For industry partners, this approach improves access to workplace-based learning and supports employees to build their skills in regional communities. Calvary Health Care and Skillinvest share how the model is helping them address workforce and training challenges.
Lauren Knight, Learning Partnerships Manager at Calvary Health Care in Shepparton, explains how the Mobile Skills Lab has benefited her organisation:
The MSL also addresses a key accessibility challenge by making practical training available where it is needed:
“In regional areas, we may not have access to other suitable environments, such as a residential aged care home, and coordinating these observations within clients’ homes can be complex.
"The Mobile Skills Lab helped address this challenge by providing a flexible training environment that could be brought closer to trainees and their workplaces. This created greater opportunities for required practical observations to be undertaken locally, rather than relying on access to facilities that may not be available within the community.”
The benefits of the traineeship model extend beyond industry partners such as Calvary Health Care. Daryl Eastwell from Skillinvest highlights how the model helps trainees contribute to host organisations sooner:
“Trainees become valuable workers for those organisations a lot quicker than previously. […] At Skillinvest Group Training we take great pride in employing homegrown trainees and apprentices to service our hosts in the Aged Care and Health sectors. The collaboration with Robert and the Mobile Skills Lab has created fabulous outcomes for our many hosts.”
Both Calvary Health Care and Skillinvest emphasise the importance of collaboration with TAFE. For Daryl Eastwell, this partnership supports local innovation and helps trainees progress towards successful completion:
“The collaboration between Robert and Skillinvest has highlighted the importance of working partnerships between organisations and Tafe's through Skillinvest's GT to develop home grown solutions, who develop at a rapid but safe pace and who are willing to stay with that host upon successful completion of their traineeships.”
For Lauren Knight, the collaboration brings together complementary expertise to meet regional workforce needs:
“The initiative has also reinforced the value of genuine collaboration between industry and training providers. Employers understand the practical workforce and service-delivery challenges, while Registered Training Organisations bring expertise in education, assessment and learner support.
"Working together allows us to explore training models that are practical, accessible and responsive to regional workforce needs, while supporting people to gain the skills and qualifications needed to build a career in aged care”.
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