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Community service agencies work independently, together, and with governments and community members to build social relationships, promote access and participation, and ensure quality of life, especially for people experiencing hardship. The quality and effectiveness of these services depends on a high quality, capable, and sustainable workforce. Around Australia, developing and sustaining the non-government sector workforce has become a shared goal of government agencies, peak bodies, unions and employers. The research contained in this report was conducted to obtain evidence which is specific to New South Wales (NSW), and can inform local strategies for building capacity and sustainability. The project was developed in response to a request from the Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC) and the Department of Community Services (DoCS), following the development of workforce initiatives by NSW Government Human Service CEOs and the Forum of Non-Government Agencies (FONGA) in 2008. The exploratory study consisted of four strands: a literature and data review; the NSW non-government organisation (NGO) community services workforce survey; focus groups with workers; and stakeholder interviews. Together, the strands provide vital information about the state of the non-government sector workforce, highlighting strengths and challenges, and possible strategies for reform.

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Welfare-to-work programs are now enduring features of Australia's labour market and social policy landscape. Over two decades, both Labor and Liberal governments have progressively tightened the conditionality of income support, extending principles of mutual obligation to new groups of working age recipients. This article is concerned with legislation that came into effect in 2006 requiring sole parents who receive income support to enter the labour market when their youngest children reach school age. This policy has practical implications for the character and dynamic of the labour market, and for caregiving, family wellbeing and women's autonomy. After outlining recent Australian reforms, we examine how comparable overseas reforms have impacted on the independence and wellbeing of vulnerable, low income women; and use emerging themes to outline an agenda to guide the next phase of Australian welfare to work research.

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Does being self-employed, as opposed to being an employee, make a difference to how parents with young children can balance work and family demands? Does self-employment facilitate more equal gender divisions of labour? This article uses the Australian Time Use Survey to identify associations between self-employment and mothers' and fathers' time in paid work, domestic labour and childcare and when during the day they perform these activities. The time self-employed mothers devote to each activity differs substantially from that of employee mothers, while fathers' time is relatively constant across employment types. Working from home is highly correlated with self-employment for mothers, implying the opportunity to be home-based is a pull factor in mothers becoming self-employed. Results suggest mothers use self-employment to combine earning and childcare whereas fathers prioritize paid work regardless of employment type. Self-employment is not associated with gender redistribution of paid and unpaid work, although it facilitates some rescheduling.

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This report provides information about the workforce delivering disability services and supports in the context of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in early 2020. The information comes from a national survey of disability workers which was co-designed by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) research team and the unions representing disability workers, the Health Services Union, Australian Services Union and United Workers Union.

The survey was designed to capture information from disability workers about the nature of the work they do and how it is changing; their experiences of working to support people with disability; and their perceptions of the NDIS. The results provide comprehensive, contemporary evidence that values workers' views and experiences, and which can inform approaches to disability service provision in Australia, and the operation and regulation of the NDIS.

Key findings include: (1) Many workers expressed concern about the NDIS with only just over a quarter believing it provided quality support for participants. Only one in five workers agreed the NDIS had been a positive experience for them as a worker; (2) Working time arrangements contributed to much concern for workers, over half work less than full time across multiple jobs, most reported doing vital tasks in unpaid time and many report constant shift changes and unstable rostering arrangements; (3) Many report dissatisfaction with low pay rates and significant periods of unpaid work. Workers are rarely paid for travel time between clients and many are not reimbursed for out of pocket expenses incurred in the course of their work; (4) Workers report a lack of supervision, which was reinforced by respondents who were supervisors advising they have too many people to supervise effectively; and (5) Many workers report a lack of access to training and training is rarely provided in paid time.

Edited abstract from APO website. Show less

This report provides information about workers in services used by people affected by domestic and family violence and sexual assault. Analysis of surveys of workers and service leaders along with stakeholder interviews provides detailed insight into models of provision, workforce strengths and gaps, workers' skills and skill development needs, and perceptions of service capacity and sustainability challenges. Overall, the information can be used to inform efforts to build capacity of the workforce and service system to improve responses to people affected by violence, to help achieve the objectives of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children (2010-2022).

Key findings include: the workforce is strongly female dominated - more than 4 in 5 workers identified as female; services located in major cities tend to employ higher proportions of workers from [culturally and linguistically diverse] CALD backgrounds, while those in remote areas employed higher proportions of employees from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds; workers generally reported feeling confident identifying signs of abuse, however, fewer said they were confident identifying financial or sexual abuse, compared with physical or emotional abuse; many workers felt they needed additional training to support specific client groups, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/transsexual, intersex and queer/questioning] LGBTIQ people affected by violence, asylum seekers, people with experience of homelessness, and perpetrators of violence; more than 90 per cent of workers reported having a post-school qualification (36.3 per cent had a bachelor level qualification and a further 30.5 per cent had a postgraduate degree), however, while the sector is highly qualified, not all workers felt their formal qualifications had provided good preparation for working with people affected by domestic and family violence or sexual assault; workers with the highest levels of contact with people affected by domestic and family violence and sexual assault were more likely to have participated in relevant training in the last 12 months; workers in frequent contact with victims of sexual assault were more likely than others to receive relevant training, and to have received larger amounts of training; among workers in leadership positions ([Chief Executive Officers] CEOs, senior managers, team leaders), three quarters of men had undertaken management or leadership training, but only two thirds of women had done so; and less than 2 in 3 felt they received appropriate induction when they commenced in the service.

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This report provides information about paid employees in non-profit community service organisations in New South Wales (NSW). It profiles workforce characteristics, and leaders' perceptions of workforce strengths and issues and ways to respond to emerging challenges. Information comes from survey data collected from leaders of 398 community service organisations in February 2017.

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This report is concerned with prospects for quality services and decent jobs under Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Specifically, it examines how the prices set by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) are: affecting disability support workers; enabling employers of disability support workers to meet their industrial obligations; and supporting development of a skilled, high-quality, and decently remunerated disability support workforce.

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This report provides analysis of workers' experiences of delivering disability services and supports in the early stages of the outbreak of [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 in Australia. Data is drawn from a survey of 2341 disability workers, conducted in March 2020. The survey was designed primarily to help understand the experiences of disability workers, and the challenges they confront in the context of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). It was planned and designed prior to the outbreak of the virus in Australia. However, the data collection period coincided with the period that social distancing measures were introduced and increased in Australia. As such, many workers provided comments in the survey that highlighted the significant issues and challenges they faced in the context of COVID-19. These included access to PPE, workplace safety protocols, barriers to social distancing and self-isolation, and the need for further industrial responses and workforce supports to sustain quality service delivery through the pandemic and recovery phase.

Key findings are: (1) there is an urgent lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) being supplied to staff and clients, and many workers feel their organisation's safety protocols have been inadequate in the context of COVID-19; (2) there are widespread perceptions that the disability workforce is being dangerously overlooked in pandemic response, and many workers are worried about the ongoing impacts of lack of planning in their organisation and for the disability sector as a whole; (3) workers have been particularly worried about day programs and community access activities remaining in operation; group homes remaining open to other workers delivering NDIS services and supports to residents, along with visitors; and disruption to clients' routines and activities, which has created additional risks to client wellbeing and safety; (4) staff are extremely anxious about the situation, and workforce issues and additional workloads have made it difficult to respond to heightened health and safety needs; and (5) some workers have lost jobs or shifts and are uncertain about the future of their work, and many expressed concerns about their inability to effectively self-isolate, and the financial impacts of doing so.

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This report presents findings from a research project undertaken to inform development of workforce indicators for use in the ageing, disability and home care field in New South Wales (NSW). The project was commissioned by Ageing, Disability and Home Care (ADHC), Department of Family and Community Services and was undertaken by researchers at the Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC), at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) during early 2011. The Workforce Indicators Project was commissioned by ADHC to address a gap in the collection and availability of workforce data related to non-government community service organisations providing aged, disability and home care. The data collected will enable these organisations to undertake better workforce planning. This report recommends a set of core and supplementary indicators with which to monitor workforce characteristics and trends. These indicators aim to collect data that will support sector capacity building and inform long term workforce planning. In addition, the report outlines: the methodology employed to conduct this project; key findings from the literature and data review (Cortis and Hilferty, 2010); a menu of possible workforce indicators, sourced from research literature and existing minimum data sets, which may be used to monitor workforce issues; key findings from interviews conducted with representatives from funded organisations and other sectoral stakeholders; recommended core and supplementary indicators, selected from the menu of possible workforce indicators, and the criteria used for selecting them; considerations related to the scope and structure of data collection systems, as well as implementation and reporting processes; and recommended next steps that may enhance sectoral support and policy engagement.

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To build evidence about the specialist homelessness service (SHS) workforce and inform workforce development initiatives, this report details the workforce characteristics of organisations delivering SHS in New South Wales (NSW), and their leaders' perceptions of workforce strengths, issues and ways to respond to emerging challenges. Information is based on survey responses of CEOs or human resource managers in 72 organisations which were providing SHS in NSW in February 2017.

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