Every year we like to spotlight our TRECCA team and their continued success in supporting First Nations individuals as they transition into sustainable, meaningful employment, while also fostering a culturally safe and inclusive workplace for our ongoing First Nations employees at Ventia.
The TRECCA Team: Giambra-Rose Laxton, Amber Newman, Byron Davis, Shaun Hill, Bessie Fredberg, Belinda Farrell, Tayla Scerri, Carolyn Spindler.
Supporting First Nation job seekers is a matter of equity and fundamental to Ventia’s commitment to First Nations communities across Australia—a step toward healing and our reconciliation commitment. Generations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples continue to face systemic barriers to education, employment, and economic participation. By offering targeted support, we can help dismantle these barriers and create pathways to meaningful work. This commitment acknowledges the past, empowers the present, and builds a more inclusive future for all Australians.
Established in 2015, the TRECCA team (Training, Employment Recruitment Care and Career Advancement) supports Ventia’s commitment to Closing the Gap as part of our Reconciliation Action Plan. The passionate and talented team includes First Nations members and allies, spread across all states and territories in Australia. They directly connect Ventia with candidates to create pathways into employment and support job seekers to become candidates, and candidates to become long-term sustainable employees.
In doing this, TRECCA creates, sustains, and nurtures relationships with communities, elders, industry organisations, local and state governments, and businesses. They also bring the social challenges experienced by Indigenous Australians to light in the broader business to break down barriers.
The TRECCA team with First Nation employees. L-R: Toni Whitehurst, Serita Naborlhborlh, Giambra-Rose Laxton, Byron Davis, Rebecca King, Ian Gordon, Louise Roe, Carolyn Spindler
In 2025, TRECCA continued to make great strides with their Transition to Employment Program (previously the Pre-Employment Program). Developed in 2022 in the Northern Territory by Byron Davis, GM Indigenous Participation, the program has recently expanded to other states in Australia.
In the past 12 months, they have delivered the program and secured employment for First Nations colleagues across Ventia’s Defence, AGFMA, and Housing contracts in:
As shared during NAIDOC Week in 2024, the ‘Transition to Work’ program welcomed 12 Indigenous participants to DAP-D’s Reception Team. A year on, seven have progressed into employment or traineeships, including roles with Ventia, the NT Government, and a remote Shire Council. This highlights the program’s lifechanging impact and its support for Indigenous employment and reconciliation.
Bessie Fredberg, Employment Coordinator, says:
This year we ran our first program in Victoria. It was so great to be able to take the program from the Northern Territory and adapt that to the candidates coming through in Victoria and their specific needs. It was a great success and our feedback from the candidates was really positive. This is just the beginning, and I can’t wait to watch the program grow across the Country.
The Transition to Employment Program is just one innovative pathway for TRECCA to get First Nations candidates into work. Since the program started, they have facilitated the hiring of over 1,600+ First Nations men and women.
TRECCA supports First Nations candidates beyond the program with innovative onboarding and ongoing care, including:
TRECCA has found success by disrupting existing models of recruitment. Byron Davis, GM of Indigenous Participation and a Kalkadoon and Wannyi man from Northwest Queensland, developed a Trauma Informed Employment Model for Indigenous employees. He explains:
It is an Informative Care Model and outlines key themes like understanding how trauma is manifested, understanding our support mechanisms, talks about mental health support, including psychosocial hazards, our support through providing mentoring, counselling, training, understanding welfare checks, kinship care and cultural obligations. We integrate these themes into our work, not only with candidates and employees but to educate hiring managers in how to best support their Indigenous employees.
TRECCA is truly one of a kind—no other company in our industry in Australia has a team like them. With retention rates at 58%, TRECCA is industry-leading (compared to job service providers at 28%). Their work at Ventia sets the tone for our innovative approach to First Nations participation and provides meaningful results towards a more inclusive future for all Australians.