paul mallett advocates strongly for urgent investment in the training of care economy workers in suburban and rural Tasmania, particularly the training of professionals to support the rapidly increasing demand for in-home aged care and disability support services (see also post on “start up incubator” support for sole traders). Many of the themes and proposed solutions noted below would be applicable to the workforce challenges experienced in the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) sector, please see paul’s post on ECEC workforce strategies.

paul believes that to genuinely meet the needs of our aging population, and people with disability requiring support, a significant investment must be made now to train skilled workers. This investment must be applied across our state and focus on the development of a capable workforce in both our suburban areas and rural communities.

paul has worked for more than five years in workforce strategy and development, and most recently this included the important task of seeking to recruit and retain doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals into rural Tasmania. paul knows first hand how important training pathways and supports are to building the workforce where we need it. Tasmania has a highly disbursed population with scores of small communities across the state, with many being really isolated, like the west coast and our islands. As a state we have a challenge currently to meet the care and support needs of our community, and the demand for service in aged care and disability is growing. paul produced a series of internal reports as a workforce planner in the early 2020’s that showed that the further you live away from a city, the less access you have to health professionals and supports, and the worse your health outcomes are likely to be. This must stop. Every Tasmanian has a right to live well and age well and receive the support they need across their life time.

Given this paul believes significant investment is required immediately to:

• Promote care economy roles in suburban and rural communities, with a focus on attracting people with a commitment to the welfare of others.
• Create the training opportunities for people to train in their own community and complete practical experiences in their community. We know that people who live in rural and regional communities and train in their communities are likely to stay and work in their communities.
• Increase the number of course offerings per year and subsequently increase the number of trainers within TasTAFE/training sector with the teaching skill and practical work experience to teach the required courses. This will take some time to achieve and may require incentives for good practitioners to acquire the Training and Assessment qualification and be prepared to teach.
• Increase the use of technology to teach to remote learners, and develop models of teaching that enable remote learners to acquire the qualification without excessive travel, nor time away from their family/community. Consider novel ways to teach courses that is inclusive of remote learners.
• Use existing infrastructure in rural communities, such as underutilised Trade Training Centers, to support care economy course delivery
• Provide incentives to attract people to study care economy courses and wrap practical supports around students to help them succeed and transition directly to the workforce.
• Seek to ensure care economy workers who work as “sole traders” are supported to succeed in the administration of their small business.
• Continue to invest in the existing workforce and support current workers to acquire further skills and qualifications to progress their careers. For example, care workers may commence in support roles and then in to team leadership roles, or seek to specialise and complete degree level qualifications to move into registered allied health professional roles such as social work, occupational therapy, speech pathology, physiotherapy, psychology, or para-medicine.

In addition, paul proposes detailed exploration of strategies to increase the care economy workforce in Tasmania through immigration. It is unlikely Tasmania can meet the likely demand for care services in this state through internal workforce development alone. A strategy to complement our existing workforce with skilled and unskilled migrants (who we subsequently train) will be necessary.