I have decided to write my Blog on an RTO issue that I am currently involved with, which is a different perspective on the overlaying of VET onto what was previously an internal accreditation process. In New South Wales Surf Lifesaving (SLSNSW) has a volunteer membership of more than 62,000 at 130 Clubs and protects 1590 kilometres of the NSW coastline. In my role as a volunteer on the Surf Lifesaving National Board of Development I am actively involved in the continuous development of our organization. SLSNSW has 600 volunteer Trainers, Assessors and Facilitators ( TAF’s) who deliver some 29,000 awards to the members each year. In 2007 the Australian Lifesaving Academy NSW (ALA) was established as a RTO with Federal Government Funding to deliver training for volunteer members, public training and community education. The major benefit to Surf Lifesaving (SLS) volunteer members is that the training and education is VET accredited, which has increased the value of the previous SLS generic awards. The ALA has also established a commercial training arm, with the revenue generated allowing SLSNSW to develop and deliver education services for its volunteer members. As an example of the scale of the commercial operation, the ALA delivered over 20,000 First Aid awards to the public last year. The challenge for our organization in SLSNSW is not only rolling out VET training for new TAF’s but the endorsement of the 600 odd existing volunteer TAF’s to ensure they meet the AQTF standards. Since achieving RTO status ,we have been actively involved in implementing endorsement or up skilling of our 600 odd TAF’s through RPL.This has been particularly challenging where we have volunteer TAF’s who have been successfully delivering SLS awards for many years and almost are offended that they have to go through the endorsement process. For those of us familiar with VET the process it was not difficult, but for the older TAF’s particularly who have been delivering Training, Assessment and Facilitation of the previous non accredited VET courses it was almost a bridge too far. They don’t understand why they have to go through the endorsement process, when they have so much knowledge in their area. As a result we have seen a large fallout of TAF’s, who have refused to become accredited which as a volunteer organization we cannot afford to lose their experience or resource. We are now holding RPL workshops for our TAF’s to assist them on a “one on one” basis to become accredited, and are achieving positive outcomes. We are getting there and hope to have all our TAF’s endorsed before the beginning of next season. ALA also introduced an additional layer of competency for our volunteer TAF’s being the requirement for bi annual endorsement after the initial endorsement, which is a form of proficiency. This captures the AQTF requirement for continuous improvement across all the operation of the RTO, to improve upon the quality of our services. This also received negative feedback from our TAF’s and we have needed to make the process simple and easy to achieve. So to assist in the endorsement process for our TAF’s we have implemented the following tools: – Proficiency Pack – detailing how members keep their TAF awards current: -A VET log book, to record the TAF’s participation in training and assessment activities – Annual in service courses for all TAF’s – Professional development workshops for our TAF’s We will also have similar workshops to the RPL endorsement for our TAF’s when the re endorsement period comes around
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