Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) provides play, leisure, care and education for significant numbers of Australian children. As government has become increasingly involved in the regulation of OSHC, the sector has become increasingly professionalised. OSHC practitioners are active participants in quality improvement processes and increasingly…

The oral health of people with intellectual and developmental disability is poorer than that of the general community. Any solution for people with intellectual and developmental disability living in residential services needs to include disability support workers (DSWs). Previous studies have used either didactic or train-the-trainer approaches…

Positive Behaviour Support is an applied behaviour analytic system of support that is utilised in schools and in residential care settings for children and adults with disabilities who engage in challenging behaviour. Implementation fidelity depends on appropriate staff training and organisational behaviour management. A systematic literature…

Background: Australian disability services must comply with quality standards defined by federal government. Standards are abstract, focus on paperwork and rarely describe what good service quality looks like in practice. This research explored frontline day service staff's perceptions of good service quality to identify ways that it may be better…

Background: Research indicates the value of active support in achieving good outcomes across a number of quality of life domains for people with intellectual disabilities. However, implementation is not easy, and little research has explored why. We aimed to identify some of the factors that impact on implementation of active support in supported…

The implementation of action learning workshops in three nursing homes in rural Victoria, Australia has been critical in the re-visioning of how care can be enhanced for residents. The workshops were designed with the intent of improving quality of care for residents by providing health care staff with opportunities to learn together and effect…

In January 2009 the School of Education, University of Western Sydney decided to appoint an e-learning officer with the aim of improving the quality of online learning environments across course units. The e-learning officer had built a strong relationship with 45 academics across two campuses, with a positive impact on the application of…

In Australia, eligible long day care services may apply for support at the state level to assist with the transition of children from culturally or linguistically diverse backgrounds into childcare settings. For staff in childcare services, this support comes in the form of a cultural support worker (CSW). The primary role of a CSW is to build…

Objective: Aggression is common in children and adolescents admitted to psychiatric inpatient units. Few interventions for reducing aggressive behaviors have been identified. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of a milieu-based behavioral management program on the frequency of aggressive behaviors in a child and adolescent mental health…

This paper reports on research into a national education program within one of Australia's largest trade unions. The program was designed to assist the union's staff and elected officials respond to the rapidly changing industrial and political conditions in the manufacturing sector. It is ambitious in scope comprising sixteen modules that range…

In Touch is a professional training program designed to develop staff skills and support structures so as to enable schools to manage alcohol and other drug (AOD) matters in a coordinated manner that maximizes beneficial outcomes for at-risk students, while at the same time maintaining school discipline and community relationships. This study is…

In this case study of the impact of professional development (PD) activities in music on staff at a childcare centre, the researcher was also the provider of PD. The needs of the staff and their preferred mode of PD delivery were negotiated with the researcher, resulting in a number of sessions where new resources and teaching ideas were modelled…

A study examined training and staff development initiatives in Australian industrial and commercial organizations. It was carried out using a questionnaire and structured interview technique with 24 organizations. Larger organizations had their own facilities and trained in-house whereas smaller organizations made more use of Technical and Further…

The National Staff Development Committee of the Vocational Education and Training Sector in Australia is promoting action learning as a preferred professional development strategy to support the implementation of key competencies. Action learning was piloted across five training areas within the Department of Employment, Training, and Further…

This article reports on a study investigating the relationship between the introduction of new management practices and the training provided by Australian enterprises for their employees. The new management practices investigated include teamworking, total quality management, lean production, business process re-engineering and the learning…