Skills for Good - March 2022: New prospectus, New Advanced Care & Support Apprenticeship and more

Tēnā koutou

As we remain in the Covid-19 red traffic light setting, our offices remain closed, and our interactions with stakeholders remain virtual. I am however starting to feel increasingly hopeful that we may soon shift to an orange setting, and that will allow us to resume face to face contact. I know our staff are particularly keen to re-engage face to face with our employers and learners, but we also acknowledge and respect any workplace limitations that may apply across your organisations.

We are excited this month to be launching the new Apprenticeship in Advanced Care and Support, and which we expect to be very popular. There really never has been a better time to enrol your staff in an apprenticeship programme, with free enrolment through to the end of the year, and the potential for you to receive Apprenticeship Boost payments for any new or existing apprentices through to August this year.

This new apprenticeship programme launched just in time to make the cut for our 2022 Prospectus which is also featured in this issue of Skills for Good. I encourage you to have a look through the prospectus and consider what programmes could be relevant to your workforce development, particularly to take advantage of the free enrolment through to the end of 2022, courtesy of the Government’s Targeted Training and Apprenticeship Fund (TTAF).

Ngā mihi nui

Jane Wenman
Careerforce Chief Executive

Careerforce is pleased to announce the launch of the New Zealand Apprenticeship in Advanced Care and Support. The level 4, 122-126 credit programme is just one part of an effort to help address an ageing and overwhelmed aged care, and home & community workforce, further complicated by the impacts of COVID-19.

An alternative option to the trainee programme
Workplaces will now have the option to choose between the Advanced Care and Support trainee programme which was earlier launched in 2021, or this new apprenticeship, depending on your staff’s needs.

Like the trainee programme, the apprenticeship is a two-year programme that leads to the awarding of the New Zealand Certificate in Health and Wellbeing (Level 4) Advanced Care and Support. Apprentices working in the aged care and home and community support sectors will develop the skills required to provide person-centred or relationship-centred care and support to people with complex needs.

The Advanced Care and Support trainee programme remains open for enrolments. However, with the option to instead enrol staff in the new apprenticeship programme, apprentices will be able to receive pastoral support and guidance from a Careerforce Apprenticeship Advisor. This extra support will be beneficial to workplaces that may not have the infrastructure for an in-house assessor.

The apprenticeship programme’s seven focus areas
The apprenticeship is designed to allow a range of approaches to training. Apprentices can choose from one of seven focus areas of the programme, depending on the specific skills they need for their workplace. The focus areas are Bariatric Care, Dementia and Bariatric Care, Dementia and Brain Injury, Dementia and Frailty, Frailty, Palliative Care, and Spinal Injury Care.

Employers may also be eligible for the Government’s Apprenticeship Boost fund which is currently available until August 2022. Additionally, enrolments are currently fees free until December 2022 via the Targeted Training and Apprenticeship Fund (TTAF).

Re-enrolling in the apprenticeship programme
If you have staff already enrolled in the trainee programme, but would like to re-enrol them into the apprenticeship, you are able to do so, and we ask you to contact your Careerforce Workplace Advisor. Communications have been sent to these employers and their trainees to advise them of their options.

Find out more about the New Zealand Apprenticeship in Advanced Care and Support.

After arriving in New Zealand in 2011, Cathy Briones has used her love for learning and teaching to progress from workplace trainee to workplace assessor, and now a staff assessor at Careerforce.

Cathy joined Careerforce in January 2022 to support the assessment of learners completing the New Zealand Certificate in Health and Wellbeing Levels 2, 3 and 4 – the same qualifications she achieved as an advanced support worker not too long ago.
“Learning never stops,” Cathy said, “I believe in growth and how important lifelong learning is.”

Despite a nursing background from the Philippines, Cathy was motivated to complete her workplace training at Access Community Health in Christchurch.

During her nine years with the home-based healthcare and support provider, she worked her way up to Health and Wellbeing Level 4 before completing her Initial Assessor’s Training to become a workplace assessor.

On top of that, Cathy recently achieved her New Zealand Certificate in Adult and Tertiary Teaching through Open Polytechnic. “I was truly enjoying doing the hands-on support work, meeting different people as I worked in the community…and imparting knowledge and sharing skills to the people we trained,” Cathy said.

As we have earlier detailed, we were successful in receiving an additional $430,000 in funding from the TEC’s Covid-19 Response Fund, and that ensures the critical Life Changing Careers campaign will continue over 2022.

The 2022 campaign will commence in April, initially using existing campaign materials. We will also be developing two new video stories, but Covid-19 restrictions have created timing uncertainties for the filming of these. We will be scouting for talent shortly.

In the meantime, and to support 2022 campaign activity, we’re also looking to develop a series of news stories of people who have commenced care and support roles over the last year, and who would be happy to share their stories. If you have passionate new staff that have joined over the last year, and who you think represent the diversity we’re looking to build into the workforce, drop us an email. We would love to hear from you.

If you are a disability support service provider, a person with lived experience or have an interest in workforce development for the disability sector, there is an upcoming opportunity for you to share your ideas.

The New Zealand Disability Support Network are hosting a hui on 6 April from 10am – 12pm and are inviting people to share stories, experiences, or thoughts about four workforce development projects they are co-sponsoring.

Details about each of the projects, along with registration and contact details are contained in their flyer here.

We’re excited to be supporting Whakamanawa – the National Social Services virtual conference.

Whakamanawa is the only conference in Aotearoa bringing together social services kaimahi, social sector leaders and influencers. It's an opportunity to engage with social services and social sector kaimahi from all corners of the motu to learn about and share your whakaaro on the latest developments in government policy, social service practice, workforce development and related kaupapa.

Keynote speakers include Hon Kelvin Davis (Minister for Children), Matt Brown (She is Not Your Rehab), Louise Marra (leadership expert), Chappie Te Kani (CEO, Oranga Tamariki), and inspirational young leader Māhera Maihi (CEO and founder of Mā Te Huruhuru Charitable Trust).

Everyone who works and learns across Aotearoa’s social services and social sector is welcome to attend - this is your conference!

Visit the Conference website to see the programme and to get your tickets.

For many years, employers have stressed the need to address literacy and numeracy in our schools. Staff with great aptitude are unable to progress in their career because they lack the literacy/computer literacy required at more senior levels in the workplace. Last week we saw some dramatic changes in the compulsory education sector with regard to teaching literacy and maths.

New Zealand literacy research results released Monday 21 March:
A 2020 UNICEF report found that a staggering 35.4% - over a third of New Zealand 15 year olds – struggle to read and write. Given the critical (and growing) importance of literacy, not only for education and advancement in employment but also for broader life outcomes, this statistic is deeply worrying.

On Monday March 21st, The Education Hub released reports from their research into the state of literacy in Aotearoa New Zealand. This research shows the need for better evidence-based teaching practice and education leadership, and demonstrates the need for a systematic step-by-step approach using phonics-based decoding strategies in reading and writing.

The reports are available on the Education Hub website here:
Interview on Breakfast News here
and Kathryn Ryan’s Nine to Noon – audio here

Ministry of Education released new strategy for teaching maths and literacy Friday 25 March:
Then on Friday the MoE revealed its plan to overhaul the teaching of literacy communication and maths in schools “to increase wellbeing, higher educational outcomes and qualifications, and better job opportunities for mokopuna”. See the One News report here

If you have any concerns regarding staff with literacy or numeracy learning needs, please contact Cushla Wilson. TEC offers funded provision by Workplace Literacy and Numeracy specialists for staff not in training and those doing qualification courses up to and including Level 3. If you have apprentices or Level 4 trainees struggling with their programme, please contact Cushla or the apprenticeship advisor to discuss support options.

Do you have staff in Christchurch who are currently enrolled in our training programmes (or recently graduated), and would be happy to share their positive experiences in front of a camera?

We’re working on a video project to help promote the benefits of workplace training, and we need your help. We’re specifically looking for cleaners, aged care workers, and youth workers. Diversity is key!    

We’re looking for trainees who are:  

in the middle of/or just completed their traineeship
confident in front of the camera
able to represent your workplace well

able to talk confidently about their training experience and help motivate future trainees.

We are also seeking trainees who may be bilingual (perhaps English is not their first language).

We’re taking expressions of interest now and will undertake filming once COVID-19 restrictions have eased. To register your interest, please complete this form.