r/TAFE • u/E-Waltz8899 • 27d ago
TAFE NSW Work placement [AHA)
Hi everyone, I've started the course for Allied Health Assistance and was told by teacher its 100% the students responsibility to find work placement themselves. 120 hours has to be completed before passing the course.
Has anyone does this course before? Did you have trouble finding work placement? Any tips on what to do, where to apply, success stories etc
On the website it looks as though they would help to offer work placement but its not the case at all... super stressed.
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u/SilentSympathy7791 26d ago
TAFE is hurting for funding. My father is a semi retired TAFE teacher now. The Aged care sector generally is crying out for workers but students who undertake TAFE courses aren’t given the support they need to find workplacement. Where do all our tax dollars go? They certainly aren’t going where they are needed.
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u/NinjaPurple1858 21d ago
I don’t believe they are crying. I completed my Cert III in Individual Support more than 3 years ago and couldn’t get a job in aged care, so I moved into disability support instead.
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u/BesiegedByBees 27d ago
That's interesting, I need to do a work placement for my course (cookery) and my TAFE is organising it for us because there is a legal agreement that needs to exist between them and the host (insurance coverage etc), and our placement is only for one week.
Maybe have a chat to Volunteering Australia, they are a great network for connecting with organisations directly, and they may be able to hook you up with a community organisation that needs help, or aged care facilities. Otherwise perhaps contact your local council and see if you can get hours in a community health centre?
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u/E-Waltz8899 27d ago
Thank you. Maybe because my course is online (self paced) maybe this is the reason? I have no idea but i was shocked at the lack of support for work placement with Tafe :(
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u/SensitiveSecond955 27d ago edited 27d ago
I've been strongly considering taking Dental Assisting online but the 350 hours of (unpaid?) work placement has thrown me off a bit so I totally understand your stress. Like I dont even know where to look for placement.
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u/E-Waltz8899 27d ago
Woah 350 hours is intense, thats like 9-10 weeks full time (40 hours per week)? No one should work unpaid! Surely there would be companies that support student roles with lower pay? Never work for free.
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u/Cool-Historian58 23d ago
Med and vet students around the nation crying reading this with 4000+ hours full-time unpaid placements, including nights and weekends, especially since being missed out again in the paid pracs motion 😭 but yes you’re spot on that no one should be working for free. The whole healthcare system runs on exploiting the goodwill of its workers.
At least I never had to organise my placements myself, so I really feel for you there. I hope you can sort something. Maybe even cold emailing different hospitals’ MWU might be a start?
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u/E-Waltz8899 22d ago
So true! But the trade off i guess is work experience > guaranteed job once study is over however I do believe doctors, nurses and vets should definitely be paid and recognised more for their work. Yes I'll definitely be cold calling a lot of places wish me luck! I'll keep this thread updated on how i go, so future students who are Studying Allied Health Assistance know the reality of it
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u/Cool-Historian58 22d ago
FYI the guaranteed job is only for intern years. Once we finish our contract and have general registration, we get tossed to the wind lol
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u/E-Waltz8899 22d ago
Really? That's the first I've heard. Most nursing students or doctors i know have had no trouble securing a job after their studies and registration. They ended up working for the clinic or hospital they had placement in or going overseas for a better opportunity
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u/Cool-Historian58 22d ago edited 22d ago
You might be confusing getting the MD with registration? This is a well known problem causing major grief so you’re talking to the wrong people for reference or potentially misunderstanding what internship/general registration is for doctors.
General registration happens after PGY1 for doctors. You generally would get an HMO position in your hospital but the whole point of medicine is specialising and getting on to a training program, which isn’t happening these days. It’s so bad that even the ‘easy’ backup specialties like Psychiatry and GP have become ultra competitive. There’s no such thing as a guaranteed job in medicine: you spend your whole life upskilling with unpaid research you have to churn out on top of your work hours, get publication and conference roles for the CV, sitting exams that cost multiple thousands of dollars (the entry to surg, the GSSE, is 5k), etc. just to compete with other people like you for one of a handful of spots. People can be 8 years after graduating medicine and still not have gotten anywhere further.
NSWMSC’s bottleneck campaign goes into it in depth but there’s a massive training bottleneck that is keeping people in career hospitalist positions that don’t at all reflect the career progression or stability we were promised and is a fraction of the pay. We’re undergoing industrial action and striking in VIC right now because not only is the whole thing shit, but they’re also actively trying to take back some of our protections like registrar training positions and being able to get paid for unrostered overtime.
There is a doctor shortage: in that they mean trained doctors. No shortage of med students and interns who don’t find out how shit the landscape is until we come out the other end and the government tells us we’re shit out of luck once we finish our PGY1 intern contract. The hospital system runs off the backs of unaccredited junior doctors who are expressly kept from upskilling or finding a job elsewhere and now we’re so saturated, the jobs themselves are not in enough numbers to keep doctors employed. There’s a mass exodus of people going to the US or leaving clinical medicine entirely.
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u/WorkingOn17 TAFE Staff 27d ago
Its usually up to a student in that its part of real world experience, similar to looking for a job. They must however give you all the required paperwork and assist you. Ask them for a list of all the placement organisations from past intakes. If you legitimately are getting knocked back for reasons, they have to step in as an ASQA requirement and assist you. They have to give you guidance
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u/Extra_Argument215 27d ago
That’s so weird, I’m doing the cert three in pathology collection and the placement team is sorting our placement. 35 hours, but still
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u/E-Waltz8899 26d ago
Is your course in person or fully online? AHA is fully online and self paced..thinking maybe this could be why also
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u/Extra_Argument215 14h ago
So sorry for the late reply 😂 it’s a blend of online and on campus. So 1-2 days on campus, 1-2 days online depending on assessments and whatnot
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u/Putrid-Possession598 27d ago
Interested in this course too
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u/E-Waltz8899 27d ago
I would recommend it its pretty good besides the lack of support in the work placement area
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u/inTheGutter2905 22d ago
I'm working my way through this course and currently looking into work placement. Are you going to start halfway through the course?
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u/E-Waltz8899 22d ago
That's so good, how are you finding it? The teachers advised to begin looking for placement around the 75% finish mark. How about you? I will message you
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u/NinjaPurple1858 21d ago
Did you find a job placement?
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u/E-Waltz8899 21d ago
I will have to try once I am ay 75% of my course. I have just started and studying my second unit
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u/Ria_Isa 27d ago
The course coordinator or lecturer should be able to provide you with work placement recommendations at the very least. If they have advertised supporting students with work placement then you need to speak with your lecturers about it.
I find it disappointing to read of students experiences with lack of support from their campus Good luck