The community services and health industries is the fastest growing workforce sector, experiencing the greatest need for employees, with 24% of workforce growth until 2012, increasing at a rate of 3% each year or 170,000 jobs (Industry Skills Council, 2008). In 2007 the community services and health industry was identified as the third largest Australian employer, consisting of over 1.1 million employees or 10.4% of the Australian workforce (Industry Skills Council, 2008).
Disability Services represents one sector in the diverse Health and Community Services industries in Queensland.
Workforce Profile Data
Limited data is available on the workforce profile of the Disability Services sector in Queensland. For further information regarding current disability workforce capacity issues nationally, the National Disability Administrators (2006) write extensively on the factors affecting the disability sector and interventions to address these issues.
The disability sector workforce is comprised of over two-thirds of women Australia-wide and internationally with workers averagely aged over 40 years. During 1971- 2001 the increase in woman's participation in the workforce has enabled a good supply of workers for human services roles, however this trend is reported to be slowing and therefore there is anticipated to be a slow and decline in the number of these women available to work in the disability sector (NDA, 2006). Support workers are more likely to be employed as casuals while coordinators and managers are more likely to be employed full-time.
Disability services provided include:
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Disability services are provided by:
Disability services are generally funded by Federal or State governments. Organisations providing disability services range from very small community organisations, large community organisations as well as state government departments.
In 2007-08, NGOs in Queensland received Queensland Government funding of $394.1 million for disability services.
Total number of disability service outlets 2007-08, including DSQ, NGOs and other government agencies:
Job roles in the disability sector include
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Volunteer opportunities
Volunteers provide a range of support to non-government organisations providing services to people with disabilities.
Cost to organisations of attracting and inducting volunteers have increased with various legislative and policy initiatives.
Under proposed changes, volunteers working with adults with a disability will be required to undergo a criminal history screening to obtain a 'Yellow Card'.
The disability sector is facing a number of challenges in relation to both attraction and recruitment to the disability sector. Specifically, the National Disability Administrators (2006) documents key challenges facing the sector in relation to attracting high quality applicants including, limited workforce planning, and understanding of the most effective ways to target and recruit, lack of consistency in targeting who promotional messages and general sector recruitment should target and a generally poor image of people with disabilities.
Complimenting the difficulty in the attracting new staff are also the challenges in regards to current recruitment processes utilized for the disability sector. Specifically, the National Disability Service (2006) highlight a number of consistently raised challenges impacting the success of recruitment to the disability sector, including-but not limited to-inconsistency regarding job descriptions and actual job requirements, potential workers struggling with the formalities of recruitment process especially written applications, questioning as to whether interviews alone are the most effective method for determining candidate suitability, the length and duration of recruitment processes, duplication of recruitment resources among agencies and concerns that current practices are not sufficient to recruit the necessary diversity of employees to work with the increasing representation of Indigenous people with disabilities.
Similarly impacting the retention and attraction difficulties of staff to the section, Buchanan (2008) highlights that core disability care work is often lowly paid, and this could be influencing the lack of retention of staff in the sector.
The National Disability Administrators (2006) document a number of examples of innovative and successful examples of recruitment and attraction campaigns in their report.
The shift towards home-based care is changing skills requirements and placing greater demands on staff in terms of responsibility, decision making, and occupational health and safety. The skill level required for disability support is high.
Respondents from the National Disability Services / Rimfire Benchmarking Data project reported:
Type of people suitable for work in the disability sector
Workers in this sector need to have a caring attitude and a willingness to work with a range of clients with a diversity of needs. A commitment to the empowerment of people with a disability and support for their rights and dignity are also important attributes of disability sector workers.
Key job roles and qualifications in this sector include:
New Skill Sets within the Community Services Training Package in areas such as working with high support and complex care needs will meet a need for emerging skill needs and flexibility required from workers in the sector.
Professional occupations include Social Worker, Occupational Therapist, and Physiotherapist.
Griffith University (Logan campus) offers a Certificate in Disability Studies with flexible entry requirements including a minimum of a certificate IV and three years industry experience. Other universities offered relevant courses are RMIT's Graduate Diploma in Disability Studies, Flinders University's Graduate Certificate in Disability Studies and a Masters of Disability Studies; and University of Newcastle's Masters of Disability Studies.
Traineeships
Traineeships relevant to work in the disability Services sector include the following:
Cross-industry traineeships are also available for organisational support roles in Disability Services including:
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The Health and Community Services Workforce Council acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Queensland and their continuing connection to land and community. We pay our respect to them and their cultures, and to the elders both past and present.
