Careerforce eChat - November 2009

To subscribe, join our database

Innovations funding road shows

Starting in December 2009, a series of road shows will be held describing the Careerforce Training Innovation Trust’s recently announced Workplace Training Innovation programme.

Through this programme funding will be available in 2010-2013 to support health and disability employers to develop and implement innovative and sustainable learning and assessment programmes that enable staff to access and complete national qualifications and engage in career pathways.

Click here for information on innovation road shows in your area.

Aged care meetings

Separate Older Persons Health Information Sharing and Innovations Programme meetings will be held for all aged care home and community, and residential providers.

As well as covering the Workplace Training Innovation programme, these sessions will also cover current qualification and resource developments for the aged care sector and enable participants to feedback to Careerforce's Older Persons Health Advisory Group which reports to the Careerforce Board.

Click here for more information on workshops in your area.

Careerforce coverage redefined

Careerforce’s coverage statement has been reviewed to better align with the language used by the sector and to reflect the parts of the sector Careerforce works with. The new coverage statement is:

Careerforce is the industry training organisation for health, disability, and community support for Levels 1-8 on the National Qualifications Framework to set standards for the sectors of aged care, addiction, allied health, core health, dental support, intellectual, physical and sensory disability, health care orderlies, health support, mental health, primary and secondary health care, public health and whanau ora, except where the workforce is covered by the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003.

Ambulance, first aid, injury prevention, pre-hospital emergency care, occupational health and safety, pharmacy, social services, State services related public administration and management are excluded from the Careerforce coverage as they lie within the coverage of other standard setting bodies.

Te Whatumanawa Maoritanga o Rehua

Te Whatumanawa Maoritanga o Rehua (Rehua Marae) is a Marae Home-Based provider in Christchurch that works to provide positive alternative services for whanau, hapu and iwi through kaupapa Maori practice.

These services include health education to Whanau Ora (Taua, Poua, Kuia and Koroua) aged between 55-65yrs old with a focus on prevention and management of asthma, diabetes, cardiac-vascular and chronic obstructive respiratory disease. They provide services for wahine 40+ with focus on participation in breast and cervical screening programme, and have Daycare for 65+ twice a week.

They also provide Home Support Service for 55+, including Personal Care (showering/bathing, oral care, mirimiri, supervision, grooming and dressing) and Domestic Care (laundry, vacuuming, kitchen and bathroom hygiene making beds and food preparations).

Rehua Marae currently has three trainees participating in Core Competencies (Level 3), all of whom successfully completed Foundation Skills (Level 2). Once Core Competencies is completed, the next step for staff on their career pathway will be the National Certificate in Diversional Therapy (Level 4).

For each trainee a strategic plan is developed which shows the time frame for trainees to complete the learning and assessment.  To support the learning a two hour workshop is booked out each Thursday for group study.

Trainees also study in their own time, and at work when time is available.

According to the staff at Rehua Marae, achieving these qualifications is not only benefiting Kaumatua and Kuia, but also staff and Rehua Marae itself.

“Kaumatua and Kuia benefit as the training helps give us the skills to guide them in maximising their independence and increasing their wellbeing”.

“Achieving the Diversional Therapy qualification will allow us to provide a better service to nga kaumatua, and gain access to a wider stream of services and supports that enhance their quality of life”.

“There are severe shortages of qualified Maori Diversional Therapists in Christchurch and through training our own Diversional Therapists we hope to inspire and motivate other Maori providers to achieve these certificates as well”.

Parklands graduation

In November Parklands Hospital in Christchurch, a BUPA site, celebrated their first group of graduates in style with a graduation ceremony and afternoon tea.

Fifty-five staff completed the Dementia Limited Credit Programme (Level 4), while one staff member also completed Core Competencies (Level 3).

At the ceremony, Parklands dedicated educator Jan McRae was acknowledged by BUPA and Careerforce representatives for her hard work over the last 10 months. Jan has played a key role in ensuring that the training has been of the highest quality, and that assessment and verification processes have successfully supported the learning.

Communicating with confidence

A project to improve staff literacy and learning has had some unexpected benefits for the Disability Resource Centre Trust in Whakatane.

The Trust started a literacy and learning training programme in 2007 as part of the Integrated Workplace Literacy Project through Careerforce.

Adult Literacy Coordinator Officer Catherine Tangiora is one of the trainers who started the pilot at the Centre and she says it has had one significant, and unexpected, bonus for the organisation.

“Not only have our communication skills improved with our clients, they have improved with each other.”

“We’ve had tremendous value out of the programme – not just with increasing communication skills but also confidence levels.“

“As a workplace we are now more aware of communication needs in everything we do. We make sure clients and co-workers know what we are on about – that we are communicating the right message in the right way” says Catherine.

For more information click here

From untrained support worker to registered assessor

In the 12 years Ngaku Dixon has worked at IRIS (formerly Focus 2000), she has worked herself up from a support worker, to a senior support worker, to a verifier, to a Careerforce registered assessor. Along the way she has completed her first ever qualification – the National Certificate in Community Support Services (Foundation Skills) (Level 2), and is currently undertaking the National Certificate in Community Support Services (Core Competencies) (Level 3).

“The great thing about the training at IRIS is that everyone is in it together – we’re all on the same learning pathway. We have regular training sessions where people can ask questions, but we also discuss the issues amongst ourselves as we go about our everyday work”.

Ngaku loves being an assessor and would strongly recommend it to others. “It’s really good because you can help staff out and make sure they are competent in what they are doing. You need to be really committed to the organisation, and to making sure the people coming through are competent. It’s really important that you are the sort of person who enjoys working closely with people, and you need to have lots of integrity and not give into pressure from workmates who, in many cases, are also your friends”. 

Ngaku says the key to being a successful assessor is time management. “Support workers come to me all the time wanting to be assessed and because I know how important it is to them and IRIS, I do whatever I can to fit the assessment into my diary as soon as I can.”

IRIS provides a diverse range of community based services to people with a disability, injury or health concern.   IRIS currently employs over 1,000 team members and serves over 4,000 people. 

A graduation ceremony was held on 10 November to celebrate the 40 IRIS team members who graduated with Foundation Skills (L2). Many of the trainees had no previous qualification and English as a second language.

Louise Hawkins, the Careerforce Project Manager for Integrated Workplace Learning, assisted with the development of the training programme for IRIS and attended the evening congratulating the IRIS team members who put in an extraordinary amount of work and showed commitment to completing this qualification.

A large number of these people have now enrolled in Level 3 and some have already started this qualification.

Disability and home and community support services sector panel

The Disability and Home and Community Support Services Sector Panels held a combined meeting on November 23rd to discuss qualification content and the next steps in the development of advanced level qualifications for roles identified currently as ‘team leader’.
There was agreement that the resulting qualification needs to include a positive health outcome focus for health and wellbeing.

Possible unit standards identified by panel members so far include:

• Provide leadership for a team in an organisation
• Operate professionally, ethically and responsibly in an organisation
• Apply organisational quality in a health, disability or community setting
• Contribute to the appointment and development of staff in a health, disability or community setting
• Coordinate the allocation of resources in a health, disability or community setting
• Promote positive health outcomes for consumers in a health, disability or community setting
• Recognise changes in health and well-being of consumers in a health, disability or community setting
• Lead service provision in a health, disability or community setting
• Over the next few months, as more work is done on the content of the draft unit standards, it will become clearer whether there will be two distinct qualifications or a combined qualification, possibly with electives.

A web based consultation on the proposed qualification(s) is planned for the first half of 2010.

Shared pathway for healthcare assistant and allied health assistant qualifications

The two sector panels investigating the development of qualifications for Allied Health Assistants and Health Care Assistants have combined due to the high levels of overlap between the two proposed qualifications. The working title of the proposed new qualification is “health assistant”.

As well as unit standards that will be common to both workforces, there will be electives that enable specialised knowledge and skills related either to the role, the work setting, or the population the worker is predominantly supporting. 

The drafts of all common unit standards will be completed shortly.  After going through an internal Careerforce quality checking process, these standards will then go out for a wider electronic consult early next year.

Orderlies Update

Following preliminary meetings held in June this year, Careerforce is progressing with the development of qualifications for this workforce.  A sector panel for the qualification is likely to be established early next year.

Any persons interested in being involved with the development should contact Ruth Kibble.

Mental Health and Addiction Reference Group meeting

Careerforce is developing career pathways for the Mental Health and Addiction (MHA) support workforce. This project includes a review of the current Mental Health National Certificate L4 and National Diploma L6.

The external reference group providing oversight to the project met on 24 November in Wellington to discuss MHA career pathways and the development of unit standards. This group includes representatives from employers, the Ministry of Health (MOH), District Health Boards (DHB), Non Government Organisations (NGO), the Public Service Association, and members of the five Mental Health and Addiction Workforce Development Centres - namely Te Pou, Te Rau Matatini, The Werry Centre, Matua Raki and Le Va.

For more information on the development of the Mental Health and Addiction career pathway, click here or email Margaret Vick

Māori Development Organisations Pilot

Careerforce is involved in a pilot with the Ministry of Health and two Māori Development Organisations: Te Poutiri Trust and Tui Ora. The pilot will work with  Māori health providers to recognise the skills and knowledge of their employees through an recognition of current competency programme for both the National Certificate in Community Support Services (Foundation Skills) L2 and National Certificate in Community Support Services (Core Competencies) L3.

Under the pilot Te Poutiri Trust and Tui Ora are supporting Māori health providers within their networks by providing mobile trainers and mobile assessors, and assisting them to incorporate training into their quality systems.

The pilot seeks to achieve the following:

1. Test and refine this new version of workplace learning and assessment delivery i.e. using mobile trainers and assessors and the Māori Development Organisations.
2. Recognise the current skills and knowledge of the Kaiawhina role (Māori health assistant) within the Māori health providers using a Recognition of Current Competencies approach to Foundation Skills and Core Competencies.
3. Provide learning and assessment for employees.
4. Provide guidance for future developments within the Māori health providers networks.

For more information contact Ruth Kibble