The Community Colleges Australia (CCA) conference - in Sydney on 14 & 15 November - provides great opportunities to improve the skills of executives and other managers of not-for-profit community education organisations.
“Building skills is one of this year’s conference themes,” said Dr Don Perlgut, CCA’s CEO. “Because our annual conference is the ‘go-to event’ for community education CEOs, training managers, other senior staff and board representatives, we have ensured that this year’s program is loaded with sessions that focus on developing up-to-date skills for today’s not-for-profit education managers.”
“Anyone involved in managing change and dealing with the rapid transformation of work in Australia will find these sessions invaluable,” said Dr Perlgut.
Skills sessions fall into four categories:
- governance and risk
- community and student engagement
- management, leadership and human resources
- funding, fundraising and social enterprises
Governance and risk
With privacy issues – and frequent highly-publicised breaches – commanding public and organisational attention, lawyer Katherine Sainty (Director, Sainty Law) looks at Organisational privacy in the digital age: policies, practices and pitfalls - what you need to know. She examines your privacy obligations, spam and Australian and overseas case studies. Earlier this year, she presented on this topic to NSW CCA member CEOs, and returns “by popular demand”.
Anthony Black, Senior Risk Solution Consultant with Ansvar Risk, brings to his session an enormous catalogue of information about the risks facing Australian not-for-profit organisations. Ansvar participates in the CCA-Coverforce Group Insurance scheme, and he draws on his extensive knowledge in the session, Transforming risk management for good governance.
In Governance challenges for NFPs: Culture, conduct and consequences, Lucas Ryan (Senior Policy Advisor, Australian Institute of Company Directors - AICD) summarises not-for-profit governance challenges and how to create a proper governance culture.
Community and student engagement
In RTO Grassroots Engagement through Digital Marketing, Jennifer Trybula (Manager, Strategic Projects, Tec-NQ, Townsville) describes how her independent school and NFP RTO implemented a new digital marketing strategy. Tec-NQ redefined corporate messaging by moving away from internal definitions to clearly understood messages, engaged staff, aligned corporate images and implemented a grassroots social media strategy that gives content to parents to share while respecting of privacy.
Although Australian community education providers over-perform in engaging Indigenous learners, the strategies of how to do this are always challenging. Lismore’s ACE Community Colleges has become a national leader in this since the late 1990s, working in partnership with Aboriginal Corporations and Local Land Councils in rural and remote locations. This session, Playing the long game: Engagement and longevity in Aboriginal Education, showcases ACE’ activities, led by Kerry Johnson, Principal; Luke Close, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Cultural Arts Trainer; and Jan Levy, Outreach Programs Coordinator.
Artwork by Luke Close
Engaging with disadvantaged young people: The Youth Development Foundation story, presented by Gerry Lister (Director, The Youth Development Foundation). Gerry reports: “Every candidate has a unique story. At YDF, we pride ourselves on our ability to connect with our clients and learn their story. To build this connection, we need to earn their trust and respect. We measure success not only through employment outcomes, further education and training, but by identifying how far that young person has come within themselves since linking with us.”
In The City East Mentor Program: Supporting Professionally Skilled Migrants and Refugees, Margaret Teed, Mentor Program Co-ordinator, City East College, details how this program matches participants with volunteer mentors, who use their knowledge and experience of the Australian workplace to assist mentees in their job-seeking. Successful links have been established with the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) units in large corporates such as PwC and Deloitte. Margaret will be joined by Jennie Qiao, a mentor program participant now working as a Service Delivery Co-ordinator at Foxtel. (Read the SBS news story.)
In his presentation on Social and emotional wellbeing for students and staff in community colleges, engagement and partnerships expert Dr Robbie Lloyd (Port Macquarie Community College, PMCC) shares the results of a recent survey of colleges by PMCC & CCA, examining approaches to social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) and pastoral care among students and staff.
In From school to VET: Supporting and engaging recent school leavers in vocational education, Kristen Osborne (NCVER) and George Myconos (Brotherhood of St Laurence) explore what influences disadvantaged young people to undertake VET post-school, the factors that support them to complete VET and their outcomes following participation in VET. Based on a highly lauded NCVER research project.
Management, leadership and human resources
Two skilled private management consultants will share their knowledge at the Conference.
In his session Leading from the Front: Tips on creating an extraordinary culture in your organisation, consultant Nick Hedges (Resolve HR) explores how small and large organisations can build employee engagement. He imparts some of his top tips for developing and sustaining ideas on how team members and leaders can feel valued at work, communicate effectively in the workplace and build trusting, meaningful and professional relationships.
In Leadership Practices for building effective & resilient teams, Peter Watson (Impact Facilitation) identifies seven key practices of effective team leadership. When these practices are employed transparently, members will learn, implement and replicate the practices.
Funding, fundraising and social enterprises
We all need it, but it’s never easy. CCA is please to present three sessions on fundraising and funding, including developing social enterprises.
In Developing your organisation’s fundraising program, leading fundraising consultant Lawrence Jackson (Managing Director, Catalyst Management) looks at the origins and roots of charitable giving, examines the scope of the Australian charity and not-for-profit sector, analyses Australian giving trends, details trends in global fundraising and philanthropy, and outlines the basics of developing a fundraising strategy.
In her session, Philanthropic approaches to social enterprise, Judy Foster (NSW & ACT Manager, Philanthropy Australia) addresses the questions: “Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a philanthropist that supports social enterprises?” and “What would be some of the reasons behind your decision to fund a Social Enterprise over more traditional grant-making?” Come and find out about the role of philanthropy when working with and supporting social enterprises.
In Leading community development through social enterprise, Kevin Ekendahl (Audit Express) details how community training providers can benefit from the shift to social enterprises by providing skills and training to social entrepreneurs. “Community training providers are not limited to the provision of training and education. As leaders in their communities, they can assist in developing and incubating social enterprise, providing opportunities to cross pollinate enterprises and opening new markets and possibilities,” says Kevin.
More information
Go to the CCA Conference page or register now.
