CHC32015 – Certificate III in Community Services
Please note – this course currently offer under ACT Training contract only. No fee for service enrolment available.
What is Certificate III in Community Services?
This qualification applies to community work delivered through a broad range of services which provide support to individuals and groups in the community. It is delivered as a broad-based qualification with a focus on community services or community development work. This qualification is appropriate for support workers, case workers and client contact officers.
Course fee for trainees: $350 (Eligibility for traineeship must be applied)
- Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community development worker
- Client contact
- Community care worker
- Assistant community worker
- Indigenous youth worker
- Intake and referral worker (Aboriginal)
- Juvenile justice court officer
- Juvenile justice officer
- Neighbourhood centre worker
- Residential support worker
- Support worker
- Tenants working in a range of areas
- Youth case worker
- Youth housing support worker
- Youth worker
Do I need any previous training?
No. You do not need to know anything about Community Services to enter the course. We will train you so you can be confident on deciding what kind of work you might be interested in.
What kind of person works in Community Services?
You need to be trustworthy, kind and genuinely care about people that are relying on you to support them. You may find the people you are caring for just need someone to talk to or you may find yourself in a far more demanding support role, such feeding and caring for a person’s basic hygiene needs.
Working in Community Services is not for everyone. It can be very confronting as you may be dealing with people who may have extensive criminal backgrounds and drug abuse issues. You may also be required to help people who cannot do basic things like feed themselves or go to the toilet on their own. It can be very rewarding, however when you see positive changes in a person’s life because of the support that you provide.
Language, Literacy and Numeracy
Every student must do a LLN check before we enrol you on the course. When you are caring for people you must be able to read things like medicine labels and follow written instructions. You must be able to write down information for your fellow workers too. If we think you need some support with reading and writing, then we can help!
You are assigned one of our highly experienced trainers who you can email anytime should you have any queries about the assessments.
Workshops are held in our training rooms from 9 am to 4 pm on weekdays, depending on scheduling.
In the classroom, you get to listen and ask questions to the trainers or industry people and then complete the assessment work in class with your classmates. (Maybe a little bit of homework if you need to catch up.)
How long it takes to complete all of the requirements to receive your certificate depends on many factors. On average, it takes about 4-6 months from the first day of class to the final submission of your assessments. Some students with extensive previous work experience can complete in a minimum of 8 weeks, but this is very rare. Some students can take over 1 year to complete their certificate. It simply depends on your commitment and the time you have available to study.
All students can come into our classrooms at any time after their scheduled workshops for one on one tuition if they require extra support to complete the assessments.
We will assist you with organising 60 hours of work experience with a community service organisation in Canberra. This is so you can practice the skills we teach in the classroom and you can be confident when you find a job. (It’s also a really great way to get that job!)
All participants are required to obtain a Federal Police background check before commencing work experience. From November 2014 students will need to apply for a Working with Vulnerable People Check with the Office of Regulatory Services.
To be successful in the course you must finish 12 subjects called Units of Competency (UOC).
Below is a description of the Core units. There are a total of 5 Core subjects and 7 electives.
CHCCCS016 Respond to client needs:
- This unit describes the skills and knowledge required to respond holistically to client needs. Clients may have a range of issues outside and in addition to the area of immediate focus or expertise of the worker and their organisation.
- The unit applies to workers in a range of community services contexts who provide person-centred support to clients.
CHCCOM005 Communicate and work in health or community services:
- This unit describes the skills and knowledge required to communicate effectively with clients, colleagues, management and other industry providers.
- This unit applies to a range of health and community service contexts where workers may communicate face-to-face, in writing or using digital media and work with limited responsibility under direct or indirect supervision.
CHCDIV001 Work with diverse people:
- This unit describes the skills and knowledge required to work respectfully with people from diverse social and cultural groups and situations, including Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people.
- This unit applies to all workers.
HLTWHS002 Follow safe work practices for direct client care:
- This unit describes the skills and knowledge required for a worker to participate in safe work practices to ensure their own health and safety, and that of others in work environments that involve caring directly for clients. It has a focus on maintaining safety of the worker, the people being supported and other community members.
- This unit applies to all workers who require knowledge of workplace health and safety (WHS) to carry out their own work, in both centre-based and home-based service provision.
HLTWHS006 Manage personal stressors in the work environment:
- This unit describes the skills and knowledge required to maintain health and wellbeing by preventing and managing personal stress.
- This unit applies to work in a range of health and community services settings, in particular work roles that operate in high stress situations and circumstances.
Electives
CHCDIS007 Facilitate the empowerment of people with disability:
- This is a similar unit to the previous unit but focuses more on how a support worker can best help a person they support to be independent and make their own decisions about how they lead their life.
CHCAGE001 Facilitate the empowerment of older people:
- As people grow older they still have dreams and aspirations. This unit looks at how a support worker can help facilitate an older person to achieve those goals.
CHCCCS015 Provide individualised support:
- People who require individual support will most likely have an Individual Plan (IP) that outlines the supports required by the person. This unit looks at how we need to follow these plans and make adjustments to suit the individual and to meet their changing needs.
CHCPRT001 Identify and respond to children and young people at risk:
- This unit looks at the legal requirements for mandatory reporters in the ACT. Mandatory reporters are all employees whose work brings them into contact with children. Mandatory reporting is the requirement to report any suspected abuse of children under the age of 18.
HLTAAP001 Recognise healthy body systems:
- This unit is designed to give you basic information about how the body works and the best ways to promote healthy functioning of the body.
CHCCCS011 Meet personal support needs:
- Personal support needs means the things that you would normally do yourself, such as showering, feeding and going to the toilet. People can sometimes be physically or mentally incapable and they need a care worker to support them to make sure these daily needs are met.
HLTAID003 Provide First Aid:
- First Aid will prepare you to provide help in all sorts of emergency situations. You will learn resuscitation techniques if you find someone not breathing and you will learn the most modern ways to use a defibrillator in case someone has a heart attack.
Every unit will require you to do some form of assessment. You do not get a grade like A+ or C- but you will be marked with either Competent or Not Yet Competent. You will get chances to repeat things if you get Not Yet Competent.
You may have to write answers to questions from the course books or you may have to take some tests. You will also have to actually demonstrate you can do certain things as well. For example you will have to correctly use a lifter and transfer a real person from a bed to a wheelchair in front of the trainer.
The study you will have to do is not very difficult BUT you must be able to do it well because you will be caring for people who will rely on you to keep them safe and healthy.
A number of useful links and organisations prospective Community carers need to be familiar with include:
- http://training.gov.au/Training/Details/CHC32015 Training.gov.au is the official National Register of information on Training Packages, Qualifications, Courses, Units of Competency and Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) and has been developed for training sector users.
Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) and Credit Transfer (CT)
Nobody likes to study things again that they already know and understand. If you think you already know some of the stuff described here please let us know!
Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) is simply a process you can use to show us that you already have the knowledge you need. This can be from:
- previous training,
- work experience, and/or
- life experience.
If you think you have the knowledge already then we will start the RPL process and explain what you need to show us.
Credit Transfer (CT) means you have previously studied the same units before at either Quest or another training company. If you have, please show us your certificate or transcript from the other training company and we will automatically give you credit for that unit.