Industry-led innovations in training and workforce development in health and community services
Authors:
Kipley Nink
Jobs Queensland
Theme: Workforce Development
Presentation:
Job Queensland’s Anticipating Future Skills series projects that employment in Health Care and Social Assistance will grow at double the Queensland average between 2021-22 and 2025-26, despite well publicised skill and labour shortages.
In response to these workforce challenges, Job Queensland (JQ) partnered with peak bodies from the Health and Community Services (HCS) sectors to form the Queensland Care Consortium (QCC).
The QCC offers direction and support for government enabled workforce development, attraction, and retention strategies, and delivered an initial round of funding to support place-based and sector-led strategies to seven organisations in 2023. Analysis of round one funding submissions identified three key industry and workplace problems: reputation, professional development, and psychosocial safety and wellbeing.
To overcome these problems, the seven organisations are trialling innovative approaches, with the intention of sharing successful strategies across the sector. Projects address cultural competency and diversity, digital innovation, job mobility and education and training. One such project seeks to address issues raised by the Mental Health and Wellbeing sector, especially the suitability of a core qualification, Certificate IV in Mental Health.
The sector advises that the qualification could better align with industry needs; there is a lack of communication between Registered Training Organisations (RTOs), industry and student graduates, without a firm understanding of the sector and employment opportunities. This misalignment led to low completion rates and difficulties around student placements.
A ‘Mental Health Industry Connector’ has been employed to strengthen the relationship between the RTO delivering the qualification and the broader Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Sector, as well as supplementing the advice provided to students about the sector. This presentation will describe the approach taken to overcome the identified workforce issues, key findings, discuss other QCC projects and next steps, including round two design.