In response to the recent changes to aged care reform, Three Tree Lodge and Lithgow Aged Care are working together to offer their staff the opportunity to upskill at TAFE NSW.
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Lithgow Aged Care CEO Craig Oeding said the organisation was thrilled to be working with Three Tree Lodge and TAFE NSW to provide staff with the opportunity to further their skills.
Three Tree Lodge CEO Kate Hurrell said, since preparations began for the Aged Quality Standards which were released nationally on July 1 2019, she has noticed an increased requirement for good governance, increased skills and a more person-centred approach for residents.
"We have joined forces with Lithgow Aged Care and made a commitment to more than 40 staff to complete customised training at TAFE NSW Lithgow in dementia care, leadership and management, workplace communication and resilience," she said.
"We're really passionate about investing in our staff and motivating them to become leaders in the sector."
Ms Hurrell said that the purpose behind joining together was the recognition that as both organisations grew, they wanted to have more people in leadership roles.
"While some people might be really good at nursing or very good at accounting or very good at maintenance activities, that doesn't necessarily mean they have the skills to lead a group of people," she said.
"So this is about growing the leadership capacity in the organisations grow."
Ms Hurrell said the organisations decided that critical mass was important.
"So in order for us to get a training provider to actually conduct training in Lithgow, rather then going off to Bathurst or down to [Sydney] that we needed a critical mass for it to be viable for TAFE to be able to offer that," she said.
"But we also saw the opportunity for people to share ideas. If you are only training internally with your own group or team you don't get that changing of knowledge and ideas and different ways of doing things, so it was just an opportunity to say okay, if we join forces we can offer it here in Lithgow and give staff opportunities to hear how people do it differently in other places."
Moving forward, Ms Hurrell would like to see other like-minded sector people involved.
"So if we run the course again we might say are there any other providers in town who might be interested in participating in the program," she said.
Eight employees from the facilities are completing a leadership course once a month to learn new ways of interacting with people and a more modern way of undertaking their job.
"It is four units from certificate IV in front line management and gives these guys a cluster of units, so if they decide to go and get the full qualification they only have a certain number to do, so it's like getting a part qualification," Ms Hurrell said.
Three Tree Lodge is also looking at further training with TAFE NSW in areas such as hospitality, human resources and bookkeeping.
"TAFE NSW is providing staff with the hands-on training in dementia care, which involves learning about how to work with residents and provide them with the best quality of life. Lithgow Aged Care has two dementia wings, so improving staff specialist skills in this area is a big priority for us," Mr Oeding said.
"We also have a number of registered nurses and enrolled nurses who need the skills to be able to manage staff and step up to new roles, which is where the leadership and management training is really important."
Comprehensive aged care training for Three Tree Lodge and Lithgow Aged Care is one of many training packages that have been tailored by TAFE Enterprise to target the specific skill sets required by businesses and organisations.
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