The Social Assistance and Allied Health Workforce Strategy is responsive to issues raised by key stakeholders following extensive industry consultation undertaken by the Board with the Community Services, Health and Education training council, and issues identified by members of the project's Steering Committee. The strategy explores specific workforce issues raised by service providers, peak bodies and government agencies working in these key sectors.
The primary focus of this project was the frontline and support workers that are at the forefront of demand. Without these critical workers, service providers will be unable to meet individual needs of people within the WA community.
Social Assistance and Allied Health: Future Workforce Skills report 2022
This report, released in May 2022, builds on the work in the initial strategy paper to position the vocational education and training (VET) sector to respond to the State’s growth in demand for skilled workers in the Social Assistance and Allied Health sectors.
For this report, the Board spoke to over 70 health and community service providers from across WA to gain a deep understanding of their most pressing workforce challenges and biggest opportunities to develop the Social Assistance and Allied Health: Future Workforce Skills Summary report.
State Government response
In response to this report, in May 2022 the State Government released their response; the Strategic State Government response: Social Assistance and Allied Health: Future Workforce Skills report.
Their response outlines an action plan for strategies, initiative and programs to undertake activities and explore opportunities that specifically target recommendations in the report, under seven themes listed below.
- Marketing and promotion
- Traineeships
- Skill sets
- Pre-employment programs
- Employer incentives
- Training provider partnerships
- Others, such as mentoring and screening processes
