We have had a busy start to the year — meeting with stakeholders, strengthening our understanding of the current state of play and developing our plan for addressing the growing and evolving workforce needs of the human services sectors.

Here’s what we know:

  • There is increasing demand for services across Australia’s human services sectors, which protect, promote and respect the safety, wellbeing, participation and choice of older Australians, people with disabilities, veterans and children.
  • Employers are finding it more and more difficult to get the right people with the right skills into the right jobs — due to a disconnect between the training options available and the skills required for roles, poor perceptions of careers in the sector, and variable and disconnected work conditions.
  • There is a need for employers to have a stronger voice and presence in the national training system, and for workforce development and training solutions to be responsive to industry needs.
  • A vocational, education and training (VET) sector that is responsive to industry needs will give more Australians the chance to get the right job and build fulfilling careers and lives.

The challenges and opportunities are well known. We look forward to supporting work already underway to address them and to spearheading new, collaborative and innovative approaches.

We are connecting employers, workers, training organisations, industry experts, peak and workforce bodies, and government to identify and trial new methods to attract workers to the human services sectors and ensure they have the skills, attributes and ongoing development opportunities required to deliver quality service and succeed in their careers.

Planning is in progress to run a series of targeted webinars and roundtable discussions across Australia. Other collaboration opportunities will follow. We invite you to get involved. Together, we will develop, pilot and deliver responsive, fit-for-purpose workforce development and training programs.

Details about upcoming events will be shared soon. Keep an eye out for our email invitations and updates.

We look forward to working with you to transform workforce development and training solutions across the human services sectors.

Jodi Schmidt
CEO

View more in our latest newsletter here.

Employer