Smith Family’s stories with different audiences in a more professional, skilled and targeted way. In particular, Belinda says the training about planning successful communication was valuable.

‘Really knowing and planning for what specific outcome or key message you want the audience to leave the room with will help to raise the profile of our work in the wider community, to bring on more supporters and ultimately increase our reach to support more young people to create a better future for themselves.’

Visit The Smith Family for more information.