Skills for Good - April 2022: Shifting to orange, Diversity campaign in 2022, showcasing graduate heroes and more

Tēnā koutou

The move to the orange setting in the Traffic Light Framework comes as a welcome relief, allowing our field team across the country to resume face to face meetings with our employers and learners. While we have been able to keep things as normal as possible via digital means, nothing quite beats genuine face to face contact.

Earlier this month, and supported by renewed TEC funding, we were excited to be able to get the Life Changing Careers campaign up and running again for 2022. The need to attract new people into care and support career pathways has never been greater. In this issue of Skills for Good, we put the spotlight on Kayla Dobson and Futi Ka, who are perfect demonstrations of the type of people we are trying to attract via the campaign.

Over 2021, the Life Changing Careers campaign generated 16m digital ad impressions, and attracted 78,000 users to the campaign landing site. Once on the site, a key focus is to profile the multitudes of roles available, including via Jobs for Good. Remember that listing your vacancies via Jobs for Good is very simple, and free. Make sure you get your vacancies listed, and leverage the eyeballs being generated via the campaign.

Ngā mihi nui

Jane Wenman
Careerforce Chief Executive

Fully vaccinated field staff are now able to engage face to face with workplaces and trainees.
Careerforce staff will seek permission first from your workplace before entering your work premises.
Any unvaccinated Careerforce staff will continue to connect with workplaces and learners for pastoral care, but this will be via remote means.
Careerforce staff will observe a common sense. approach to attending workplace hui and be compliant with Government guidelines under Orange Traffic Light protocols.

Please remember that regardless of location, our staff will also be available virtually, to help and support you and your learners as much as possible.

Late 2021, we received a very welcome Christmas present from the TEC in the form of $430,000 funding to keep the Life Changing Careers campaign running through 2022. This funding recognised the TEC’s appreciation of both the success of the 2021 campaign, and of the absolute need for the campaign to continue. It was also an acknowledgement of the strong stakeholder support for the 2022 campaign funding proposal.

As with 2021, this largely digital campaign is heavily based around telling the powerful stories of care and support workers, and of the rewarding relationships they have with those they are providing care and support for. The campaign tagline, “the life you change might be your own”, reflected the feedback we received as the campaign was originally developed, and remains as pertinent as ever.

We encourage you to promote and champion this campaign via your respective channels, and also encourage all our care and support workers to rightfully stand proud for what they do, and share and champion the campaign amongst their friends and whānau. We also encourage you to share any stories with us of new care and support workers to your organisations, and who reflect the diversity we are trying to attract via the campaign. These stories will be shared with TEC as evidence that the campaign is working effectively.

While we still await formal approval of our proposed transition plan into Te Pūkenga by the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), it remains our expectation that we will transition into Te Pūkenga in September of this year, and as a business unit within Te Pūkenga’s Work Based Learning (WBL) subsidiary. Our staff are increasingly getting involved across a wide range of Te Pūkenga working groups, and these are providing us with the opportunity to champion the needs of our employers and work based learners within Te Pūkenga, and also to champion the work based learning model.

Consistent with some of our fellow industry training organisations, Careerforce is introducing a minimum 3-month enrolment period for any new training agreements across our training programmes. This will apply to any new enrolments into programmes (including Limited Credit Programmes) that lead to the award of a New Zealand Qualification or Apprenticeship.

Across current Careerforce programmes, the minimum expected training duration is 6-7 months, and this is based upon the credits that need to be completed, and which in turn is based upon the level of training required within the work setting. A minimum enrolment period helps to ensure the integrity of qualifications awarded via Careerforce programmes, and that the appropriate level of training has been completed, and with the required levels of workplace-based observations and assessment. This change also ensures consistency with our current policy of refunded enrolment fees for any withdrawals within 3 months of enrolment.

This change will only impact upon a very small number of enrolments, and typically in instances where learning has commenced prior to the enrolment date.

Careerforce has launched a suite of short course programmes (SCPs) for support workers. They have been developed and intended to provide supplementary learning opportunities to people that have completed the New Zealand Certificate in Health and Wellbeing (Social and Community) (Level 4).

These short course programmes are for:

Support workers who might be working with people from across sectors, and would benefit from additional skills and capabilities to support the work they do.
Support workers who have changed employers and have a different focus to their work.

For more information and to download a brochure, follow the links to the short course programmes:

The expected duration of these online short courses varies from 4 – 7 months and enrolments are currently free until December 2022 through the Targeted Training and Apprenticeship Fund (TTAF).

Learners must meet the prerequisite
The main prerequisite for these short courses is learners must have completed the New Zealand Certificate in Health and Wellbeing (Social and Community) (Level 4) with strands in Community Facilitation, Community Health Work, Mental Health and Addiction, and Social Services.

Learners can only be enrolled in these short courses once they have completed their apprenticeship. Careerforce will also accept enrolments from those who have completed their programme with another provider.

Kayla has successfully graduated with a New Zealand Apprenticeship in Community Facilitation, with support from Careerforce. The Community Support Worker sailed through the apprenticeship programme soon after finishing her Level 3 Health and Wellbeing Certificate, says her manager.

In her role, Kayla supports a range of people with intellectual disabilities, contributing to their lives, their wellbeing and supporting their independence. “Although some days can be challenging,” says the 22-year-old, “it’s immensely satisfying and rewarding.”

When youth worker Futi Ka describes his career, he refers to the Samoan proverb ‘o le ala i le pule o le tautua’ (The pathway to leadership is through service). Futi said, “If I look at my career, it’s been just that.”

The Ōtara-born father of three has recently completed his apprenticeship in Community Facilitation (Youth Work) through Careerforce.

Not only did he finish the Level 4 programme much faster than the average duration, but he also motivated his team of youth workers at Quality Education Services to do the apprenticeship with him: “I’m all for professional development for the team,” he said.
It’s an impressive achievement for someone who used to hate studying.
“I always struggled in school with my education and found it hard to focus in class”, Futi said, “I was dropped a year level and finished high school with only my NCEA Level 2, which I barely met the mark for.”

“Once I started the training with Careerforce, I realised the learning tied directly to the experience. It validated and sharpened what I was doing in terms of leading and guiding.
“I was able to gain some learning tools from the apprenticeship for people I saw were heading down the same track or stuck in the same situation that I once was in.”

At the end of March, we launched the new Apprenticeship in Advanced Care and Support.

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.

Workplaces 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.

To help decide which programme is right for your staff, please consider the following:

Do you have an in-house assessor with full scope and who has capacity?

Yes: Enrol your staff in the trainee programme.

No: Enrol your staff in the apprenticeship programme for full pastoral support from a Careerforce Apprenticeship Advisor.

If you’re unsure whether you need to enrol staff in the apprenticeship programme or trainee programme, please contact your Careerforce Workplace Advisor first.

Careerforce has a new team set up to deliver wanaanga and workshops to support Māori and those that have been historically underserved. The new team (The National Mobile Support team Taupuhipuhi Amio Roopu), will work with Careerforce field staff and employers to assist and enhance learner engagement and participation through their qualification journey.

The team is currently in the recruitment stage and connecting with key employers that feel that this delivery method will fit best for their learners/tauira.