[Opening visual of slide with text saying ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘Department of Health and Aged Care’, ‘Training for Single Assessment System workforce establishment’, ’13 November 2024’]
[The visuals during this webinar are of each speaker presenting in turn via video, with reference to the content of a PowerPoint presentation being played on screen]
Nikki Prouse:
All right. It’s 2:03. I might get going. Hi everyone. I’m Nikki Prouse. I’m Director of the My Aged Care Capability Team. You’d be used to seeing Bridget Carrick in this role but if you attended our last LEN webinar you’d know Bridget has left this Department and she’s still doing great things in the public service just not in aged care anymore.
I’ll be hosting the webinar today. Before I do some introductions and you hear from the lovely team, and then we get into questions in about the last half hour or so, I’d like to talk about format and things first. But I’d like to acknowledge first the traditional owners of the many lands on which we’re meeting today. I’d like to pay my respects to Elders past and present. We’re here in Canberra today on Ngunnawal land.
So welcome to the webinar. Thank you for your time today in a busy period. We really appreciate it. The webinar today has been designed for our lead educators and other trainers from assessment organisations. We’ve gone broader than our traditional lead educators network. We wanted to include your ops managers and other staff. So we’re going to have a bit of a different approach today because as you can see over 120 people now. We’ll have to do things a bit differently to our normal LEN friendly kind of approach.
The focus of today’s webinar is training arrangements for the Single Assessment System workforce implementation. I just want to get a few things clear first before we head into the content. The webinar is not a training session in itself so we won’t be walking you through in any great detail content covered in the new training. We’ll let that speak for itself. We’re going to talk you through the approach to training that we’ve designed for the Single Assessment System workforce. We’ll focus pretty exclusively on aged care needs assessors and some of the other new roles in the assessment pathway. So we won’t talk to training for the Australian National Aged Care Classification or AN-ACC assessors, those assessors that are assessing for resi aged care funding. That training is face to face and it is run by another team in the Department. That team’s currently in the process of scheduling in time for training in December. If you’ve got questions on that though – and I’ll get back to this – please do raise them. We can make sure the queries on that are directed to the team and to Sam Franks, Director of that team.
I also want to note that tender outcomes for single assessment have not been announced to the public so we want to ask attendees today that you don’t discuss the outcomes of the tender or your organisation’s circumstances. Tender related enquiries need to go through the normal channels.
And I want to just draw attention to the fact we want to focus on training and any questions you have on training today. I want to be pretty clear upfront we won’t focus on policy or operational content for assessment. That’s not our area of responsibility. I apologise in advance if that’s what you’re looking for on this call. We can take questions that we can ask policy and program teams to respond to. I know they’re looking at their own FAQ doc and webinar in the coming weeks. So just reiterating our team’s focusing on content and questions around training arrangements and in later slides we’ll go through some contact details for those broader policy, tender or AN-ACC kind of questions.
All right. I’ll get onto the next slide of introducing our speakers today. So, you’ll be hearing from the lovely MAC Capability team. Some quick intros. You’ll hear from me, Nikki Prouse in a chairing/hosting role today. Carla our Learning Design Lead will talk to new training on MAClearning. Kathryn our Learning Strategy Lead will talk to training pathways that we have in place for assessors and the newer roles and also an update on our strategy and for new people joining us what that strategy is. And then we’ve got other members of the team today including Brad our Systems Lead and James our Learning Partner Lead in the room to assist us with answering any of your questions.
So getting into arrangements and why things are a bit different today and how they’ll work. We’ll be recording today. So if you want to turn your camera off, you don’t want to be in the recording, please feel free to do that. We’re recording so that we can share it with those who were unable to join us today. There’s been a bit of interest in the content for this webinar so we want to be able to film it and then get it up on our Department’s website soon so that people can run back through if you’ve missed anything. We also plan to share the slides you’re seeing. I know the content so far hasn’t been riveting but we’ll share the slides. We’re going to update our fact sheets and we’ll do some Q&As and the webinar will be transcribed.
Like I said earlier this is a more formal webinar than our lead educator network attendees are used to. You’d be used to that more free flowing sort of conversation. We need to treat this as a formal webinar as I said due to the attendees and because we’re filming today. What you’ll find is we’ve muted everyone in this webinar and the chat is switched off. We’ll have a separate website which is called Poll EV. There’s a link that we’ll share for your questions and I’ll explain how to use this in a moment. Please use the hand raise and put your hand up if you have any issues hearing speakers or any other technical issues and the team can see what they can do to help you out.
And just a reminder this is not the forum to raise tender outcomes and we really can’t speak to those publicly yet.
So if we head over to the Poll EV slide. This is just about the last one on the arrangements for today and then we can get into the content. So the way we’ve set up for this webinar for questions to be asked is you can get into this website at what we call Poll EV. I think it’s poll everywhere is what it stands for. A bit of a long website to type in. So there’s a QR code if you want to quickly grab that on your phone. You can enter questions in on that website either anonymously or with your name and then if you like a question you can thumbs up and it gets it raised higher in the question queue. So you can use this through the presentation and then when we get to the Q&A session we have at least half an hour at the end of this. We’ll go through those questions and we’ll start with the ones that have been upvoted the most. We won’t rig it. We’re not going to get in and vote on it so we ask that you get in and rather than repeat ones emphasise those ones that you really want answered.
We’ll be moderating content in there so if it’s not friendly or anything personal or tender outcomes we’ll be taking those out. And we’ll remind you of the Poll EV link at the end of each speaker’s presentation. So I’ll go through myself, Carla and Kathryn in the team and at the end of each segment we’ll stop just to remind you of the Poll EV. We won’t stop for questions at the end of each part of the presentation just in the interests of time. We want to keep that good chunk at the end of the session for questions. And if we do questions at the end of each section we may go quite over time.
So just quickly talking you through the agenda for today. So formalities nearly over. Here’s what we plan to cover. So I’m nearly through the introduction. We then have 15 minutes on new training, 15 minutes on training pathways, about 15 minutes on a strategy update. That’s the document that underpins our approach to training. And then we’ll have at least 30 minutes in a Q&A session. And finally in the wrap up we’ll talk to things like what we’ll send out after this session and a future LEN meeting.
Just quickly, last one just about from me. The outcomes that we’re looking for today. We’re a training team so we can’t help ourselves but put these sorts of things in place. The things we’re hoping for you to take away from today is understanding the training arrangements we’ve put in place for the single assessment workforce, some awareness of job position changes and how training has been mapped to those positions, and some familiarity with our strategy.
All right. Moving into the second agenda item now that’s done. Look we’re moving towards what’s really the second phase of implementation of the Single Assessment System. The first phase was IAT and from what I can tell we’ve worked really well together on that. As we move to the Single Assessment System workforce there’s some changes to policy and to roles in the assessment process and the documents underpinning our work reflects those changes. You’d be seeing things in the new assessment manual and statement of requirement etcetera. So as a training team we’ve worked first to map what those policy changes mean for the existing workforce, so looking at training needs, and then we’ve tailored our training accordingly. And Carla will talk to this so I’d like to welcome Carla to talk through the training that we’ve released.
Carla Scalia:
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Webinar’, ‘2 Single Assessment System workforce training’, ‘Carla Scalia’]
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Webinar’, ‘New learning goals’]
Thank you Nikki. So hello everybody. I was going to say I can’t see you but it’s nice to be with you this afternoon. So look basically my set of slides are going to be talking about the new online goals and elements that we’ve developed to support the transition of staff into the Single Assessment System. We do know that there are a few new peeps on the call so just so you know for a bit of terminology sake when I talk about elements I’m basically talking about an online module. Module is probably a term that you’re more familiar with but we call them elements within this scope of learning. And when I talk about a goal I’m talking about the little house I guess you could say within MAClearning for where all this content is housed. So just so you know when you’re following along what that terminology means.
I should note that the learning material went live in our LMS last Wednesday. So there are some of you on the call that may have already gotten in and had a look and completed it so well done if you have. If you haven’t though don’t stress. Plenty of time and hopefully the information that we provide for you this afternoon will just give you a bit of intel with regards to what you’re getting yourself into when you do log into MAClearning and you start to have a look at that training and your staff start to undertake the learning.
So moving onto the next slide. So the best way to probably explain it is that we’ve developed training for everybody as far as transition training goes to bring everyone along on the journey of changes with regards to what’s happening within the Single Assessment System. And then we also have our business as usual induction training approach for new staff who are entering the workforce as well. And so the first cohort of learners we’re going to be talking about are existing experienced staff. So this is training for staff that you’re already in the system of conducting assessments and you’re already in MAClearning ready to rock and roll and you know the lay of the land so to speak.
So for experienced assessors, team leaders and workplace trainers there will be a requirement to complete the Single Assessment System transition learning goal and then from here there may be additional training that’s required if an assessor will be looking to expand their role. So this could mean that they’re a clinically trained RAS moving into the role of conducting comprehensive assessment. And I know that RAS is not a term that we’ll be using. Same with ACAT. But for the sake of this webinar I’m mindful that terminology might still be interchangeable because it’s what you’re familiar with at the moment. But basically you’ve got this I guess bridging training. That could be for your trained RAS moving into conducting comprehensive or your ACATs looking to move into completing home support assessments. So the next few slides we’re going through is going to unpack some of these goals and the training in a little bit more detail.
Next slide please. So the first area of training we’ll be covering will be related to the Single Assessment System transition learning goal that all staff will need to complete. So this goal will be mandatory for all assessors, workplace trainers and team leaders to complete within MAClearning. With regards to the makeup of the goal itself it’s made up of one element and that element is called Transition to the Single Assessment System. And within the goal there is a quiz that will need to be completed as well and that quiz contains 12 questions. There will be 100% pass rate with unlimited attempts. No silly business with the quiz. You’ll be pleased to know it doesn’t swap out surprising questions or answers or anything like that. It’s the same stock standard 12 questions. If you get one wrong you’ll obviously need to reattempt the 12 again but it will be the same 12 that you had a crack at the first time. So no surprises there.
The goal itself will cover topics such as new system functionality, changes to triage and assessment processes and timeframes and assessment guidance updates. And like I said the goal of this element is really to help you move through into transitioning into a Single Assessment System workforce and getting a bit of an overview of some of the changes that are coming your way. The element is estimated to take 90 minutes for completion and all staff registered on MAClearning will be automatically enrolled into the goal for the sake of access.
We have set an ETA on this one so we would really love for it to be completed by Tuesday 24th of December. It’s a Christmas Eve present to you all. And we’ll be doing a bit of compliance on it to check completion as well commencing from January 2025. We have developed some fact sheets around these new learning goals with this goal being included in a fact sheet that we will be looking to distribute after this webinar as well so that you can get a little bit more intel on the nature of this goal as well.
The next goal that will be up for discussion on the next slide will be the first of our two bridging training goals that we’ve created for you. So this first I guess you could say bridging goal is called conducting comprehensive assessments and it will be mandatory for experienced clinical RAS assessors looking to conduct comprehensive assessments. So I should note that is for clinical RAS because obviously our clinical staff will be moving into that comprehensive assessment role. If you’re a non-clinical RAS assessor you won’t be required to complete this goal or the element within it. The goal consists of one element. It’s called Conducting Comprehensive Assessments. Again you’ve got yourself a quiz in that element. 12 questions that require 100% pass rate with unlimited attempts. And again no silly business with the quiz. It’s your stock standard 12 questions.
There are two appraisal activities attached to this goal as well that we do need to flag for those that are completing it. And they are modelled very similarly to our existing AA3 and 4. So any assessors that are completing this goal we will require them to develop and submit a support plan that has been developed from a comprehensive assessment that contains a recommendation for Act-based care type and it needs to be approved by an Assessment Delegate which is the new terminology for ACAT Delegate as we move into Single Assessment. So just a quick change of terminology there to note. As well as competency sign off by a manager as well. So obviously those appraisal pieces need to be completed in addition to the quiz and the element for whole completion within that goal.
The goal will cover key differences between home support and comprehensive assessments, Act‑based care types and delegation process. We have flagged an estimated timeframe for 90 minutes for completion however I would like to caveat that. So this element works a little bit differently in the fact that within MAClearning we already have a lot of information that will guide an assessor through how to conduct either a home support or a comprehensive assessment. So instead of putting all of that information into this element we do a lot of callouts to other elements within MAClearning that we encourage assessors who are doing this pathway to complete. There are actually nine elements we call out in total within this element here. So we will encourage assessors to go out and look at these other elements for the sake of maybe updating any knowledge gaps that they might have or refamiliarising themselves with content.
So to give you an example within this element we talk about clinical errors of the IAT and clinical validated assessment tools that need to be completed as part of a comprehensive assessment. That might be information that as these assessors were possibly reading through the validated assessment tool element they might have skipped over that bit because they’ve gone not part of my role as a RAS. But now it will be so it might mean that they may need to go back into that validated assessment tool element to have a look at that information. So the 90 minutes is a caveat for the completion of this element but the learning journey for an assessor may take a bit longer than that depending on the elements they need to tap into to feel comfortable enough in I guess getting the quiz done, knowing how to do a support plan and going out and conducting a comprehensive assessment. So just be mindful of that as we’re completing this element as well.
As far as enrolment into the element there is a nomination process. And so we will need an assessment organisation to nominate eligible staff for completion at the maclearninghelp@health.gov.au email address. And the reason for that is because we do have some criteria that needs to be fulfilled for us to be able to enrol people into this element. Obviously the fact that they need to be clinically qualified. We do have information in the fact sheet that we’ve developed though. Again that will shoot out after this webinar to advise you on how to go around that process. And again we’ve popped another ETA with regards to completion of this element being Monday 31st of March 2025. So it is I guess you could say time limited training. It’s not going to be available forever. So we would really appreciate for assessors to get in there. Well be nominated first, get in there and complete the training by that 31st of March deadline.
Moving on to the next learning goal and this learning goal is called Conducting Home Support Assessments. And it is an optional goal for experienced ACAT assessors who will undertake home support assessments. So it’s important to flag that it’s not a compulsory requirement. It is optional for ACAT assessors who are looking to undertake home support assessment if they would like to I guess refresh themselves in some of the processes of doing that. Noting that the only real key difference is that wellness and reablement approach which you will see when it comes to the topics being covered within this element it weighs very heavily on. But it is there for information if it’s so needed.
The goal consists of one element. Again the element name is Conducting Home Support Assessment. You’ve got one quiz in there with ten questions with an 80% pass rate. Again unlimited attempts. The goal covers topics such as key differences again between home support and comprehensive assessment, wellness and reablement approach, linking support and reablement recommendations in the support plan. So just those key differences that you encounter. Noting that from R31 you may have noticed in the portal that comprehensive assessments have already been given a functionality to start adding wellness and reablement approaches and linking supports to a support plan. So you might be familiar with some of the mechanisms within the portal anyway.
The element again estimated to take 90 minutes for completion. Noting that we do call out other elements. There’s only three elements that we call out in this one that may be tapped into to assessors completing this element. But noting that it might take a little bit longer than the 90 minutes if assessors choose to engage within those other elements. I should also note both of the transition elements also contain the scenarios that we developed for the IAT and you’ve received the logins for the training environment too. So just keep that into timeframe considerations when your staff are engaging with these elements. They might like to login to the training environment to have a bit of a practice run. So that can all take a little bit of additional time in completing these learning goals.
An ETA for completion again. We’ve got the same ETA. 31st of March. If it could be completed within MAClearning that would be great. And again we’ve got a fact sheet on this goal which covers how learners can self-enrol in the training which again as I said we’ll get out to you after this webinar.
As far as training for new assessors, and moving on to the next slide, new assessors that are joining the Single Assessment System workforce will be required to complete the induction training in addition to the transition training goal. So as you may be familiar with induction training involves the completion of goals one to six in MAClearning and the four allocated appraisal pieces. So we’re talking new staff that will be joining your organisations that have no assessment experience. It’s basically the BAU pathway that we follow now for new assessors. All new staff joining the workforce will be required to complete this induction training.
It's important to note that whilst the induction training is a 20 week learning journey – and so understand that timing might be a bit of concern when you’re looking at timeframes for establishment of Single Assessment System and then you’ve got the 20 week timeframe for new staff – we just wanted to flag with you that staff can complete assessments without being supervised after completion of the foundation pathway which is the first six weeks. Noting that you can complete it sooner. So as soon as an assessor completes goals one, two and three and appraisal pieces one and two they’re able to go and undertake assessments independently. So if your staff can get through that foundation period as quickly as they can with the support and obviously with the I guess knowhow of getting through that process and being ticked off competently, they’re able to move through that 20 week timeframe, possibly quicker than the allocated timeframe.
New assessors will be enrolled based on their clinical status, being clinical and non-clinical which is the language that we’re moving into. Again we just wanted to take the opportunity to flag with you – because we have been getting a few emails through – we’ve been getting emails say from RAS organisations asking for visibility of say the ACAT learning elements and then from ACAT organisations saying ‘Can we please have your RAS training’. It’s really important to flag that we don’t have different versions of elements for the different assessor types. Both your clinical, your non-clinical AKA your RAS and your ACAT, you guys view all the same elements within goals one to six. The difference is your appraisal pieces and the support plans that you submit. So just wanted to flag that with you that the learning is not different for the assessors. It’s the submission and the type of appraisal pieces or the type of support plans that they submit that’s different too. So everyone has access to everything that they need. The only difference is the appraisal submissions.
And coming back to that foundation phase is to be completed first before undertaking assessments independently. Just flagging with you that again the induction training as well as the transition training needs to be done until we update all of our materials which is actually what the next slide is about. So we’ll move through please to the next slide.
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Webinar’, ‘Induction training update’]
And we might even jump to the next one because I just introduced it. So we’re going to be talking about our BAU induction training that gets done for our new staff. So we are in the process of updating goals one to six. It is the learning design team’s – we’re breathing and sleeping and dreaming goals one to six at the moment, going through them and updating all the terminology and all the processes in it to ensure that they’re as current as they can be. The expected go live date for all of our updates will be January 2025. And so it’s for this reason that until these elements are updated we do need new staff to do the transition training as well until we can incorporate all that new updated intel into these elements.
That said I should flag with you all that there are two elements we’ve already updated and uploaded as of last Wednesday due to their importance and that’s the Conducting Triage element and the Assessment Delegate element as well. And the reason is that we know that there may be new staff moving into these roles where they’ve maybe never triaged clients before or they may be needing to move into assessment delegate positions. We wanted to ensure that information was as current as possible so you will - - -
You there?
Can you hear me?
Nikki Prouse:
I can hear you.
Carla Scalia:
Okay. Excellent. Thank you guys. Excellent. So as I was saying we’ve updated those two elements so you’ll notice that goal three will have an updated Conducting Triage element and if you go into that if you’ve been assigned the assessment delegate goal you’ll also notice that element has been updated too to reflect new terminology and a little bit of new content for you as well. But like I said we will notify you once we’ve updated all of our BAU training so that you know when your new staff are no longer needed to do that transition goal and everything is as current as it can be.
Next slide please.
So this is just a reminder again if you have any questions about the information that I’ve just provided about training goals and elements. Please pop them into the Poll EV question chat. And thumbs up changes the priority, bumps them to the top, and we’ll get to them when we get to the Q&A. So hopefully you found that helpful. Thank you for your time. Back to you Nikki.
Nikki Prouse:
Thanks Carla. And I can see people are already using the Poll EV so that’s excellent. The first question in there we had was around this PowerPoint so we’ll share this PowerPoint after this session. We’re also keen to get it up on our website so we’ll let you know when that’s complete.
Just on Carla’s training and completion so far we’ve had about 216 learners get in and do the transition goal and complete the quiz and about ten doing the conducting home support assessment. We haven’t had any finish the conducting comprehensive assessment one yet and I’ll explain why when we get to the questions I can see in there around comprehensive assessments and assessment delegates.
I’ll hand now over to getting Kathryn to talk about training pathways for job positions. Just a bit of an intro to this. Once we mapped out the training needs we’ve mapped out how we could support staff across your organisation that have new or varied roles in the assessment pathway. For needs assessors our bridging training should cover what’s different. Our induction training always supports new assessors but for team leaders and workplace trainers we’ve not had training requirements for you before. And we also have some new qualification requirements to manage for these positions. So when matching training against the new or changing job positions we’ve worked to balance the risks and the need for a quick transition for this reform noting that this is the second phase in the Single Assessment System implementation. We really want learners to pick up skills they need to do the roles without compromising assessment timeliness or quality and we want to support your learners to gain new skills within the blended model that we work in so that workforce is ready for the reform ahead of us.
So I’ll hand over to Kathryn now to take us through by job position.
Kathryn Foley:
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Webinar’, ‘3 Training pathways for job positions’, ‘Kathryn Foley’]
Thanks Nikki and hello everybody. All right. So as Nikki said when the new Single Assessment System workforce commences on 9 December new qualification and training requirements for job positions will also commence. So the new qualification and training requirements for each position are detailed in the Statement of Requirement provided to each organisation and they’ll also be included in the updated version of the My Aged Care Workforce Learning Strategy which will be released shortly and we publish that on health.gov.au. So we’ll let you know when we’re releasing that.
These job positions are used in the My Aged Care Assessor Portal. So the job positions in MAClearning continue to align to the job positions in the MAC Assessor Portal. So if you’re a clinical assessor in the portal then we give you that job position in MAClearning. You can have more than one job position so you can be a clinical assessor and a workplace trainer and outlet manager but we try and align them to, or we ask that you align them to the job positions that you have in the MAC Portal. And the reason for that is because through MAClearning we deliver the mandatory training. So we need to have you in the right job position so we deliver the right mandatory training.
So in this section we’ll be focusing on four job positions. So that is clinical assessor, so the old ACAT, non-clinical assessor, so the old RAS, team leader and workplace trainer. So for some job positions the qualification and training requirements will be minimal. For others there are new mandatory training requirements. And so hopefully we’ll step you through those with each slide.
Okay. So let’s go to clinical assessor. So it was previously the ACAT. So all clinical assessors new and experienced will need to complete the transition learning goal as Carla explained. And so there’s a fact sheet explaining what that entails but Carla’s run through it. Then as mentioned by Carla existing clinical assessors or ACATs can complete the optional conducting home support assessment learning goal to expand their knowledge. So then new assessors that are being registered in the clinical assessor job position will need to complete induction training plus the transition training. So they will need to do the two goals. But our updated induction training which starts early next year will include the transition training. So that means you’ll only need to do the induction training. And for those of you that went through IAT that will be a familiar scenario to you in that that was the case with IAT.
Okay. So moving on to the next slide which is non-clinical assessor, so the old RAS. Again all these assessors will need to complete the transition learning goal. So that’s new and experienced. As advised existing non-clinical assessors with clinical qualifications can be nominated by their organisation to complete the conducting comprehensive assessment learning goal and once they’ve completed that they will be certified as a clinical assessor. And that’s important to us from a training point of view in that it helps us with sign off of training in that a clinical assessor needs to sign off on a learner that’s training to be a clinical assessor and a non‑clinical for a non-clinical. So again new assessors will need to complete induction training plus transition training and the updated induction training will be available from early next year, from the 13th of January.
All right. Moving to the next slide. Okay. So this is where we get into positions which have new mandatory training requirements. So for a team leader currently there’s no mandatory qualification or training requirements but from the commencement of the Single Assessment workforce on 9 December team leaders will need to be clinically qualified. This is detailed in the Statement of Requirements and is also included in the updated assessment manual. So all existing team leaders – so they’re the people that are currently in the portal in MAClearning at the moment with the team leader position – will need to complete mandatory training. And this mandatory training consists of the team leader goal which contains online learning goals one to six. So as Carla said a goal is just a simple way for us to contain all the training together so that goal will show up on your dashboard and that will show you all the training that you need to do. And that training has been already assigned to everybody holding the team leader position.
So some people holding the team leader position may have already completed goals one to six. You may have been a trained assessor that’s trained through MAClearning. You may have done it for your own professional development. If you have already done it through the MAClearning system then you’ll be marked as complete in the team leader goal. If you are staff that was already an assessor and you do hold the team leader position, so you weren’t trained through MAClearning – you may have trained through MACLE or pre-MACLE. We know there’s many of you that have been doing assessment for a long time – you will need to complete the team leader goal. And that is because we want to make sure that with the new role for team leader that you’re across all the current training. We know that you could have been doing assessment and still continue to do it but we want you to be across the current training for this new role.
So existing team leaders will need to complete this training by 31 March 2025 and completion of the training will be recorded for CPD purposes. People who are new to MAClearning and new to the team leader role – because we know that under the new qualification requirements you don’t have to be an assessor so you may be recruiting clinical staff into your organisations – so people that are new to MAClearning and new to the team leader role will be automatically assigned the team leader training goal when they’re registered. They’ll have 20 weeks to complete from the enrolment date. So that will start from their enrolment date and they’ll have 20 weeks and that’s the same timeframe that we use for our assessors. All right. And people holding the team leader job position will also need to complete the transition learning goal as Carla mentioned.
All right. So we did get someone’s hand up then. Unfortunately I don’t think we can respond to hands up so if you can put any comments you might have in the Poll EV. All right. Finally for this section we’re talking about the job position of workplace trainer. Again there are currently no mandatory qualification or training requirements for workplace trainer but from the commencement of the Single Assessment workforce on 9 December workforce trainers will need specific qualifications. These are detailed in the Statement of Requirement and also included in the updated assessment manual. So those qualification requirements are either that they are a trained assessor, so they’re certified as assessor, or they’ve got training qualifications. And we are aware that some people have both.
Okay. So all existing workplace trainers will need to complete mandatory training. This training consists of completion of the workplace training goal which contains online learning goals one to six. So again similar to the team leader we’ve got a specific goal for workplace trainers called workplace trainer goal and all your learning is populated into that goal. The workplace trainer goal has been automatically assigned to all staff holding the job position of workplace trainer and again some of you may have already completed assessor goals one to six. You may have been trained through MAClearning and if so you will be credited for completing those goals already. If you trained prior to MAClearning though, again same as team leader, if you trained pre MACLE or MACLE you will have to complete the workplace trainer goal which includes the assessor goals one to six.
Again same as team leader existing workplace trainers will need to complete this training by 31 March 2025 and completion of the training will be recorded for CPD purposes and you will get a record of the hours that – because we know that it’s quite extensive training. People who are new to MAClearning and new to the workplace training role will automatically be assigned to the goal and again they will have 20 weeks to complete this training. So we’re trying to keep all the timeframes and the dates as standardised as possible. And finally people holding the workplace trainer job position must also complete the transition learning goal as Carla mentioned.
All right. So that finishes the section on just running through the training pathways. We do have another reminder about Poll EV. I know that everybody seems to be jumping on and using it but that’s just if you want to have there. And again unfortunately we can’t respond to hands so if you can put your questions in the Poll EV that would be fantastic. All right. Back to you Nikki.
Nikki Prouse:
Thanks Kathryn. It’s been really tricky for us to balance the requirements of the new positions when there’s qualifications, change in scope of role, with what the role looks like for our Assessor Portal, for what you do in your organisations and for MAClearning and that’s exactly what Kathryn’s tried to go through there, how we tried to balance that.
So if this part of the presentation has raised questions there’s the QR code again or you can log into the Poll EV. I notice there’s some terminology questions in there that have come through. We’ll get to those. It’s been tricky as we’re moving through. We’re not calling it ACAT and RAS anymore but what are we calling it. That’s been tricky for the training.
We’ll go back to Kathryn now for an update on the Strategy. What we’ve covered so far in this presentation is what training we’ve designed and then how we’re applying it. And both of these, the what and the how need to be reflected in our Strategy and in our approach to appraisals and compliance. And Kathryn’s going to now also talk to this. So thank you Kathryn.
Kathryn Foley:
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Webinar’, ‘4 My Aged Care Workforce Learning Strategy update’, ‘Kathryn Foley’]
Thanks Nikki. All right. So we might just move straight into the first slide which shows the framework for My Aged Care workforce training. So yes. We’ve moved. Awesome. So this hopefully gives you a bit of a framework to show how we have set up the key documents for guiding workforce training and how it all flows through.
So the assessment process is required under the Aged Care Act. So that is what drives our legislative policy and program intent right up the top. That’s then operationalised through the Aged Care Assessment Manual and the Aged Care Quality Assessment Framework that provide the policy and program requirements for the assessment process. So they’re the sort of key guiding documents that we have in that first part that give us the guidance on what we train people in.
So then the Department is responsible for ensuring that the My Aged Care workforce which includes aged care needs assessors deliver a reliable, inclusive, helpful service providing easy to access information and assessment for entry into aged care services. So that’s our responsibility that we need to ensure that all aged care needs assessors can complete that role. So to make sure that the MAC workforce can effectively deliver the services the Department requires all aged care needs assessors to complete mandatory training.
So the My Aged Care Workforce Learning Strategy which I’ll refer to as the Strategy details all the mandatory learning requirements for all the roles within the My Aged Care workforce including aged care needs assessors. Now the Strategy covers what we call people in the call centre and aged care service officers as well as the assessors and it’s also been included to now add the residential aged care funding assessors as well. So that’s part of the changes that we need to do in this update.
So the Strategy is supported by the My Aged Care Quality Learning Framework which defines the My Aged Care capabilities required for each job position. And the capabilities are quite unique. They’ve been developed to align specifically with the role of the My Aged Care workforce and the assessor workforce and they’re defined as the un ique combination of respectful behaviours, attitudes and values, qualifications, experience and professional knowledge and networks of an individual to achieve their professional goals as well as those of My Aged Care. So you’ll see that the capabilities are reflected through our training and through our appraisal activities and that’s sort of the underpinning of how we frame our training.
So hopefully that gives you a bit of an overview and for our new people it just gives you an idea of the different guidance documents and things that we have in the system.
All right. Moving on. So as I said, as I went through previously, we’ve got some new job positions. And so we need to update the Strategy to reflect those new job positions and the new training requirements. So some of these positions already exist but did not have previous training requirements like team leader and workplace trainer. The new training requirements will mean that completion of online learning is mandatory for more job positions. And as Nikki said the aim is to ensure that the workforce understands the current training for assessors. With team leaders, as stated in the updated assessment manual, they’ll oversee the work of a range of assessors in their organisation and for workplace trainers they support learner assessors and staff to complete their mandatory training.
So on this slide you’ll see the other two new job positions are triage delegate and non-clinical assessment delegate. And so the training requirements for those positions are still being developed and so they’ll be provided in more detail in the future. But that’s just setting out the existing and new positions that we’re covering off in the Strategy.
All right. So moving on to the next slide then. We just wanted to give a bit of a refresher on the blended learning model which is how we deliver training for the MAC workforce. So the blended learning model shows that there are many different roles for training and so this steps out the different roles for the Department and the organisation and then how they come together in the blended approach. So for the Department as we said we set the learning strategy and the capability required and that goes to setting the online learning and the appraisal activities. We manage the online training and the training system through MAClearning and we validate the training outcomes through the appraisal activities and reviews.
The other partner in this of course is the organisation who support learners through their learning journey. They provide the organisational training because we don’t offer the full range of training that assessors need. They still need to be inducted through their organisation. They make sure that their assessors can get access to the Assessor Portal and the app and train them in the use of those and they provide on the job mentoring and support because we know that the learning continues all the way through whether you’re a new assessor or an existing assessor. And so this is merged into the blended learning approach which is the combination of online training, on the job training, appraisal activities and then ongoing learning through user guides and program manuals.
The blended learning model will not change with the Strategy update and assessment organisations will continue to remain accountable for ensuring their learners achieve the capabilities required and complete the required training.
All right. Moving on to the next slide. So again as in the blended learning model the workplace trainer is a critical part in training assessors and supporting them as they continue on with their work. So this slide just summarises the key responsibilities of workplace trainers. So basically ensuring that they complete their mandatory training and appraisal activities, develop and deliver organisational training, support learners with onboarding for the Assessor Portal and app, support learners with on the job shadowing and mentoring, ensure learners complete other reforms, releases or refresher training on MAClearning and ensure learners meet the capabilities required from their learning journey. There are no changes to these responsibilities in the Strategy update but we are aware that with all the reform coming through that there is a significant workload for trainers and organisations and so that’s where we want to work to support trainers and organisations.
All right. So that naturally flows to appraisal activities and how the new job positions have changed how appraisal activities operate. So appraisal activities are signed off by workplace staff. So they can either be experienced assessors, workplace trainers or outlet or operations managers. And so we use the job position that staff are in to make sure that they’re the appropriate person to sign off on appraisal activities. Previously we had a lot of different job roles that were being defined as being able to sign off on specific appraisal activities and that reflected the different structures of organisations. So we had Government and non-Government organisations with a whole range of different structures in them. Now with the Single Assessment System and that we’re standardising job positions what we want to do is bring this back to a simple model of relying on the job position that you have in MAClearning. So that’s where this diagram shows the job positions that will be able to sign off on appraisal activities from the commencement of the Single Assessment System workforce.
So for appraisal activity two it can be a workplace trainer or an experienced assessor. The difference here is that for clinical assessors we need them to be signed off by a clinical assessor but for a non-clinical assessor that’s learning they can be signed off by either a clinical or non‑clinical assessor. And that’s replicated through for appraisal activity three in that clinical assessors need to be signed off by experienced clinical assessors but for non-clinical learners they can be signed off by either a clinical or non-clinical assessor. Then for appraisal activity four it's really just the manager job position that can sign off on the appraisal activity four and that’s a reflection of what we’re trying to do with appraisal activity four which is ensure that the organisation, a manager in the organisation has reviewed that learner and is confident that they’ve achieved all the capabilities and skills to do the job. Okay.
So the only other thing I guess to – so just moving on then to this slide. This just refreshes – as we said in the last slide gives you some definition about each of those job roles. Experienced assessors we’re looking at as being trained for 12 months. So they could have been trained through MAClearning 12 months ago. They may have been an existing assessor and they were registered on the system. So we’ll be looking just to check that that experienced assessor that’s signing off on appraisal activities has been trained for 12 months.
All right. That was the end of my summary. So again we’ll just remind you all about Poll EV. I can see that you are continuing to use that. So I’ll throw back to you Nikki.
Nikki Prouse:
[Visual of slide with text saying ‘Webinar’, ‘5 Q&A session’, ‘Facilitated by Nikki Prouse’]
Thanks Kathryn. And as Kathryn said we’re looking to publish the revised Strategy release pretty soon, in the next week or so. I just have to say I haven’t seen a Poll EV do that before. So thank you all for alerting us as you reliably did and have come over to the chat now. So please continue to put your questions in the chat. And you can apply the same thing. If you put lots of thumbs up on different questions that will help me work out which ones to answer first.
We’ll now move on to the Q&A. And the way I’m going to manage this, I’ll start with the upvoted Poll EV questions as we said and then we’ll start moving through the chat. And then what I’m planning to do is at least keep the last five minutes of the session for wrap up and next steps.
So let’s head over to Q&A. I just want to raise we will be responding to training related questions only so I’ll let you know ones that we’ve identified as policy issues that we will be raising with the policy and program team and assessment branch. We’re also happy to forward on any questions you have related to policy or the tender so please continue to put those in chat or send them to our inboxes. We can share them to our colleagues.
All right. I’m just going to pause here for a moment while we switch over to sharing the questions and open up Poll EV. So the first one we had here or the highest voted one was the considerable shutdowns in MAClearning over the next months and whether this has been considered. Look it really has. The team had initially pitched to me a longer shutdown for MAClearning which really didn’t work for the timing of the Single Assessment System workforce go live being 9 December and quite a bit that your organisations need to get through in December. We have a planned shutdown, just one from the 6th to the 10th of January. That outage window is really needed for us to update the existing induction training to include the Single Assessment System workforce establishment changes.
We really want you to be aware of what’s happening because as we update things if you’re in elements you can lose progress on those elements. We’re also aware that at the moment as it stands if you’ve got new learners coming in they need to do the induction and the transition element, until we can go back and reflect policy arrangements across that induction which is a considerable amount of work we won’t be able to be in a position to make sure that your new learners are getting trained in the latest content. Some of the induction content is now a little bit out of date.
So I encourage you if there’s further risks you want to raise or timing of training in your organisations please put that in the chat or send us an email if there’s things that we really need to consider for that particular timeframe.
The next one goes to enrolled nurses not being considered for the triage role and that they are capable of deciding whether an assessment should be clinical or not. That one I’m afraid I can’t answer. That’s a policy related question. We will definitely be passing that on to the team. I appreciate that got ten votes and one down vote interestingly. But not something that’s in scope for what I can answer for this particular session.
Q: Will the Department be able to provide an assessment delegate for sign off on comprehensive assessments for the bridging course?
So this is what using old language we’d call the RAS to ACAT bridging course. As some organisations wouldn’t have delegates yet. Interesting with this course – and I might get Kathryn to expand on this response after I make an initial attempt. But to complete the appraisal activity the assessor will need to be able to be referred a comprehensive assessment which then would need to have an assessment delegate sign off so that they can submit the support plan to the Department and we can check the homework as it were. For an organisation that doesn’t currently receive comprehensive assessments their RAS to ACAT bridging training won’t be able to be completed until after 9 December when Single Assessment System workforce goes live. But after that time they’ll also need assessment delegates to finalise comprehensive assessments. So there’s kind of two steps to that, that you need to be able to receive those comprehensive assessment referrals because your organisation’s either already getting them or from 9 December you’ll get them, and then you need that assessment delegate.
So I would say no the Department wouldn’t be able to provide an assessment delegate but we do have the process in place to – particularly our policy and program colleagues have a process in place for your organisation to have assessment delegates put in place. If that’s an issue I think that’s something we’ll definitely have to raise with the policy teams because it’s something you’ll need to finalise comprehensive assessments come 9 December.
Kathryn was there anything I should add to that?
Kathryn Foley:
No. No. I think you’ve covered it.
Nikki Prouse:
And I noticed there were two questions on that one that kind of go to the same thing. Opportunity for operations managers to do the training to understand the requirements, although they won’t be an actual assessor. Absolutely. If there’s staff across your organisation that are keen to do our goals we are happy to receive emails to our inbox and we can show you that inbox at the end or I’ll get one of the team to drop that in the chat. So the ops managers are across goals one to six without doing the appraisal activities of course.
Q: If new learners are midway through induction training by January 2025 do they lose their progress?
I might pass over to Brad to take this one for me.
Brad Godfrey:
Thanks Nikki. So we know that in the system if learners are midway through their progress at the element level and we make an update to the system that they will lose progress in that element. Not the goal and not at the goal level but in the actual element that they are. So we will be writing out to learners to remind them of the shutdown and we’re encouraging everyone to complete learning before we do that just to minimise that risk of content resetting. Because we’re very much aware of how frustrating that is so we will be doing that. But as Nikki said we do need to have the shutdown period. It will avoid a lot of heartache for users who will constantly experience the content lost and the progress lost on repeat as we update every element in our core library.
So encourage everyone to complete elements as quickly as they can. Unfortunately it’s a known issue in the system.
Thanks Nikki. Back to you.
Nikki Prouse:
Awesome.
Q: When will we get a copy of the PowerPoint please?
We’ll share this as soon as we can after this webinar. As I said I think earlier we’re also planning – and I’ll go through next steps at the very end but we’re also planning to share the webinar and our fact sheets and things. We want to get them up on our website so you can access them whenever you want instead of having to trawl through your emails to find copies like I do with half the things in my inbox at the moment.
An updated My Aged Care Workforce Learning Strategy. Again I mentioned and Kathryn ran through how we’re updating that. That should be available soon.
They’re all the questions I can see at the moment James. What I might do is go to the one about training and pass over to Carla. We’ve had a few questions on new training terminology, so clinical, non-clinical, home support assessor, comprehensive assessor. Could you enlighten us on what the appropriate terms are?
Carla Scalia:
Yes. I was going to say lots of terminology changes as we move. So yes. Basically we are moving away from RAS and ACAT and we’re moving to refer to assessors by their clinical status. So non-clinical and clinical assessors. It’s more along the lines of non-clinical assessors will be conducting home support assessment and clinical assessors conducting comprehensive assessment, noting that obviously there are arrangements in place if you’ve done the training element. You would have noticed things around clinical attendance will be introduced with the introduction of the Single Assessment System. So yes. That is basically the terminology changes.
I know that there have been other terms used that you may have seen in other documentation such as simple and complex assessment. For the time being home support and comprehensive assessment is the terminology being used. As we move towards the introduction of the new Aged Care Act we do foresee terminology changing to align to that documentation as well and so there may be further changes around terminology. At the beginning of the transition elements as well as the bridging we do have in the introduction lesson a bit of an interactive just to introduce you to some of the new terminology changes that are happening. I know it’s a little bit hard to find your feet in all the changes that are happening but hopefully that information in the element will give you some guidance with regards to new words being used as we move forward.
Nikki Prouse:
Thanks Carla. And I think we’ll have to be kind to each other in the next few months heading towards the new Aged Care Act being in place while we get used to new terminology. It’s not going to be perfect in every piece of communication or training I think at the moment.
What have we got next in the questions? There was one around assessor - - -
I’ve lost it on the screen now. What have we got?
Q: Will the delegate support role be amended so that they can do appointment bookings and admin functions during triage?
We’ll take that one again for the policy team to review. We don’t set the requirements I’m sorry around what the different roles can and can’t do. We match training to those requirements. We’ll take that one on.
An updated Assessment Quality Framework document. I’m not across when that will be updated. Are any of the team in the room? Otherwise we can take that one.
Kathryn Foley:
No. I think that’s a policy question. So we will be updating our Workforce Learning Strategy Quality Framework. So we’ll be updating our Quality Framework but that Quality Framework is the one that’s linked to the manual. So that’s for the policy team.
Nikki Prouse:
Thanks Kathryn. A comment here around the Statement of Requirement didn’t have the detail about training. I’m not sure what Statement of Requirement you’re referring to so you might want to drop that in the chat. The one we had access to certainly had training details in it. So I’m not sure if we’re looking at slightly different documents or something but it would be worth whoever made that comment if they want to reach out to us for a bit further information on that one.
Q: Why have experienced assessors who have done all required training prior to introduction of MAClearning not grandfathered?
I wouldn’t agree necessarily with that question but Kathryn I might get you to run through the different approaches we’ve taken to training assessors just quickly so everyone’s across.
Kathryn Foley:
So I guess for experienced assessors they are going to just transfer straight across, so the RAS become non-clinical, ACAT become clinical. They still need to do the transition training which we’ve done. So previously it was IAT transition training and now we’re doing Single Assessment transition training. The tricky bit comes when an experienced assessor has more than one job position, when they’ve got team leader attached or when we’ve got workplace trainer attached. And we know that’s very common given how the portal works and the functions that you need to have in the portal. So we know that team leader has different functions in the portal to what the assessor does. So when they’ve got the two job positions that’s when the new training requirements apply. So that’s when if you’ve got the team leader job position or you’ve got the workplace trainer job position then you will need to do the MAClearning online goals one to six. Now we do appreciate that you are experienced assessors. You’ve been doing the job. We absolutely recognise that and value that. What we’re trying to do here is make sure that everybody is the same baseline in having the same base knowledge, so that you’ve done our new training and that’s linked to your role as a team leader of supervising other staff or as a workplace trainer of training other staff.
We’ve done a lot of changes to training over the last 18 months. Carla continues and continues to update training. And while you have the practical skills to do the assessment there’s really important information in that training that we want everybody to be across. So that’s why we’ve put in that training requirement to do the online training.
Nikki Prouse:
Thanks Kathryn. And I appreciate some experienced assessors may also have the team leader role. If they’ve done goals one to six in MAClearning they’ll be marked as complete. Even though they’ve been assigned goals one to six through this we do take recognition of that learning if you’ve completed it as assessor in MAClearning. You’ll be marked as complete on the team leader side of things and that might be why that question was asked.
And then the last one we had in Poll EV here was around accessing MAClearning through another program and is it possible to have induction training added to your profile. Yes. It is. And please reach out to the team. Again we’ll put the inbox up in one of the last slides or maybe one of the team can drop that in the chat.
I’ll move across now to the questions that have been asked in the chat. And again really appreciate you all jumping on board with the Poll EV and then that didn’t quite work for us and moving into the chat. That’s awesome perseverance with us today. So the first one we had here was:
Q: How long does the training take for team leaders and workplace trainers? There’s lots of training for those of us who do both and have been doing both for a long time.
I might ask Carla or Kathryn to talk to the length of training in goals one to six.
Carla Scalia:
Twenty weeks is the full scope noting that obviously the first three elements in the first two appraisal pieces can be done within four to six weeks. So that is our allocated timeframe. How quickly you choose to get through it however is completely up to yourselves and your organisations and how you support assessors through that process. It’s just I guess an allocated timeframe that we provide. But if you wanted someone that wanted to knock it out quicker than that absolutely they’re more than able to.
Kathryn Foley:
I guess what we’re looking at here is only the online learning. So we give the 20 weeks for the full assessor training which includes the appraisal activities. That’s not required here. It’s just the goals one to six in the online learning. And we estimate that’s approximately 38 hours of online learning. And it’s not insignificant. That’s a full working week. That’s a lot of learning. But it also can be done over time. So that’s why we’ve given you until the end of March to do it so that you can hopefully chip away at it.
Carla Scalia:
And like all adult learners you take from those elements what you need. So you may be in an element, you get to a lesson and you’re like ‘I know this’. There’s nothing stopping you from scrolling to the end and moving into the next lesson. So you can navigate it the way that you wish. Certainly we’re not requiring people to be sitting there for the full scope of hours if they’re able to get through it quicker and just touch base with the areas that they need. You will need to obviously engage with all of the elements to complete the goals. And the element might be allocated a two hour timeframe for example in goal three but you may be able to get through it sooner because you have a lot of pre-existing information and knowledge in your mind that you don’t need to engage with every single word within that element as well.
Nikki Prouse:
Thank you. And unlike IAT for team leaders and workplace trainers – these are new roles that we’re looking at in the assessment pathway – we’re not actually preventing you taking those roles before you’ve completed training. So I think that’s another benefit of the approach we’ve taken to the second phase in the Single Assessment System.
We’ve got a question here around covering triage training elements in this webinar. What we have done at the moment is in our fact sheet we explain how the triage role in the portal is completed under the team leader kind of hat at the moment, at least until I think February next year. So we haven’t pulled out specific triage delegate training in this round of training. It’s something we’ll look to do when we head towards having a new Aged Care Act and that triage delegate is formalised. We’ll also have to update assessment delegate training at that time. So that’s something we’ll look to be doing next year assuming a 1 July 2025 start date for that new Act.
There’s a question in here around:
Q: What is the process of providing evidence in training requirements? Is it just learning transcripts in MAClearning that provide the evidence to the Department?
I’m not sure who put that question in but if we could get some further advice on what you mean. I’m not sure about providing evidence to the Department. The evidence we look for is generally in that appraisal process, not in evidence of learning. We don’t have any RPL in this training program.
Kathryn Foley:
And if I can jump in there Nikki. The MAClearning system provides the record of everybody’s training. So all the training is on there so you can download the transcript at any time. And we do give certificates for certain courses. So we give a certificate for a clinical assessor, non‑clinical assessor. So it automatically comes through with your certificate on MAClearning once you’ve completed all the requirements in the course. So that gives you evidence that you can walk away with as well. You can download a certificate. But we certainly use MAClearning. We check MAClearning to understand where you’re up to with your training.
Nikki Prouse:
Thanks Kathryn. There’s a question in here.
Q: Is the material on the workplace trainer and team leader goals essentially the same?
Yes it is. And the same as for assessors. We’ve replicated our content across all of those staff that are working in that assessment pathway. Now there’s just more roles that we’re catering for.
Q: When is the role of non-clinical assessment delegate expected to be introduced?
I believe that’s with the new Aged Care Act. Is that correct Kathryn? I’m just checking. Or it might be something we need to confirm.
Kathryn Foley:
Yeah. That’s my understanding. Yeah. With the Act.
Nikki Prouse:
We can confirm that in the FAQs but with the Act.
Q: With the team leader role being changed to clinical and the impact this will have on existing team admin processes has any thought been given to expand other roles to replace this?
This is actually a question in various forms we’ve had in our inbox. It’s actually a policy question we’ll pass on to the policy team for review about how they’re managing the team leader role and admin processes and the balance in that. So unfortunately I can’t answer that one.
Sorry. I’m scrolling through this list now.
Q: So an ETA on delegate training.
So at least April next year potentially. Is that around when we’re looking at delegate training Carla? I’m giving advice out of school here.
Carla Scalia:
Yeah. Look as soon as we can get more information on what that might look like we’ll certainly – obviously the goal with training is always to get it out as early as possible noting that there is still a lot of moving parts to nailing some of that. So once we can develop that training we’ll get it as soon as we can to you for sure.
Nikki Prouse:
We’ve got two questions here around the Statement of Requirement, one of them mentioning that the latest Statement of Requirement says that workplace trainers have to be clinical assessors and/or have formal training requirements and must satisfy both. I think that’s something we’ll have to take on notice and confirm. I did notice that actually yesterday but I haven’t confirmed if that means they need to satisfy both. And also the Statement of Requirement detailing qualification requirements as clinical or tertiary, and can we confirm that we’re using clinical to refer to both of these options. I assume we are. That’s how we’re – I don’t know what role that’s in relation to. Health related discipline related directly to health, aged care or related specialist. Do you know team what they’re referring to with that one?
Kathryn Foley:
Yeah. So we need to go through the technical – we need to fit in the Statement of Requirement but we’ve been using sort of the generic term of clinically qualified as being the catchall. So we will recognise the letter of the Statement of Requirements but we’ve been using the term clinically qualified just as a summary term.
Nikki Prouse:
Thanks Kathryn. There’s a question here and I kind of started to touch on this earlier.
Q: If you’re not currently an ACAT, so current RAS agencies, who can sign off on the support plans for those that are doing the comprehensive training, the bridging training?
So this goes to needing assessment delegates and also those organisations receiving comprehensive assessments to complete that training. One thing that someone’s raised in here is whether some agencies won’t actually have that until July. Carla or Kathryn I’ll get you to explain the approach we’ve taken for bridging training and how those clinical RAS staff could be operating before they get their appraisal activities completed. They can still assess clients?
Kathryn Foley:
Yeah. So this is the recognition that we’ve got, that these are existing assessors that are used to doing the assessment process. What we’re wanting to do is skill them up to be from a non‑clinical assessor to a clinical assessor. Now in that the main crux of it is understanding the different services that you can refer to and recommend for but also the delegation process. So while you are completing your training you can do those clinical assessments. The crux will be that you do need a delegate to sign them off. And so then I think that comes back to the previous discussion that we’ve had in this conversation about needing to access delegates. So again one I think for our policy colleagues.
Nikki Prouse:
Q: Will workplace trainers have the ability to see all learners in MAClearning?
The answer to that one is no. But if a user is managing staff we encourage them to register for the operational manager or outlet manager job position in addition to the workplace trainer and that will provide them with that ability. Team that’s correct? Get some nods.
Brad Godfrey:
That’s correct. Yep.
Nikki Prouse:
Excellent.
Q: What extra training support will be available to new organisations entering the workforce to help them get in a position to be operational?
We might take that one offline. We’ll talk to the policy and program teams about what they’re planning in that respect. I think that’s a tricky one to answer with tender messaging that we’ve got around keeping things pretty tight today. But I’m not ignoring that one.
Q: What do we mean by outlet operations manager?
We mean operational managers.
Q: What is the definition of experienced assessor? Is it a number of years?
What did we determine?
Kathryn Foley:
So for appraisal activity terms we say 12 or more months as an assessor. So that’s pretty much from your enrolment date. So if you’ve been enrolled it’s 12 months after that. We can also see if you’ve been trained on MAClearning, when you completed your MAClearning training and so we can count back from that. And of course on MAClearning if you’ve got existing certification, like you’ve got MACLE, pre-MACLE, statement of attainment, any of those qualifications, we recognise that you’ve been trained for more than 12 months.
James:
Can I also just jump in there. We did use the term experienced assessors when we were explaining the learning goals in Carla’s agenda item. So that just refers to existing assessors in the workforce at the moment.
Brad Godfrey:
I might just loop back Nikki sorry if I can and just explain the previous question around outlet and operations managers. Just to confirm for clarity there are two separate roles in MAClearning. There is an outlets manager and there is an operations manager. So those two roles still exist and are very much available through the registration process.
Nikki Prouse:
Thanks Brad. And we had a question.
Q: Do we need to provide a contact person from our organisation to support the registration process for MAClearning access?
And we’ve said yes. Organisational managers are the contact person we use for registration. Is that what we mean? Organisational or operational?
Brad Godfrey:
Yeah. So we have written out to operational managers. That’s our primary audience that we communicate with who are responsible for updating their staff information to us and their MAClearning account information. So we do have a list of operational managers but we certainly welcome updated primary contacts from those organisations. So more than happy to accept those through maclearninghelp@health.gov.au.
Nikki Prouse:
All right. I think that’s about all we’ve got in that we can answer at this point.
I’ve noticed one more in that chat. I’m just looking at the very latest one around:
Q: Introducing training at the time of transition will introduce pressures for agency and staff, noting staff take leave in January the proposed timeframe is short. Can a longer timeframe be allocated?
Probably as the last one Kathryn do you want to just quickly talk to timeframes that we’ve had in the fact sheets and that we’ve discussed allocating now?
Kathryn Foley:
Absolutely. Yep. So in the workplace trainer fact sheet that we did circulate to some people we did have an earlier timeframe. We’ve absolutely rethought that one and we’re giving people until the end of March to do their workplace mandatory training. Yeah. But other than that what we’re wanting to do is just have people hopefully try and get through them at a paced rate. It doesn’t limit them from doing their role now. So they can still do the team leader role and the workplace trainer role now. What we’re looking to do is get a point where we can review how many people have actually done it and then we can follow up from there. We can’t set a due date in the system on MAClearning for this so that’s why we’re setting a date for everybody. But yeah we’ll be working with organisations on compliance after that.
Nikki Prouse:
Thanks Kathryn. So we might move to wrapping up and next steps if you want to go to the next slide thanks Selinaena.
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So we got there. Thank you for persevering today. A bit of a change in process. It’s been really valuable for us to be able to test the Strategy we put in place, hear your views and feedback and start moving forward for this implementation. The questions we’ve taken on notice today, we’ll have responses for you as soon as we can as we said and slides and things that we’ll share. I also want to say thank you again for engaging with our training. We really appreciate the learners that have already gone in and completed it.
Proposed next steps from here. We’ve got some contact details in if you have any questions that were raised today that we couldn’t answer and you’re looking for the exact right location for those. First of all MAClearning help is for questions on basically the MAClearning system, so registering for training, or if you’ve lost your password or that sort of thing, or you want to enrol in some induction modules. My Aged Care Assessment is for questions on the policy and operational arrangements. We’ve got the Single Aged Care Assessment RFT email for any questions about the tender. The Statement of Requirement and things are good to direct that way. And then AN-ACC Assessments. We didn’t have any questions raised here but if you’ve got questions about how that’s going to roll out as part of Single Assessment System workforce that’s your place to direct those questions.
Again as I said we’re happy to take questions. Sam Franks is telling me there was one AN-ACC question that I’ve missed but we’ll get her to respond to you, the person that raised the AN-ACC question. Sorry we didn’t get to it today. Again our team’s happy to take questions and direct them to the right area if you come to us.
That’s about it for today. What we’re proposing to do next, we’re looking at if there’s a date in December that could work for a LEN webinar and that can cover the rollout of Single Assessment and potentially starting to talk about things that will happen next year, so the delegates that were raised today and also Support at Home and on to the new Aged Care Act.
That’s about it from us. Thank you again for today. It’s been lovely having 100 and something people on this call. Thanks everyone. That’s it from us.
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