Commissioners Information Bulletin 151
Issued: 31 May 2001 (Revised)

Interim Registration for CHC30199 Certificate III in Community Services (Aged Care Work) and CHC30399 Certificate III in Community Services (Children's Services)

At the request of the NSW Community Services and Health Industry Training Advisory Body, the Department of Education and Training has agreed to the interim registration of two traineeships in: Community Services (Aged Care Work) Certificate III CHC 30199 and Community Services (Children’s Services) Certificate III CHC 30399. These qualifications form part of the Community Services Training Package Qualifications Framework. Interim registration will enable immediate implementation in NSW.

The new traineeships will replace the existing TAFE curriculum based traineeship program in Care Support Services (Aged Care Work) Certificate III) pending completion of the Vocational Training Order alignment to the qualifications framework for the Community Services Training Package. The alignment exercise is due for completion in May/June 2001.

Nominal Term
Community Services (Aged Care Work) Certificate III CHC 30199 – 12 months
Community Services (Children’s Services) Certificate III CHC 30399 – 12 months

Qualification Structure
Both qualifications have community services common units which are packaged with specialisation and optional units to enable the achievement of occupational outcomes. The common units will be contextualised to meet the requirements of particular work functions.

Where enterprise units are included as options within the qualification, these will need to be submitted to Community Services and Health Training Australia for referral to the National Training Quality Council for endorsement. If enterprise units are included as additional units over and above the packaging requirements, endorsement is not required.

The packaging and combination of the minimum number of units drawn from the relevant competency standards and required for each qualification are outlined at Attachment A.

• Support materials – Curricula to support delivery of both qualifications can be accessed through the DET Curriculum Clearinghouse. Learning materials for the Aged Care qualification provide customised outcomes for either Personal Care Assistant, Assistant in Nursing or a more generic outcome providing greater flexibility for elective units of competencies. Training Record books are also available for the specialisations of nursing assistant and personal assistant.
• Industrial arrangements - are in place through:

Aged Care sector
The Nurses (Private Sector) Training Wage (State) Award, the Aged Care General Services (Training Wage) (State) Award and the Private Hospitals, Aged Care and Disability Services Industry (Training) (State) Award. All three awards include part-time traineeship provisions. However, only the Private Hospitals Award provides for school based provisions.

Children Services
Miscellaneous Workers’ Kindergartens and Child Care Centres Traineeship Interim (State) Award 1997. This award does not include part-time provisions.

Children’s Services which operate on a part-time basis only in rural and remote areas will not be able to recruit trainees, given the current industrial arrangements.

State Legislation
The Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 will eventually regulate age, staff ratios and qualification levels of employees in Children’s Services but does not yet do so as the relevant parts have not yet been proclaimed.

Such matters are still regulated pursuant to the Children (Care and Protection) Act 1987, as amended and in particular by the Centre Based and Mobile Child Care Services Regulation (No2) 1996, as amended (“The Regulations”).

Clause 32A(2) of the Centre Based and Mobile Child Care Services Regulation (No 2) 1996 states: “A licensee of a service must not employ a person as a member of the primary contact staff of the service unless the person is at least 18 years of age.”

The regulation identifies a minimum age of 18 for people employed in a service as “primary contact staff”. However, this definition does not apply to trainees who are employed as “staff”.

In order to clarify employment arrangements, the Department of Community Services issued in October 1997 a policy on the placement of students in a work experience program and trainees employed in child care centres.

The intention of the policy is to ensure that while all staff employed to directly care for children in child care centres are adults, that is people over 18 years of age, younger people who are students and trainees may still be placed in child care services.

The policy provides as follows:

Students pursuing courses in child care often need to spend time working in child care services as part of their course requirements. Commonwealth funded work training programs often seek to place their clients in child care services. These practices may continue under the conditions stated below.

Students
Students, whether they are under the age of 18 years or not, are required to undertake a period of practical work in order to meet their course requirements, may be placed in child care services under the following conditions:

• The students are volunteers and may therefore not be counted as staff for the purpose of meeting any of the requirements of the Regulation.
• The students are not left to care for children alone and unsupervised.

Trainees
Trainees who are participating in a Commonwealth sponsored work related training program and who are actually employed by a child care centre, will be considered primary contact staff for the purpose of meeting all the requirements of the Regulation if they are over the age of 18 years.

If such trainees are not 18 years of age or more, they may not be considered to be primary contact staff for the purpose of meeting the requirements of the Regulation. Such persons may be employed, but only on the following conditions:

• The person is not included in the necessary child:staff ratios
• The person is not left alone and unsupervised to care for children.

For any enquiries regarding this CIB, please contact the Vocational Training Tribunal Unit on (02) 9266 8579.

PAM CHRISTIE
Commissioner of Vocational Training