The Health Industry Work Placement Manual is a guide for schools, students and health providers that aims to assist parties to establish and undertake work experience and structured workplace learning in the health industry.

Central Ranges LLEN, in partnership with St. Mary’s College and Seymour Health, devised the manual to address the shortage of qualified workers and scant training opportunities in the local health and hospital industries.

The manual’s contents

The Health Industry Work Placement Manual includes:

• an overview of each local health service, listing work experience and workplace opportunities
• work experience checklists – how to secure a position, what to expect and what is required before, during and after a placement
• workplace learning checklists
• resources – confidentiality, privacy and security forms, a logbook and additional information.

Developing the manual and creating opportunities for training in the health industries

Health service providers are facing increased demand for their services, an ageing population and workforce, and changing technology. We wanted to explore how local young people could gain experience in the health industry and a pathway into a health-related career.

To find out more we undertook the following initiatives:

1. facilitating the development of Vocational Education & Training in schools (VETis). Mercy Health Training is now providing an excellent VETis program for students in the Lower Hume area.
2. we invited CEOs of the five local hospitals to a meeting in July 2010 to discuss creating opportunities in hospitals for young people. The result was action plans to look at sharing school-based apprenticeship training or creating apprenticeships managed by more than one hospital to ensure students had a broad experience
3. proposing a funded industry placement for a local careers teacher. We approached Seymour Health to take on Brian O’Dwyer, Careers and VET Co-ordinator at St. Mary’s College Seymour, so that he could to explore health careers and develop work experience programs for Lower Hume school students. We also successfully applied for an Australian Government industry scholarship to fund the program and the development of the Health Industry Work Placement Manual.

Get involved

If you are interested in getting a copy of the Health Industry Work Placement Manual or finding out more about our work in the health and hospital industries, please contact us on 03 57811014 or [email protected].