Case Study

Traineeships in Early Childhood Education are a win-win for service providers and jobseekers.

Chisholm Institute, partner TAFEs and Jobs Victoria have collaborated on a recruitment program for a 12-month traineeship across Victorian early childhood centres.

Partnership

Jobs Victoria and Department of Education

Jobs Victoria logo

Background

From 2023, Free Kinder is available for all Victorian three- and four-year-old children, giving them access to two years of kinder before school. This will create thousands of new jobs for educators across the state.

The Jobs Victoria Early Childhood Education Traineeships program aims to deliver 200 early childhood educator jobs across Victoria.

Chisholm’s role is to recruit and match jobseekers to services, and in collaboration with five partner TAFEs, deliver the qualification, whilst the trainees undertake the hands-on component of the traineeship at a local early childhood education centre in an earn and learn model.

Chisholm’s Siobhan Siedlecki, State Lead – Early Childhood Trainee Project manages the operational components of the program. Siobhan notes, “This traineeship program is one way to support the emerging workforce to meet the need for more educators across the state.”

The program

The traineeship’s blended learning approach, where students can earn and learn, is a very effective model. This is particularly important in sectors where employees are in high demand, like Early Childhood Education.

“We oversee the project. We work with industry, partner TAFEs, trainees and centres as well as Jobs Victoria and Department of Education”.

We recruit and prepare trainees to get them job ready then match them to a nearby centre for consideration for employment. Once successfully employed, we get the trainees on-boarded with an apprenticeship network and then we’re there to support both the trainee and the service providers throughout the program.

Centre leaders also receive training and on-going mentoring to assist them to support their trainee on the job. Trainees also receive regular contact and support from Chisholm or their local TAFE provider to assist them in their traineeship and study.

“We are providing operational leadership and Chisholm is instrumental in bringing it all together.” Siobhan says.

Result

The program aims to recruit, train and match 200 early childhood educator trainees to early childhood services by June 2023. As at March 2023, over 180 trainees have been hired across Victoria.

These trainees and the services they are employed at receive regular mentor check-ins by our team. The early childhood services have been offered regular free professional development workshops covering a range of topics, to assist in upskilling current staff members at the services to support their trainee. We have set up ongoing Community of Practice sessions for all the services who have employed trainees in the program, to meet and share strategies, success stories and promote networking.

The program has been very rewarding for all involved and is a win-win for jobseekers and the service providers.

Siobhan remarks, “We are changing people’s lives. We link trainees into services and build jobseeker confidence to enable them to try something new, empowering them to move into a new career in a fulfilling industry.

The best part of the program for us, is the feeling we get seeing the trainees develop and grow. This is celebrated by my team. One of the successes is being able to provide the service with exceptional trainees but also, we have built solid partnerships with industry.

We have helped Early Childhood Services find trainees to help them with staffing gaps so they can operate more effectively. Ultimately children, families and the community receive the benefits.”

To learn more, contact an Industry Specialist.