The Australian, State and Territory governments are committed to engaging and considering the views of all clients and students, particularly disadvantaged clients, in training planning and delivery. To this end, the Client and Student Voice Action Group is leading the development of national client advisory arrangements for the new national training system.
The Client and Student Voice Action Group has released three consultation papers seeking stakeholders views on the best mechanisms to support ongoing high level advice on the needs of:
- all clients and students;
- people with a disability; and
- Indigenous Australians.
Feedback on the possible role, scope of activity and operation of advisory arrangements is sought from all stakeholders - including students, parents, carers, Elders, advocacy and community groups, training organisations, teachers, employers, government agencies, industry and researchers.
Written submissions are due by close of business on 17 February 2006.
In March, a targeted cross-section of stakeholders will participate in consultation forums to further discuss, develop and refine ideas proposed in submissions. It is anticipated that a total of five forums will be held in Western Australia, Northern Territory, far-north Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia.
To maintain the momentum in improving training and employment outcomes, the Action Group is working quickly and collaboratively to put new national advisory arrangements in place by June 2006.
To download the consultation papers and further information, visit http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/training_skills/policy_issues_reviews/key_issues/nts/action/csvag.htm
Exploring Transitions & Opportunities: A Topical Conference
11-13 October 2006 - Cairns Convention Centre
This conference attracts 750+ delegates and is a networking opportunity to explore:
- National and International issues in education and training
- Transitioning from school to work and further education
- Vocational, technical, enterprise and career education issues
- Indigenous education and training
- Partnerships
- Flexible learning
- Changing nature of schooling.
Keynote speakers include Jimmy Pham, founder of the KOTO Project (Know One, Teach One), Hanoi, Vietnam; Mark Rose, Koorie Strategy; Tania Major, Koyanyama Justice Group; Bob Hince, Change Management Consultant; Paul Brederick, CEO Aviation Australia and DEST representatives.
Delegates will choose from over 50 VET practitioner presentations, share and gather information at community of interest workshops, and interact with VET leaders in panel sessions. The latest research in vocational and technical education will also be presented at the Research Forum. Industry tours will include visits to the Great Barrier Reef and the Tropical Rainforest. Young people will be demonstrating their work as part of the Formula One Challenge – Re-engineering Australia projects.
Registration details at http://www.vetnetwork.org.au/ 
For general conference inquiries telephone Business Liaison Association on 074047 6451 or email cairnsconference@bla.org.au
For national inquiries contact VETnetwork Australia at vetnetwork@bigpond.com or telephone 07 32541431.
The Steps Programme – TAFE NSW Riverina Institute
The Adult Literacy National Project, administered by DEST provides funding for a number of strategic initiatives in the field of adult literacy. DEST recently received the final report of an Innovative Project conducted by TAFE NSW Riverina Institute, entitled The STEPS Programme.
The STEPS programme began when representatives from TAFE NSW Riverina Institute, Wagga Wagga Campus, Department of Community Services, Wagga Wagga City Council, Kooringal Public School and the Regional Office of the Department of Education and Training met to develop innovative ways to provide community capacity-building and literacy connections for indigenous and non-indigenous families, who have very limited contacts in their community due to limited literacy skills, and who have primary-school or pre-school aged children with learning disadvantages.
The STEPS programme has generated transformational change among isolated people in the Kooringal community who were struggling to cope with their own lives and to support and nurture for their children. The success of the programme ranges from significant growth in literacy and numeracy skills to the more complex interrelation of skills, knowledge and attitudes required for social capacity building reflected in the aims of the programme.
While the project could not evaluate a dollar ‘return on investment’ for this programme, it has made significant savings to support costs for these people as well as generating employment opportunities for people who absolutely lacked this potential at the beginning of the programme. Three examples give some idea of the scale of these cost savings.
- The child of a client who had been removed from the client’s care by DOCS was returned after the client was able to demonstrate that she had learnt the skills and knowledge to provide proper care. An unofficial estimate of the cost of DOCS care per child in these circumstances is between $9 000 and $14 000 per year;
- In a second case three children from one family were assessed as needing one on one or small group learning support. As a consequence of their mother developing the skills needed to support their learning at home they have remained in mainstream classes where they are functioning well;
- A third client moved from social isolation to full employment preparing meals for a pre-school due to the support she received from the STEPS programme. Her employer has provided additional training that has given her certification in menu planning and safe food handling.
The following characteristics of the STEPS programme contributed significantly to its success:
Interagency approach
The associated agencies operated as multidisciplinary facilitators within a learning support ‘team’. They shared their experience and knowledge of the characteristics of the target group, had a long-term commitment to the project, and communicated openly to achieve programme outcomes.
The interagency approach also provided a referral base to contact socially isolated families and involve them in the programme. The usual promotional strategies were not an effective means of communicating. A personal, sensitive approach was much more effective. Collaboration between agencies also gave clients access to a range of resources and services through a single connection point. This saved families having to obtain services themselves from multiple service providers. While it was anticipated that this would be a benefit of the STEPS approach, it was only realised through the operation of the project how important a factor this is in making contact with socially isolated families and helping to develop social capital.
The third important aspect of the interagency relationship is that client learning and skill development were often blocked by issues in the clients’ lives that they were unable to deal with effectively. Learning and literacy learning was often unable to begin until these problems were overcome – usually with the assistance of programme partners.
The project team believes that the reason the multi-agency approach worked is that STEPS is a relationship model rather than a service model. The project builds support flexibly around families rather than providing particular kinds of support from independent agencies to particular kinds of families. Inherent in this is recognition that rather than measuring outcomes by participation or support provided they need to be measured in terms of the conversion of this support to changes in the lives of client families.
Integration also means that the support provided by individual agencies is maintained and made more effective by the coordinated support of others. For instance where literacy is a limiting factor in accessing agency support or where poor diet or health practice at home are limiting the capacity of children to participate at school. Coordinated solutions to these problems have an accelerator effect on the results achieved by the intervention of each agency.
Learning is integral to transformational change
To avoid dependency, teaching and learning need to be an integral part of the programme. The strong development of knowledge, skills and attitudes among the STEPS participants and the application of these skills to their lives outside the teaching situation was the real measure of success.
Given that, it was also critical to the programme’s success that teaching took place in the participants’ space and was directly related to their immediate and longer term needs. This required a great deal of flexibility and sensitivity in the delivery of the programme. Iin-home support was often critical to provide contact between playgroup sessions and to allow modelling of skills relating directly to the participant’s everyday life.
This ‘mobile’ approach to literacy mentoring meant that each access point provided relevant, ‘student’ centred, authentic and complex learning activities. Learning was to be focussed on ‘real world issues’ that had immediate relevance and interest for individuals and communities. There was also more opportunity for therapeutic support which contributed to breaking the cycle’ of isolation, low self esteem and depression.
Making and maintaining connections with families
Other programmes designed to support disadvantaged families through parental support have experienced difficulties in connecting with the people that the programme is intended to support. Experience in the STEPS programme showed that the initial “promotional” approaches were ineffective. Even when contact was made through referral it was important to proceed in a careful, respectful manner.
Previous programmes have also experienced high attrition rates. People in this group often experience disruption and disorganisation in their lives. During the STEPS programme this included hospitalisation, custody issues, lack of family organisation and harmony, work commitments, lack of transport, phone disconnections and many others. The teaching and learning and support programmes need to be flexible enough to take these issues into account.
This model can be readily transferable to other locations as long as the model is contextualised for the specific location and community. While a similar programme could be established in other areas of Wagga Wagga, we also strongly believe that the Kooringal STEPS programme could not be extended to these areas without losing its critical relationship to individual clients and the Kooringal community.
Changes in the culture of support agencies
As the project evolved, associated agencies needed to respond to the families by modifying their organisational ‘culture’. For example Kooringal Public School recognised that they need to include an understanding of the interaction of these families in their community to work effectively with their children. A similar process needs to take place in libraries, health agencies, DOCS, TAFE and funding bodies.
All agencies came to recognise that their clients are dealing with circumstances such as social organisation and economic practices that they, for one reason or another, are not able to effectively control. A useful starting question may be “How can these families show us a better way of providing our services and achieving our corporate objectives?”
Funding bodies may need to recognise that their requirement for programmes to become self funding or find alternative funding after two or three years may not in fact be a reasonable requirement for programmes that require teaching/learning and interagency approaches for their effectiveness or where the targeted clients are socially isolated or unskilled. Such programmes are unlikely to generate their own funds, attract funding from individual agencies or be able to significantly reduce personnel costs for the level of expertise required.
Why TAFE
STEPS recognises that the family is the unit of support and that the key issue in socially isolated families is that parents have limited skills to form meaningful contact with their communities. The key strategy is personalised learning. For this to happen support often needs to be provided to assist clients overcome physical blocks (eg transport), social blocks (isolation, poor parenting skills) and health issues (nutrition, depression, disease).
TAFE has the expertise that can directly provide for the learning needs of each client while providing connections to support agencies. Because of this participants in the STEPS programme were able learn the skills to first of all access the support they need and then go beyond that towards social connection and nurturing the development of their children.
TAFE NSW Riverina Institute Wagga Wagga campus has many community agency partnerships established as part of their provision of vocational education and training programmes across the campus. Senior managers are involved with local and regional government funding and advisory agencies – important for ‘speaking up’ about programmes to meet community needs.
TAFE infrastructure and resources support the STEPS programme in a variety of ways from library services to marketing. Electronic communication systems facilitate easy communication between the Coordinator/teachers and agency representatives. This can be very important for obtaining information for a participant, or to meet an immediate need. Importantly TAFE procedures were used by the coordinator to provide a wide range of operational support for the programme including OH&S, work placement, indemnity for excursion travel and host employers, flexible enrolment in courses and programmes leading to certification and local agencies that offer community and pre-employment courses.
The fact that TAFE systems can be used flexibly is critical in a programme that is dealing with people who would not normally become involved in a support programme, who can require support at irregular times, within their homes for a wide variety of reasons. Unless a referral occurs, other agencies rely on a client making the first move. STEPS presumes there may not be a first move and look for ways to comfortably connect with a family through the needs of the child.
Peer support (at the Community Supported Playgroup and the Adult based Learning) is encouraged. Observing the client, and their child/ren, in a range of learning environments, including their family environment, increases the opportunity for the coordinator/teacher to look for ‘teachable’ moments meaning that development of client skills can occur quickly
The full report on the STEPS programme is available at http://www.dest.gov.au/literacynet/resources1.htm#Community.