Abstract:
The increasing demands for service sector workers to hold formal qualifications in the
area of their work pose significant challenges to governments and educational
systems. In the Australian aged care sector, a significant proportion of residential aged
care workers are employed in facilities that are remote from mainstream educational
providers and/or are so small that they cannot afford to release employees to attend
education during working hours. As new accreditation requirements call for all
employees to hold formal qualifications, access to nationally-recognised
qualifications is a substantial issue for this industry.
This case study reports on a trial program to provide structured vocational education
in dementia care and compares three different approaches to organising and delivering
the program. These approaches involve the use of different combinations of satellite
broadcasts and flexible learning packages. Over a hundred small or remote aged care
homes around Australia participated in the study.
For many of the participating homes, the workload consequences of participating in
the trial were seen as greater than they were prepared to sustain and many,
consequently, either failed to deliver the program or only participated at the most
basic level.
The study concludes that factors in the homes - such as the relative priority
management gave to caring for their residents over developing their staff - are at
least as significant in determining the effectiveness of the program, as is the nature of
the materials provided.
