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SKILLSIQ
CAPABLE FECPLE MAKE CLEVER BUSINESS
Submission to The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse,
Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability
SkillsIQ Ltd is a not-for-profit, independent Skills Service Organisation supporting a range of Industry Reference Committees (IRCs) to undertake training product development that ensures skills meet future industry needs.
We support 19 Industry Reference Committees (IRCs) representing some 90 diverse service related and ‘people-facing’ industry sectors, including the Disability Support IRC and a number of other IRCs across the Health and Community Services sectors. These IRCs are collectively responsible for overseeing the development and review of ten training packages serving the skills needs of sectors comprising almost 50 per cent of the Australian workforce. Recommendations are delivered through the Australian Industry and Skills Committee (AISC) with the intent of positioning Australia to respond to additional demands for services as our population ages and to capitalise on synergies across the services sector to increase career pathways and mobility and the recruitment of young people.
Introduction
The National Disability Strategy (NDS) is a ten-year national plan (2010-2020) for improving the life experiences of Australians with disability, their families and carers. It seeks to foster an inclusive society that enables people with disability to fulfil their potential as equal citizens. It was endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in February 2011.
There are around 4.3 million Australians who have a disability. When it is fully rolled out, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) will provide about 460,000 Australians aged under 65 who have permanent and significant disability with funding for supports and services. For many people, it will be the first time they receive the disability support they need.
The disability sector workforce currently employs 100,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers and is estimated to grow by another 90,000 FTE over the next five years, effectively almost doubling in size. The document Growing the NDIS Market and Workforce issued by the Government of Australia cites the following:
NDIS is expected to be one of the largest job creation opportunities in Australian history, with up to an additional 90,000 full-time equivalent employees (FTE) needed over the next five years?.
1 Australia Government, Department of Social Services (2019) “Growing the NDIS Market and Workforce”
Commonwealth of Australia
Address: GPO Box 4194 Sydney NSW 2000 / Level 1, 332 Kent St, Sydney NSW 2000 \ Telephone: 02 9392 8100 \ Website: www.skillsig.com.au
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Figure 1 - NDIS Workforce Growth Projections
Estimated
90,000 FTE
workforce growth
Current disability sector over the next full time equivalent five years (FTE) workforce
On 18 February 2019, the Government supported a motion in Parliament to establish a Royal Commission to inquire into violence, abuse, neglect and the exploitation of people with disability.
The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability
(‘the Disability Royal Commission’) was established on 4 April 2019. The Australian Government will fund advocacy support and counselling services for people engaging with or affected by the Disability Royal Commission.
In light of the significance of the disability workforce, the purpose of this submission is to provide the Commission with factual information on the history of the development of the relevant VET qualifications, the VET system as it applies in this context, and relevant challenges impacting on the delivery of high quality, safe and affordable disability services in accordance with the Royal Commission’s Terms of Reference.
Vocational Education and Training
VET qualifications are designed to provide the skills and knowledge required to undertake job roles in many different sectors of the Australian economy. Qualifications are made up of building blocks named Units of Competency. Each Unit outlines the standards for the performance of a certain job task or skill and is accompanied by Assessment Requirements, which outline the performance and knowledge standards that a learner must be able to demonstrate to be assessed as competent in that Unit.
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Qualifications have Core Units which are mandatory Units that all learners must successfully complete in order to achieve the qualification. They may also have Elective Units which can be varied in order to tailor the qualification to meet specific industry or employer needs. The qualification Packaging Rules designate the total number of Units and the mix of Core and Elective Units which must be successfully completed to achieve the qualification.
Qualifications may also have Entry Requirements, which designate what must be achieved by the learner prior to enrolling in the qualification. This is commonly another previously completed qualification that provides the underpinning skills and knowledge required to complete the new qualification; a period of work experience; a licence; or similar evidence of prior learning.
Units of Competency may have pre-requisites which must also be successfully completed prior to being awarded a subsequent Unit. Usually pre-requisites are other Units of Competency, or licences. It is uncommon (although not forbidden) for a pre-requisite to be a period of work experience.
Job Roles Catered to by the Current Disability Qualifications
The current disability qualifications are targeted at workers who are employed to provide personal care, physical and emotional support and/or the supervision of people with physical and/or intellectual disabilities in a range of settings such as clients’ own homes, specialised residential care facilities, hospitals or other care environments under direct or regular supervision within clearly defined organisational guidelines and service plans. These workers:
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Carry out activities to maintain the personal care of those living with a disability
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Assist clients with domestic tasks and chores related to shopping and other activities
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Help with social activities and other daily routines
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Provide companionship and support to assist clients in developing their existing skills, abilities and confidence, and
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Report directly to a supervisor and are not responsible for other workers. 3
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The job titles of these workers may be as follows:
• Assistant in Nursing • Nursing Assistant • Disability Service Officer (in
• Care Service Employee • Care Worker some jurisdictions)
• Lifestyle Support Officer • Personal Care Assistant/Worker • School Support Worker
• Community Development • Personal Caregiver (Disability)
Officer • Social Educator (Disability) • Marketing Coordinator
• Senior Personal Care Assistant • Support Facilitator (Disability) (Disability)
• Behavioural Support Officer • Job Coordinator • Day Support Disability Officer
• Disability Team Leader • Disabilities Supervisor • Senior Disability Worker
• Disability Support Assistant • Social Trainer • Local Area Coordinator
(Schools) • Project Officer
Development of Qualifications Relevant to Disability Support
At present there are two main qualifications that specifically cater to the disability support sector:
- CHC33015 Certificate Ill in Individual Support (Disability), and
- CHC43115 Certificate IV in Disability. As illustrated in Figure 2 below, the qualifications that support this sector have undergone several updates over the past 10 years, culminating in the two current qualifications (above) being released in 2015.
Figure 2 - Timeline of Disability Qualification Development
Disability Qualification Development at the Certificate Ill Level:
CHC33015- CHC30302 - CHC30408 - Certificate III in Certificate III in Certificate III in Individual Disability Work Disability Support
Released in 2007 Released in 2011 Released in 2015
Disability Qualification Development at the Certificate IV Level:
CHC40302- CHC40308- CHC40312- CllC43115-
Certificate IV in Certificate IV in Certificate IV in Certificate IV in
Disability Work Disability Disability Disability
Reieasedin 2007 Reieasetlin 2011 Reieasedin 2012 Reieasedin 2015
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There are other existing qualifications that cater for job roles in specialised sectors related to disability work, as follows:
- CPP40811 Certificate IV in Access Consulting
- CHC43415 Certificate IV in Leisure and Health
- LGA40204 Certificate IV in Local Government Administration
- CHC40113 Certificate IV in School Age Education and Care
- CPP50711 Diploma ofAccess Consulting
- CHC52015 Diploma of Community Services
- FNS51915 Diploma of Personal Injury and Disability Insurance Management
- CHC82015 Graduate Certificate in Client Assessment and Case Management
- CPP80313 Graduate Diploma ofAccess Consulting. The CHC30302 Certificate Ill in Disability Work and CHC40302 Certificate IV in Disability Work qualifications were first released in 2007. They were developed by the Community Services and Health Industry Council, which was funded by the Australian Government to develop National Training Package Standards on behalf of the Community Services and Health industries. The vast majority of the disability care workforce completed these qualifications either to secure employment in the sector and/or to strengthen their employment prospects within it.
In 2011, these qualifications were reviewed and the CHC30408 Certificate Ill in Disability and CHC40308 Certificate IV in Disability were released to replace the 2007 versions. In 2012, a minor update was made to the CHC40308 Certificate IV in Disability to include the current versions of the two Work Health & Safety (WHS) Units, HLTWHS300A Contribute to WHS processes and CHCWHS312A Follow WHS safety procedures for direct care work to better reflect legislative changes in workplace health and safety regulations. The 2011 version of the CHC30408 Certificate Ill in Disability qualification and the 2012 updated version of the CHC40312 Certificate IV in Disability qualification underwent a few changes designed to make them fitter for purpose and more specifically targeted to the disability support sector. These changes included:
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The grouping of Core Units to equip learners with skills and knowledge to match the requirements of various job roles in the disability support sector
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The grouping of Elective Units to enable learners to specialise in a range of areas and acquire skills and knowledge specific to disability work. These specialisations were as follows:
o Work health and safety (WHS) o Cultural awareness and respectful practice o Augmentative and alternative communication strategies 5
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o Client support o Medication and health professional support o Working with older people o Working with people with mental health issues o Working with people with alcohol and other drug issues o Organisation support o Leisure and health o Team coordination and supervision o Outreach work o Oral health.
In 2015, there were significant changes to the qualifications in terms of both content and structure. These changes were implemented partly in response to the change in policy direction in VET, which saw training package products updated to meet the Standards for Training Packages 2012, but also in order to reflect a change in ideology in regard to how qualifications were structured to meet skills needs within and across industry sectors.
There was a move toward identifying common skills that could be applied across industry sectors by utilising a common set of Core Units, alongside various ‘streams’ of Elective Units that would cater to specific industry needs. This was the impetus behind the creation of the current CHC33015 Certificate Ill in Individual Support (which merged CHC30212 Certificate Ill in Aged Care, CHC30408 Certificate Ill in Disability and CHC30312 Certificate Ill in Home and Community Care) and the updated current version of CHC43115 Certificate IV in Disability.
These new qualifications had changes to both the Packaging Rules and to the Core Units. The Entry Requirements were removed and a minimum work requirement of 120 hours to obtain either qualification was a mandatory addition. As mentioned previously, these qualifications contained common Core Units but also allowed learners to specialise by way of choosing Elective ‘streams’ which provided specific skills tailored to Disability Support, Aged Care and/or Home and Community Care.
Following a review of the VET system in 2010, the federal government defunded the Industry Skills Councils and, in their place, created Skills Service Organisations (SSOs), of whom Skills IQ is one of six. SSOs help ensure training qualifications provide skills and knowledge to meet current and future industry needs.
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SkillslQ was appointed in 2016 and is responsible for 19 SkillslQ’s Industry Reference service-based industry areas. We write the national Committees ► Aboriginal and Torres Strait Occupational Standards that determine the structure and Islander Health Worker curriculum of training qualifications provided by ► Aged care services Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) in Australia. The ► Ambulance and Paramedic development of the national Occupational Standards is ► Children’s Education and Care ► Client Services based on extensive consultation, and SkillslQ works ► Community Sector and collaboratively with industry representatives, state and Development federal government organisations and RTOs to design
► Complementary Health
these. These Standards form the Australian national ► Dental ► Direct Client Care and Support framework for skills development in the respective ► Disability services industry areas.
► Enrolled Nursing
► First Aid Essential to this process are the Industry Reference
► Local Government
Committees (IRCs). The IRCs are collaboratively
► Personal Services
responsible for overseeing the development and review of ► Public Sector ► Sport and Recreation Vocational, Education and Training (VET) training packages ► Technicians Support Services in Australia. In recent years, SkillslQ has developed ► Wholesale and Retail Services Industry Skills Forecasts on behalf of each of the IRCs ► Tourism, Travel and Hospitality under our purview.
An Industry Skills Forecast provides an overview of the current industry environment, the nature of the current skills and knowledge of the workforce, as well as insights into the skills and knowledge that will be required of the future workforce. Compiling this information helps guide and support the discussion around training qualifications and focus on areas of importance, including the identification of skills gaps - and, in so doing, providing evidence to support the revision of qualifications. These Industry Skills Forecasts have therefore been used to help re shape and develop vocational and education training (VET) qualifications. Figure 3, below, describes the development and review process.
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Figure 3 - Training Package Development and Review Process
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Disability Support Industry Reference Committee
In accordance with the Australian Government’s National Disability Strategy, a Disability Support
IRC was established by the Australian Industry and Skills Committee in 2019 to ensure that the national education and training system would be able to deliver an agile workforce capable of providing safe and high quality care to Australians with physical or intellectual disabilities in a variety of settings. This has required identifying and addressing the current and future competencies and skill requirements of new workers entering the sector and of existing staff needing to upskill via qualifications conferred either by the VET or the Higher Education (university) sector.
The process of establishing the IRC was put in place following the announcement by the AISC in November 2018 that a Disability Support Industry Reference Committee would be created. Consultation on the structure of the Committee took place subsequent to the announcement, and public and industry feedback was solicited together with a call for Expressions of Interest once the structure and representation had been established. The final composition of the IRC was determined by the AISC in June of 2019, and Table 1 lists its current membership:
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Table 1 - Current Membership of the Disability Support Industry Reference Committee as at October 2019
Category Organisation or area of expertise Member State/
Territory
Peak bodies, National Disability Insurance Agency Ms Liz Neville VIC
associations and (NOIA)
Government
NDIS Quality and Safeguards Mr Abel MacDonald NSW
Commission
Mental health Yet to be appointed by the
Secretariat
National Disability Services Mr Will Kestin TAS
Allied Health Professionals Australia Ms Catherine Olsson VIC
(AHPA) (Speech Pathology Australia)
Industry/ Disability service providers Ms Judy Williamson NSW
employers (Cerebral Palsy Alliance)
Mr Benjamin Keast QLD
(ARC Disability Services)
Rural/remote disability service Mr Paul Morgan WA
provider (Goldfields Individual & Family
Support Association (GIFSA))
Individuals, Assistive technologies expertise Ms Robyn Chapman NSW
employers, peak (Assistive Technology Australia) bodies,
Consumer advocacy group/body Mr Ross Joyce VIC associations
(Australian Federation of
Disability Organisations)
Employee Australian Services Union (ASU) Ms Jan Primrose NSW
representatives
Health Services Union (HSU) Ms Leigh Svendsen VIC
Total 12 members
The Disability Support IRC is responsible for:
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Reforming national training package qualifications and skill sets needed by the disability support industry
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Examining new approaches to career structuring and progression in the sector, and the educational pathways needed to support these 9
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G)
SKILLSIO
CAPABLE PEOPLE MAKE CLEVER BUSINESS
e Scoping opportunities for collaboration across VET, Higher Education and a range of industry sectors to tackle the challenges of a society caring for people with a disability, and
e Working with other IRCs which have an interest in qualifications relevant to the disability support sector to ensure industry needs are considered and met.
SkillsiIQ was selected as the SSO responsible for the remit of the Disability Support IRC following a tender process supervised by the Department of Education under whose aegis Vocational Education and Training previously sat. Following the Federal Election of May 2019, the VET sector was reallocated to become a portfolio of the Department of Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business. SkillsiQ is contracted to provide support to the Disability Support IRC until March of 2020.
The inaugural meeting of the newly formed Disability Support IRC took place in Melbourne on 28 August 2019, at which time members elected the Chair, Mr Benjamin Keast, and Deputy Chair, Ms Leigh Svendsen. One of the critical issues raised by the Committee related to stakeholder consultation regarding the repackaging of the Certificate II] in Individual Support into a Certificate Ill in Ageing Support which took place as a result of a recommendation of the Aged Care Workforce Strategy Taskforce.
After consultation on Draft 1 of the proposed Certificate III in Ageing Support, the Aged Services IRC concluded that it shared the same concerns as the Disability Support IRC regarding the separation of the Aged Care and Disability qualification titles, notwithstanding the fact that there is significant overlap within both sectors.
Concern was expressed by the Aged Services IRC that echoed the concerns of the Disability Support IRC regarding returning to separate Aged Services and Disability Support qualifications. For example, the Aged Services IRC raised the prospect that an Aged Care worker might become restricted in the scope of his or her professional development by virtue of a qualification that appeared to segment and restrict the scope of practice that in essence many felt should be entirely portable between the Residential Care, Home Care and Disability sectors. Further concern was expressed in terms of workers in regional or rural areas where it was more difficult to specialise and where it was even more likely an individual would work in one sector (e.g. Aged Care) and carry out tasks pertinent to another (e.g. Disability).
This gave rise to further discussions around the possibility of making changes to the Individual Support qualifications and the potential ramifications on the Disability and Home & Community Care (HACC) sectors which also currently use this qualification. SkillsIQ noted that it was permissible to change the elective Units of Competency listed within a qualification, but that any change to the core Units of Competency or the Packaging Rules of the qualification would require a full endorsement process and consultation across all affected industry sectors.
10 SkillsiQ Submission to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability,
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The following options were discussed by the Aged Services IRC at its August 2019 meeting:
Option 1: Leave things as they are for the moment. Maintain the existing Individual Support qualification.
Option 2: Continue with the development of the separate qualification, Certificate Ill in Ageing Support, but make changes to both the proposed Core and Elective components based on feedback received from the Draft 1 consultation process.
Option 3: In proceeding to Draft 2, look to re-draft the qualification, provisionally titling it Certificate Ill in Consumer Care (title yet to be identified), similar to the existing Certificate Ill in Individual Support, but with changes to the packaging and the structure of Electives, so it achieves the same goals as the proposed Draft 1 qualification, but still also allows for the achievement of cross-sector skills.
The Aged Services IRC meeting agreed to commit to Option 3 and requested SkillslQ work with the sub-group that had formed the first version of Draft 1 to form Draft 2 and circulate to the Aged Services IRC before proceeding to the validation consultation. The Disability Support IRC was advised of this decision.
With regard to the full review of the qualification, Skills IQ has arranged a meeting of the Chairs and Deputy Chairs of five IRCs - Aged Services, Disability Support, Direct Client Care and Support, Community Sector and Development, and Enrolled Nursing - on 28 October 2019 to discuss the complete review of the Certificate Ill in Individual Support, as it is important that we all work collaboratively to ensure that the review is conducted on behalf of the critical needs of the aggregate workforce.
A further development that will impact workforce issues in the sector was the announcement by the Australian Government in the May 2019 Budget that two pilot Skills Organisations (SOs), one in Digital Transformation and the second in Human Services, were to be established as a result of a recommendation in the Strengthening Skills: Expert Review ofAustralia’s Vocational Education and Training System led by the Hon. Steven Joyce (‘the Joyce Review’). Consultation on the co design of the Human Services Skills Organisation is currently underway and the scope is expected to cover Disability, Aged Services and Child Care. What the role of the pilots will be, who will control the entities and how they will work with the existing Disability, Aged Services and Early Childcare IRCs is yet to be made known.
End of document
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