Congratulations to senior management staff at Shire of Kalamunda who have completed a Recovery Coordinator Training course after engaging FutureWest Institute to deliver and assess 2 nationally accredited units for managing and delivering recovery services on-site at their premises. Participants were assessed on their ability to analyse and identify recovery needs and develop effective recovery and business continuity plans using local bushfire emergency exercises.

FutureWest Institute has been assisting Baptistcare to run desk-top bushfire emergency exercises throughout eight of their aged care facilities and retirement villages.  This is an opportunity for staff and residents to test the capacity of their emergency management plans in response to a hypothetical bushfire incident.  The facilities and villages are located throughout the metropolitan and regional areas and are part of Baptistcare’s commitment to meeting residents’ health and safety needs in the provision of aged care and retirement services.  The exercises take into consideration current operational procedures, legislative requirements, resident characteristics and location of the facilities and villages.  A report will outline the outcome of the exercises and make recommendations for improvements and changes to maximise Baptistcare’s response and preparedness to bushfire incidents.

Our small group classes mean enhanced learning from one another, and great network connections are made with students across Australia coming from a range of government, not-for-profit, and private organisations.  Congratulations to all our students in the Advanced Diploma course for completing all your in-class coursework!

Please click on following articles published on LinkedIn:

2016
Give happy, live happy (11 May)

2015
The challenge of managing expectations of RPL (16 Oct)
Incorporating assessment in the workplace (14 Oct)
​Constructive learning and assessment (12 Oct)
3 ways to keep your sanity (and education) (13 Oct)
To exercise or not to exercise (22 Sept)

Many thanks to Mandy Dearden for delivering the Level 1 Incident Management Course on-site to staff from Astron Environmental Services and BMT Oceanica.  Thumbs up to all the participants who worked efficiently and liaised with one another to get their post course assessments submitted in record time!  "A lot of open and constructive discussion that was specific to my work needs" - commented from a course participant.  

FutureWest Institute delivered the nationally accredited unit Control a Level 2 Incident to emergency response, security, occupational health and safety and medic staff at Goldfields Granny Smith mine on-site this week.  Thanks to Kim who delivered the course, with a testimonial from a participant - "It was excellent training provided by Kim and it's great when a trainer has so much pertinent experience he can share.  It really adds value to the training and with a compressed course such as this, means we can get all we can out of it."  Students can now use this unit towards an elective unit under the Advanced Diploma of Public Safety (Emergency Management) qualification.

FutureWest Institute delivered the  Level 1 Incident Management training course to marine operations, maintenance, health, safety and security staff at Pilbara Ports Authority in August 2015. Thanks to Barney and Mandy for facilitating the course!  And to all the participants on the course, you are an invaluable part of the port's oil spill incident management and response team, and we look forward to receiving your post course assessments.

They say not to put all your eggs in one basket, especially when it comes to investing your hard earned money. Diversifying your interests is the key as you need to spread the risk.  At FutureWest Institute, we recommend putting all your eggs in one basket!

Why?  Often we get requests from organisational clients to deliver training in-house, but they may only have one or two staff members who can attend.  FutureWest Institute requires a minimum of five participants to run nationally accredited courses, and training can be delivered throughout Australia.  Have a think about contacting your stakeholders, people you engage with in your contracts, organisations you work with.  Have a chat about getting a group of staff members together from your networks so that training can be delivered onsite to you.  You will benefit from learning and sharing of experiences from each other, not to mention the power of networking within your business connections.  In this case, putting all your eggs in one basket is not risky at all!

Please contact FutureWest Institute to discuss your in-house training needs on 0401 679 988 or 0421 110 573.

Many people do not know the difference between a nationally accredited course and one that is non-accredited.  Reading the name of a course which sounds similar in content to another doesn’t necessarily mean they are the same.  A VET accredited course means that the course:

• Is nationally and internationally recognised, and can be recognised towards the attainment of qualifications
  
• provides competency based outcomes, that is, outcomes based on assessable skills and knowledge (not just physical attendance at a course)
• is delivered by RTOs who are required to meet stringent Standards and Legislation in the delivery and assessment of courses and qualifications. 

Only Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) can deliver and assess an accredited course, though not all RTOs can deliver and assess any accredited course.  RTOs have to apply to their governing body to have relevant training courses and qualifications on their scope. 

It is illegal to market or even imply that non-accredited training is accredited training.  One way to differentiate whether a course is accredited is the use of the Nationally Recognised Training logo (see right).  

You can always check whether an RTO is legally able to deliver and assess nationally accredited courses through training.gov.au where a full listing of courses and RTOs can be searched.

You may wish to consider a nationally accredited course if you require:

• training to meet an established industry or legislative need
• issuance of statements of attainment and qualification documentation (not just certificates of attendance or participation)
  
• training which meets national standards in education and training, which are recognised on a national and international level.