Newsletter Number 53 - February 2008

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The Community Services & Health Industry Skills Council's CHC02 Community Services Training Package Review Draft 2 validation session is fast approaching.

Council representives will be visiting Darwin to gather feedback on Community Services qualifications, and invite industry stakeholders to attend the following sessions to supply feedback on behalf of their territory and industry sectors:

• Friday 29 February 2008
• 9.30 am - 4.30 pm
• General (all sectors) Validation
• Novotel Atrium, 100 The Esplanade, Darwin.

To register for these sessions, please click here>>

To visit the project webpage, click here>>

For further information on which session would be most appropriate for you, please contact: Vanessa Dayeh, Project Coordinator on (02) 9270 6616 or fax (02) 9270 6601.

Family and Children's Services (FACS) aims to deliver and facilitate high quality, contemporary and relevant training designed to assist in the maintenance of robust and responsive care and protection for children and families in the Northern Territory.

Workshops commence in Darwin on 19 February and in Alice Springs on 26 February 2008, and continue through to 19 June and 26 June 2008 respectively.

For further information on eligibility, applications, registration etc and dates, times and venues for workshops in Darwin and Alice Springs, click here>>

ABORIGINAL HEALTH OUTCOMES AND HEARING LOSS

Dr Damien Howard PhD of Phoenix Consulting has been kind enough to make the following timely and relevant information on this important subject available to us:

Health services are usually aware that cultural and linguistic factors can be an obstacle to providing services to Aboriginal clients. However, they often have little knowledge or understanding of the ways in which the widespread and usually unidentified hearing loss among Aboriginal people can affect communication with, and health outcomes of, Aboriginal people.

Read more about>>

• Different types of hearing loss
• Communication problems
• Aboriginal education
• Hearing loss and world views
• Background noise
• Criminal justice system
• Family life
• Aboriginal employment

Dr Howard can be contacted by:

Phone: (08) 8948 4444
Fax: (08) 8930 9003
Web: www.eartroubles.com

HAVE YOUR SAY ON THE NEW COMMUNITY REHABILITATION AND CHRONIC DISEASE SELF MANAGEMENT UNITS
Register now for Validation Sessions in Darwin!

The Community Services and Health Industry Skills Council (ISC) is holding national workshops to validate two sets of draft units of competency.

Validation workshops will be held in Darwin:

• Monday 3 March 2008
• Novotel Atrium, The Esplande, Darwin
• 10am - 12pm Community Rehabilitation Assisting
• 1pm - 3pm Chronic Disease Self Managing

The project Industry Reference Group has contributed to development of a Scoping Report and draft units of competency which are now available for industry review and validation until 31 March 2008. To download the units and scoping report and for details to submit feedback, click here>>

HSTAC is delighted to welcome Marilyn Harris to our team as Operations Manager. A word from Marilyn:

I have been fortunate to obtain the position of Operations Manager with HSTAC, a position where my current skills will set me in good stead, and yet will still throw challenges my way. I look forward to working with the team, who have all been wonderful, as well as meeting new people with whom I will come in contact within this role.

After many years experience in University management and administration positions in Queensland, this position allows me to utilise my multimedia production, management, administration and training roles to support HSTAC services. Prior to this appointment, I spent 16 months in Katherine teaching VET Business Courses, and this broadened my understanding of training in the NT and, in particular, issues for Indigenous students, school students and mature aged students.

On a lighter note, I have three adult children, two of whom live in Darwin, the other in Townsville. We have recently purchased our first 4WD, so our passion is to spend many weekends seeing more of the NT, but we have to wait for the rain to stop! In my spare time I enjoy watching family play sport, going to the gym (occasionally), as well as sorting through my mother's collection of stamps. At the moment this involves going through Australian stamps dating way back to the early 1900's.

I look forward to meeting many of you, and can be contacted on projects@hstac.com.au, or phone (08) 8981 2550.

HSTAC RESEARCH PROJECTS UPDATE

Research activity this month has centred on following up letters of invitation sent in January 2008 to all the 57 Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) in the NT. The letters invited participation in a telephone survey designed to assist in the identification of factors surrounding the shortage of skilled vocational education and training (VET) trainer/assessors in the NT.

To date, over half of all NT RTOs have been contacted and have responded, including the largest - Charles Darwin University. Work is continuing to complete this telephone survey. To facilitate response from people with executive level responsibility, the questionnaire contains only 15 formal questions which can be answered well within a 15 minute timeframe, together with an invitation for additional comment where the respondent considers there were issues not identified in the questionnaire. HSTAC is grateful for the excellent responses received.

The project is funded by the NT Department of Employment, Education and Training (DEET) and a report and recommendations are scheduled for submission to the Department in March 2008.

We would be interested to hear from readers of any research undertaken - locally, interstate or nationally - on the supply of, and demand for, VET trainers and assessors in any area of training delivery.