The Better Practice Guide is aimed at organisations across the entire service ecosystem and is applicable to a cross-sector and cross-industry audience. Though the guide can be used to inform anyone within the organisation, it is the responsibility of key leaders and management to ensure authentic buy-in to better practice approaches.

This guide can be utilised for organisations at all stages of their journey, whether you are new to the concept of vulnerability or experienced in implementing vulnerability strategies.

Foundations for Better Practice

It is a critical responsibility for organisations in Australia to build responses and programs to support people who may be experiencing vulnerability. There are varying levels of maturity across organisations in relation to customer or client support teams, policies and processes. Some may still be unsure where and how to get started, others may have identified their needs and have some work under way. Even the most mature organisation will always be reflecting and reviewing, looking for ways to improve.

Staff Awareness and Training has been identified as a foundational starting point in guiding better practice within organisations as it is underpinned by pillars that incorporate Sector and Ecosystem responses, Organisational Structures, Organisational Strategies and Organisational Practices as listed in TCP’s Inclusive Organisations Framework.

TCP’s Inclusive Organisations Framework was used to develop detailed criteria for what constitutes a better practice approach to staff awareness and training, in consultation with our SA Chapter Leads and Better Practice Guide Project Team. It is the exploration of better practice for staff awareness and training that is detailed in this report which aims to assist organisations in developing sustainable practices, policies and strategies to support people experiencing vulnerability.

What is in this guide

The 4 key better practice pillars for staff awareness and training are:

1. Staff Support
2. Organisation-wide awareness
3. Collaborating with people with lived experience and across sectors
4. Job Design and Recruitment

Each key better practice pillar provides:

• An overview and justification for its importance
• The considerations that should be included in the key pillar
• Suggestions for actions that respond to each consideration
• A series of case study examples that showcase better practice in action

The guide finishes with some recommendations on how to get started, along with some organisations that can provide training or advice.

How can we identify Better Practice?

At TCP we are in a privileged position to work with diverse organisations who desire and continually strive to be better. We are not experts in service delivery or implementing better practice but rather the holders of emerging insight about what better practice looks like at a point in time. We hope to share this information to build collective understanding of better practice to drive continual improvements across our service and support ecosystem.

Our working criteria for Better Practice in staff awareness and training is available in appendix 3 and highlights key suggestions and considerations for better practice in this space.

Note that we use the term ‘better practice’ because we recognise that the contexts we work in and the needs of our customers, clients, and staff are constantly evolving and as organisations we must also continually evolve and strive to be better. Therefore, the criteria are working criteria which may also mature and be updated as new leading or better practices continue to emerge.

Better Practice Guide - Interactive Figma Version

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Acknowledgments

This project has been enabled by a sponsorship from the SA Power Networks and we thank them for their support.