The research aims to provide a national picture of VET's potential role in the Australian Government's Welfare to Work reforms. The picture is made up of three key components.
First, the research will review Australian and international literature on issues faced by the three client groups (parents, mature aged people, and people with a disability) and other key stakeholders (employment service providers, employers, training providers). The literature will also examine 'what works' in transitioning people from welfare to work using training as a tool. Second, the research will produce a set of VET welfare to work profiles highlighting the existing training data, service provision and demographic context of the client groups for each Australian jurisdiction.
Third, the research will produce a set of six 'intervention cases' that demonstrate best practice in service delivery and training provision with an equal emphasis on providers and clients.
This project utilises mixed methods in which quantitative approaches drive and inform the qualitative methods used to continue the data gathering process. The various processes and outputs of the project are divided into three sequential phases, outlined below.
Phase 1 of the project uses a literature review and statistical analysis of relevant training and welfare to work data to establish the background for each research question.
The project will commence with data collation and quantitative analysis of existing data sets focusing on connections between key socio-economic indicators of each Australian jurisdiction and education and training indicators. Information for the contextual indicators will come from sources such as DEWR, ABS and State of the Regions reports (particularly the 2004 Report, which focuses on ageing). Education and training statistics will be accessed from NCVER, ABS and DEST. A literature review will be prepared concurrently and will address the key issues related to welfare to work.
On the basis of both the literature and statistical reviews, will be drawn up which will include the following fields: informing key policies, programs, interventions, strategies, duration, intensity where relevant, and statistics on education and training.
Phase 2 is the data-gathering phase of the project and will involve investigation of the practices and experiences as they relate to VET in six lead agencies in the welfare to work field. Data will be gathered through semi-structured interviews and collection of locally relevant reports and data.
Six interventions of actual regional initiatives, where VET is a factor in welfare to work, will be investigated, analysed and documented. This will inform the development of a customisable interview schedule for use by the intervention case team. Of the six intervention cases to be investigated, two interventions will come from each of the three welfare to work groups.
Phase 3 of the project involves analysis, reporting and information dissemination. Data from the intervention cases will be collated centrally and synthesised with the assistance of qualitative and quantitative analysis tools such as Nvivo and Excel. Six intervention case studies together with a cross-cutting analysis will be prepared as support documents.
Charles Darwin University is a dual sector university (TAFE and Higher Education) created with the mandate to build a capacity of first-rate scholars and researchers to support regional development in Northern Australia. CDU delivers more than 90 per cent of VET in the NT. The organisational structure of the new university provides a mechanism to attract and retain high calibre professional personnel, who have skills relevant to the drivers of economic growth within a regional setting. Significantly the university is building national and international capacity that addresses the developmental needs and challenges facing the Territory. The Learning Research Group conducts highly successful national and NT-based research and consultancy projects that include large-scale survey and evaluation work as well as smaller but significant projects. Clients include NT Department of Employment, Education and Training and NCVER.
