Vocational education and training providers are seeing a growth in jobs related to the National Disability Insurance Scheme and are increasing their offerings to reflect demand.
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The Victorian government has created a new TAFE course to better equip health workers, with the Wodonga campus to take their first round of students in August.
Community Services and Health director Fiona Maher said the Introduction to the NDIS had been developed with industry.
“It really is around supporting industries to ensure we’ve got a workforce that has a certain level of skills and knowledge to be able to work with participants of the NDIS,” she said.
“This is designed to be your entry-level qualification for people who are thinking they might want to work in the disability sector, for new workers that have just started in the sector, as well as for people with self managed NDIS funds – carers might want to come in and do the course.”
The six-week course will lead in to higher qualifications for many jobs within health, such as a certificate four in disability work and a certificate four in community work.
A number of these courses are among those being provided for free by the state government from January, for those who are eligible.
Dr Julie Fry, who will be the course co-ordinator for Introduction to the NDIS, said it could be tailored to suit certain services in the region.
“The industry are needing people working in any sort of allied health or disability area to come to the workplace with an understanding about what it means to work with the NDIS,” she said.
“The people delivering this course are a combination, of who are NDIS-engaged, industry experts and participants of the NDIS – it’s not just TAFE teachers.”
Across the Border, TAFE NSW have this year implemented a two-week course called Introduction to Carer Careers.
TAFE NSW south region disability head teacher Keith Bourke said a number of jobs were being created due to NDIS participants being able to chose what services they wanted.
“Introduction to Carer Careers is in direct response to the huge demand we’re hearing about for new workers in disability,” he said.
“We’re also doing induction programs with services specifically, when they have new peolpe interested in working for them.
“There’s a lot of jobs that are being developed just for mobility, to help people get around, and in the area of social activity and recreation to assist people in those spaces – where people with their NDIS package now have a budget for.
“This is a great opportunity for people to consider a career in caring – it’s amazingly rewarding.”
