In the last e-news edition I discussed the idea of Allied Health Assistants being a possible part solution to Allied Health service gaps, and funding limitations for NDIS participants.
Since then I have had a number of enlightening conversations around this subject.
What I found, was that fourth year university students undertaking Allied Heath degrees could be a very rich and eager source of candidate to fill these roles.
Allied Health Students need to complete allotted hours of clinical placement across the course of their degree. By the fourth year, students already have substantial clinical experience through compulsory placement hours. In most cases, they are also required to undertake a large number of placement hours in their fourth year also.
All up, most Allied Health Students will complete up to 1000 placement hours as part of their studies. Therefore, (in most cases) fourth year students are more than capable of undertaking the Allied Health Assistants role, and are very keen for the experience.
As they are not NDIS Registered Providers, unfortunately utilisation of this group is limited to NDIS participants that are self-managing, those who have plan management, or those individuals looking for more cost effective day-to-day therapy assistance outside of the scheme.
To access students for direct employment, most universities have online career hubs for both current and past students.
You can place an ad on these hubs, specifying what you are looking for (fourth year students in whatever discipline e.g. Occupational Therapy). This also gives you an opportunity to specify your preferences in terms of gender, age and personality if you have any.
A tip - when accessing these hubs, make sure you go to the employer log-in (made that mistake myself).
That’s me for this edition.
Angela Van Den Berg - Community Engagement
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