Skills for Welbeing, 2020

Skills for Wellbeing, 2020 is the workforce development project for social services currently being developed by the social services industry and the Social Services Industry Training Organisation. Sector leaders from social services and voluntary welfare umbrella organisations are collaborating with Social Services ITO on the project, with funding from the Tertiary Education Commission.

The project is intended to provide a vision-driven framework for strengthening and developing the social services and community sector to effectively contribute to the sustainable wellbeing of individuals, families, whānau and communities for the year 2020 and beyond. The skills framework will be reflected in the improved education and training of social service and community workers and leaders.

Skills for Wellbeing has a broad scope because the future social wellbeing workforce will need to be flexible. The project has identified common principles and competencies needed across social service roles, and the leadership and organisational cultures required to support efforts to strengthen families and communities.

The project aims to be practical and transferable and supports significant change in the social services and community sector. It encourages the embedding of values, attitudes, knowledge, and skills that will influence practice, organisation culture and relationships.

The project is in the early stages – a discussion paper has been distributed to interested parties in the social services, community and voluntary sector, with feedback due by July 2010. The discussion paper draws on local and international research and trends, as well as the views of people involved in family support and community building.

The initial trial for the Skills for Wellbeing scheme is due to be launched in 2011. After further development during 2011 and 2012, the project will be rolled out to the social services sector, including in education and training, from 2013 to 2017. It is envisioned that the project will be fully operational by 2020.

The ‘skills’ in this framework are the common set of values, attitudes, skills and knowledge considered necessary for social service and community work in the upcoming decades. The skill set is portable and applicable to whatever additional specialist skills are needed for a particular role or discipline. Organisations that choose to adopt the proposed framework will commit to their workforce and culture developing, supporting and demonstrating these skill sets.

The project has been aligned to Whānau Ora and Ngā Kaupapa o Moemoeā as guiding visions as they already influence a wide range of services and groups involved in social wellbeing and community development.

Social services are already moving towards the integrated, holistic ways of working which iwi and Māori hauora services have been using for years, and these ways of working will be reinforced by future workforce strategies including Skills for Wellbeing, 2020.