lasting impressions

Crest NT has won the Team Innovation Award category at the 2017 HESTA Aged Care Awards for their induction program that helps new Indigenous employees start work on the right note.

When you start a new job there’s often lots to get your head around - new people, new information and a new environment to get used to. During this time a little extra support, and a great first impression can go a long way to helping you get settled into your new workplace.

Recognising this, the team at Crest NT developed the Aged Care Indigenous Induction Program, which helps employers provide engaging information and resources to Indigenous employees starting out in the aged care workforce.

Crest NT Director, Sally Morris explains that one of the aims of the Aged Care Indigenous Induction Program (ACIIP) was to help provide support to the aged care sector – which is currently experiencing a shortage of skilled workers.

“Our work supports the aged care sector in providing quality care…we help them find innovative ways to attract and retain quality workers along with providing business solutions to support the sector in these ever changing times,” says Sally.

Resources that form part of the ACIIP include a ‘Buddy Guide’. This equips those supervising inductions for Indigenous aged care workers with tools like videos, case studies and questions designed to help new staff become work-ready.

Essentially the program helps to ensure new employees have a positive introduction to their new organisation’s workplace culture, as well equipping them with the necessary skills to become job-ready.

Supporting the aged care industry

When creating the induction program, the Crest NT team consulted with aged care workers and employers to find out their specific requirements. Sally explains, “The whole project was a very inclusive process and driven by what was required and needed for the aged care industry.”

During this process they found that the industry had difficulty accessing quality professional development material for staff that was designed and contextualised to meet the needs of the communities they were operating in.

Keeping this mind when they designed the ACIIP materials the team tailored the induction content to make it relevant to people living and working in rural and remote Indigenous communities across the Northern Territory. This included ensuring that the content supported Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in developing the skills and knowledge needed to work in the aged care industry. 

Sally says winning a HESTA Aged Care Award is “just fantastic”. Crest NT plans to use the $10,000 prize money to begin designing more resources to complement the Buddy Guide.

“The prize money will be used to develop an additional resource card to add to the kit…we will consult with the providers that were involved in the development of the original resource to gain an understanding about what information is required,” says Sally.