Home Grown
Creating a supply of locally trained “job ready” candidates to work in the outdoor recreation industries.
Home Grown is a new initiative to enhance the skills and qualifications of Victoria's outdoor recreation industry workforce. Verve - Knowledge & Skills developed the project in response to feedback from the industry, including comments from the first Outdoor Industry Taskforce meeting. In this forum, representatives from the industry collectively spoke of the issues around young graduates not having the right level of skills and maturity to work in the industry. Graduates that may have been trained in technical or “hard” skills often lacked “soft” skills, such as communication and effective facilitation techniques. Given the fact that graduates are now increasingly being asked to work with disadvantaged groups and those form a diverse range of ethnic and social backgrounds, developing stronger management and communication skills is especially important.
The Home Grown project, funded by Skills Victoria, will aim to create a supply of locally trained “job ready” candidates to work in the outdoor recreation industries and identify "best practise" training in the sector. Verve, in collaboration with the Outdoor Recreation Centre, will work with employers in the industry to help facilitate skills and leadership development through more on the job training solutions and an increase in the numbers of participants completing a Certificate IV in Outdoor Recreation. During this phase Verve will also work closely with individual learners, RTO’s and industry associations to identify and challenges in the current training system and will make recommendations to ensure continuous improvement of the training package. In addition to working with the industry to ensure greater consistency in the skills of graduates entering the industry, Verve will also be promoting training in leadership and facilitation and encouraging the take up new Victorian qualifications, the Diploma in Outdoor Leadership and Graduate Certificate in Outdoor Leadership. Verve sees this as integral to ensuring greater career pathways and an increase in managers and mentors to guide graduates who entering industry.
Whilst Verve will be consulting regularly with the outdoor recreation industry, industry feedback is always encouraged to ensure successful outcomes for the project. Please register your feedback here on skills and knowledge needs in outdoor recreation.
Outdoor Recreation Skills Needs
