Kicking goals on and off the park

The SANFL is helping to raise awareness of the benefits of apprenticeships and traineeships

SKILLS - owners of Steady Homes and builders, SANFL players Dustin Head and Kaine Stevens

The SANFL is helping to raise awareness of the benefits of apprenticeships and traineeships

Footy fans will get the chance to both cheer on their local team and kick their own career goals thanks to a new partnership between the State Government and the SANFL. The Skilled Careers: Your Passion campaign aims to capitalise on the camaraderie of the terraces to raise awareness of the many opportunities a skilled career can offer. “The SANFL is more than just the peak body for football in South Australia: it’s a trusted voice, with the ability to reach people from diverse backgrounds, of all ages, and across regional South Australia,” Minister for Innovation and Skills David Pisoni said at the announcement of the 12-month Skilling South Australia initiative in May. “Through this partnership we want to provide football players, followers, young people and their parents and mentors with information about the thousands of jobs in our fast-growing industries possible through apprenticeships and traineeships.”

SANFL is anchored firmly at the heart of communities across the state, with loyal fans turning up for match day, training and more. “The partnership will create a strong and wide-reaching connection with young men and women right across the state,” SANFL chief executive officer Jake Parkinson says. For the players themselves, an apprenticeship or traineeship provides a solid foundation for life outside the football ground. West Adelaide midfielder Kaine Stevens and defender Dustin Head both started their working life as carpentry apprentices and now run a successful construction company, Steady Homes. “I started as an apprentice at the age of 16,” Head says. “I moved from Tintinara to Adelaide and started my apprenticeship and playing footy with West Adelaide. I qualified when I was 20. I love what I’m doing and have been doing it for 10 years now, so I have no regrets at all.”

New South Wales-born Stevens followed a similar career pathway, balancing work as a carpentry apprentice while playing with Greater Western Sydney, NEAFL club Queanbeyan and now West Adelaide, which he joined in 2014. “You see people who don’t do anything, and then they don’t make the AFL and they don’t have anything to show for it, no qualifications,” he says. “By doing an apprenticeship or traineeship, they have a solid career to fall back on.” With talk in the clubroom from younger teammates often revolving around skilled employment, both Head and Stevens welcome the new initiative. “A lot of the young people do want trades, they’re just not sure how to go about it,” Head says. “When I first moved here, there wasn’t much help in the way of getting work. So if you want to play footy and the club can help you get a trade, I reckon that will be perfect.” Head and Stevens started Steady Homes two years ago and haven’t looked back since. “There are endless opportunities and it’s pretty good having our own company,” Stevens says. “But even if you just work for someone, it’s a good opportunity to have a successful job.”

Upskilling workers key to sector growth

THE State Government has announced funding for two new Skilling South Australia projects to help meet the demands of the growing child care sector, build capacity in its existing workforce and create career opportunities for future employees. Child Care Services Training is looking to upskill 15 existing workers from their current Certificate III qualification to the Diploma in Early Childhood and Care or the Diploma of School Aged Education and Care, marking an important change in traditional training within the industry to one that recognises the value of traineeships in building a workforce equipped to deal with the demands of a contantly expanding sector. “The industry will soon require thousands of additional educators with Certificate III and diploma-level qualifications, driven partly by the 120 new childcare centres proposed for South Australia over the next 18 months,” Minister for Innovation and Skills David Pisoni says.

“These projects have been established to enable the use of apprenticeships and traineeships in a field where these training models have not historically been used.” Lisa Tregenza, executive director of Child Care Services Training, predicts almost 1000 vacancies for diploma-qualified educators in these new child care centres, which is why advancing the skill sets of those already within the industry is so important. “We want to have good people within the service,” she says, adding that leadership opportunities exist for those completing their diploma. “If this is really what you want to do and you study hard, there are plenty of opportunities.” For prospective new child care employees, the South Australian Government is also funding an Educare Childcare Pre-Traineeship Program, a four-week training course created in consultation with industry and delivered by Hessel Group’s training arm, Enhance Training. “We aim to help participants gain a foundation in the early childhood sector,” says Darrel Tan, operations manager for the Hessel Group. “We provide a mix of accredited units from the Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care, as well as four non-accredited units in areas such as nappy changing and bottle-feeding which will help participants gain a practical understanding of the child care sector.”

Lina Ashe left a career in insurance to embark on the pre-traineeship program in April. “Because of my age and because I’d been in industry for such a long time, I wasn’t sure how I would go with studying, so it was a good taster course to see if it was something I would enjoy and was capable of completing,” says Ashe, who is now studying for her full Certificate III qualification. “It gave us a good understanding of what we would be getting into if we were to go into that career. I’d absolutely recommend it. “Now I’m looking for volunteer work because I want to experience what I’ve learned within the crèche environment. I’ve also decided to become a volunteer with children’s protective services – it has really lit a fire in me.” The final information and selection session for the Educare Pre-Traineeship program is on July 17. For more information, log on to hesselgroup.com.au/training or call [phone].

Mum’s the word for erin’s dream of a career in cooking

Jane Best has some valuable advice for her children: find out who you want to be and follow your dreams. So when her daughter Erin chose to embrace a vocational education training opportunity in order to pursue her dream of a career working with food, Jane was fully supportive of her daughter’s decision. As a Year 11 student at Mount Carmel College in Rosewater, Erin opted to study her Certificate II in Kitchen Operations, which included doing 140 voluntary hours in a kitchen. Then in Year 12 came the offer of a school-based apprenticeship at the Caledonian Hotel in North Adelaide, giving Erin the chance to gain her Certificate III in Kitchen Operations while still completing her South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE). “I was so happy for her,” Jane says. “This has given her an amazing opportunity to transition from school to a working life. She’s seeing the world through more mature eyes, working with various demographics and ages, being led by various people in the kitchen and contributing to their success.”

Jane is also appreciative of the positive mental impact her daughter’s experience is bringing. “Her self-esteem is absolutely through the roof,” she says. “She’s so proud of what she’s achieving and she doesn’t have that fear of the unknown after school. And she’s getting major life skills.” These skills mean that, at the end of Erin’s apprenticeship, a number of career pathways will be open to her in an industry that has grown 7 per cent year-on-year for the past four years in Australia alone. “By the time she’s in her early 20s she’s going to be a qualified chef and she can go off into the world, travel, go to university – do whatever she wants to, because she has a fantastic foundation for the rest of her life” Jane says. “I could not be more proud.” To learn more about apprenticeships and traineeships, visit skills.sa.gov.au 

Traineeships at heart of technology

A NEW traineeship program by Microsoft Australia in partnership with the State Government will create job and traineeship opportunities in information technology and cloud computing, and help to kickstart careers in the industry. The Microsoft Traineeship Program will provide up to 40 people with two-year traineeships that combine paid work experience with a Certificate IV in Information Technology and a Microsoft Azure Certification delivered through TAFE SA. The program launched in NSW in late 2018 and will roll out in Adelaide in September. “IT companies in SA and nationally are experiencing increased demand for information technology roles at the higher skill level and introducing a simple, statewide program for IT businesses to access trainees will encourage longer-term use of this career pathway,” Minister for Innovation and Skills David Pisoni says. “It’s critical for our state’s future economic success that our workforce is suitably skilled to meet industry needs – particularly at a time of unprecedented opportunity in sectors such as space, cyber security and defence.” Interested companies and trainees can log on to megt.com.au/microsoft-traineeship-program

Originally published as Kicking goals on and off the park