Workforce Capacity and Capability Building Service
Responsible government
- Queensland
Fourth Action Plan actions
- Support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and their children
- 7 Build the workforce capability to ensure delivery of high quality, holistic, trauma-informed and culturally safe supports that respond to the complex needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and their children.
- Improve support and service system responses
- 16 Enable workforces to provide trauma-informed support with a focus on safety and recovery to victims and survivors of domestic, family and sexual violence.
What are we doing?
The Queensland Government established a Workforce Capacity and Capability Building Service to support the domestic and family violence, sexual violence and women’s health workforce across Queensland, known as WorkUP Queensland. WorkUP Queensland is being delivered by the Healing Foundation, in partnership with Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS).
This partnership combines domestic and family violence expertise and a strong connection to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, that will address capacity and capability needs of the sector. WorkUP will work with the sector to strengthen their capability through the provision of professional development across a range of areas.
The Queensland Government is providing $5.55 million (GST exclusive) over three years (2019-22) to support this service.
What have we achieved so far?
WorkUP Queensland’s achievements have included:
- conducting extensive engagement with the sector to inform the development of both state-wide and place-based workforce development plans; as well as a capability framework and ongoing training and capability support;
- establishing five practice studios, hosted by local services, designed to translate evidence and research into real-life practice and share learnings across the sector;
- hosting a series of knowledge circles with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service providers, focusing on collaboratively sharing and building knowledge on topics such as professional development and self-care, workforce planning, and responding to COVID-19 impacts;
- delivering training and professional development to specialist DFV workers, high risk teams, and generalist practitioners on a range of priority topics, including perpetrator interventions, complex trauma, self-care, strangulation, intersectionality, DFV and disability, leadership, information sharing, and inclusive service delivery;
- hosting a series of inclusion forums, to be followed by workshops and further action learning opportunities, focusing on building capability in inclusive service delivery for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, LGBTIQ+ people, and people with disability;
- delivering webinars to discuss research and good practice on issues deemed important to the sector as determined through continuous support;
- awarding of collaborative workforce grants that support eligible organisations to partner with others to develop the capacity of their staff and services to respond to workforce challenges;
- providing scholarships to support staff development and sector capability building activities through accredited training and higher education for workers of any level across organisations;
- publishing an online resource hub to support the Queensland Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence workforce. The Resource Hub can be found at https://workupqld.org.au/resource-hub/;
- developing the “Practice Principles, Standards and Guidance Support” project to support funded services with implementation and compliance with the revised DFV Practice principles, standards and guidance and the newly introduced Regulatory Framework (to assess compliance against Practice Standards); and
- developing domestic and family violence training and resources for the disability workforce to support services and practitioners to build skills and confidence to respond to disability and domestic and family violence at both a worker and organisational level.
What is next?
Through to 2022, WorkUP Queensland will continue to:
- Develop and support the sector to implement effective, place-based workforce plans;
- Define ongoing and emerging workforce capability and capacity requirements; and
- Deliver required training and professional development opportunities, as determined by continuous engagement with the sector and the Queensland Government.
What difference will we make?
As a result of the new Workforce Capacity and Capability Building Service, the Queensland Government would expect to see:
- A more effective, supported sector with higher quality service delivery;
- Improved access to an available skilled, job-ready labour force for the sector;
- Reduction in cost and impact to the wider community;
- Diversification of specialisations across the Sector through increased partnerships between services; and
- Increased quality and consistency of DFV service provision across Queensland.