30. Excellence in CARE • SEPTEMBER 2018 What’s up with qualifications and education in our sector? Exploring the changes in education and qualifications in our Industry. Qualifications have been a huge focus in the past year but do they meet all the training needs of staff who work in residential aged care? In-service Aged Care education 55% of staff have already completed level 3 or 4 qualifications. Does this mean these staff no longer have to take part in education? Some staff think so! The qualifications are only part of the picture. Managers will know from certification requirements that there are other training obligations to meet. On-going ARRC Contract requirements mean a range of topics must be covered over a two year cycle. Almost all facilities run (or have plans to run) in-service education sessions. Aged care is constantly changing and as such complex resident health issues require regularly updated thinking, knowledge and experience. The norm for in-service education appears to be a monthly, one hour session presided over by a local speaker, or one of the facility’s own Nurses. Some of these sessions and speakers are excellent, others use the same tired resources year in and year out and are neither engaging nor current. Also most facilities would be lucky to have 60% of their staff turn up for these sessions. What about the staff who miss out? Is a back up plan in place so these people can catch up on what they have missed? Your auditor will ask! One organisation recently completed an independent audit of their training and found that many staff who had low literacy levels and/or were culturally and linguistically diverse had problems understanding the resources. Do you know if your education resources are hitting the mark? Is it time to have an objective review of the education and training at your facility? Overview of Qualifications The focus on qualifications resulting from the new Pay Equity Law has unearthed the following statistics. The figures for both sectors show a differing result over the past year. Residential Aged Care NZACA Survey Results 2017/2018 2017 2018 No qualifications 34% 28.8% Level 2 15.4% 15.3% Level 3 31.6% 30.2% Level 4a (years service) 4.8% 0.9% Level 4b (qualifications) 14.2% 24.8% Home & Community Health Forum. Mark Powell Ministry of Health 5th July 2018 2017 2018 No qualifications 49% 36% Level 2 26% 30% Level 3 22% 26% Level 4 3% 9% As Level 4 qualifications usually take more than a year to complete we can safely say that the leap in staff with Level 4 is not due to staff completing qualifications. Rather it is most likely that the increase is due to the effects of the qualifications equivalency process. This process has seen a huge wave of other qualifications being recognised as equivalent to the NZ Certificate in Health and Wellbeing.