Commissioners Information Bulletin 057
Issued: 11 June 1999

Community Care Services for Aboriginal People Traineeship - Certificate III

The Booroongen Djugun Aboriginal Corporation is a Kempsey based organisation which runs a nursing home for Aboriginal people and has a training arm that delivers training customised for Aboriginal people.

At the request of the Corporation and with the support of the NSW Community Services and Health Industry Training Advisory Board, the Department of Education and Training has agreed to the interim registration of a Certificate III Community Care Services Traineeship for Aboriginal people to enable its immediate implementation in NSW.

The traineeship has been designed for Aboriginal people who wish to work in residential aged care as assistants in nursing or as ancillary support staff. The course is a reorganisation of their already accredited Certificates III in Community Care Nursing and Community Care Ancillary Services whereby the common core of the two courses have been combined and the specialist areas have been separated into strands A and B. The traineeship course has been given its own code number by VETAB (13403 NSW).

Developed in alignment with the national competencies for the nursing industry, the traineeship has been customised to include training in Aboriginal cultural issues affecting the provision of nursing care. It has been designed to integrate off-the-job training with on-the-job experience and will run for a nominal term of 12 months. Support materials are available to allow for a distance learning mode of delivery. Both on and off-the-job training activities are detailed in the Training Record Book.

Course structure - Trainees are required to complete 13 core modules and all modules in either Strand A (Ancillary Services) or Strand B (Nursing Assistant). A list of relevant modules is attached for information.

Industrial arrangements - are in place through the Nurses (Private Sector) Training Wage (State) Award. This Award includes part-time traineeship provisions but no school-based provisions.

For any enquiries regarding these training arrangements, please contact the Vocational Training Board on (02) 9266-8579.

JILL GIENTZOTIS
Director of Recognition Services