Transferable skills for wherever your career takes you

Amanda Lacey 

Director of People & Values, Humanity Health Group 

Make the most of your entry to this expansive industry, Amanda Lacey says, by laying the best possible foundations.  

“When you’re making a decision about joining a grad program, you've got to look not just at what it's going to give you now, but how it's going to develop your overall skills for the future.  

“If your first thought is ‘oh, I don’t want to work in the NDIS’ or ‘that area isn’t for me’, it’s important to understand that you don’t need to have all your career decisions made from the first minute.  

“It's okay to be a new graduate for a good twelve months and learn everything that a company can offer. Maybe that’s actually the place you should be, because of all the transferable skills you'll learn? And, in the future, you can still take that knowledge and experience into being a hand therapist, an aged care specialist or whatever you choose. But those solid foundations will always be there.” 

And for those overwhelmed by the prospect of real-world clinical practice, Amanda says that expert mentoring and peer support is critical.  

“We give new graduates the space to come out of university and not know ‘everything’. Because that’s what we’re here for - to support you through the next phase of learning, where you put theory-based skills into practice.  

“In the private sector there tends to be a lot of talk about charging for time and work, but we talk about clinical effort – what do we need to do to provide a great service for someone? That means focusing on what it is we’re actually here to do; we’re here to be trusted professionals and great clinicians, who provide care for people and support them as they work towards their goals. That's what we have to focus on.  

“That said, while we can absolutely teach someone the clinical skills they need to be, for example, a really great OT or Speech Pathologist, to be successful in the private sector you also need certain core attributes - like being motivated, having a level of initiative, being able to prioritise, plan and organise.” 

With a mix of classroom-based learning, peer support, robust supervision and ongoing self-paced learning, Humanity Health Group’s Graduate Program has been honed to fit the needs of emerging graduates and the demands of the industry.  

“Because we have a mix of brand-new graduates, as well as those who have been allied health assistants in the NDIS sector already, or who have done placements in this space, we tailor caseloads to people's individual level of confidence. 

“It’s important that, as well as having all those foundational learnings, people feel that they're ultimately working at the pace that suits them.” 

And the organisation’s commitment to team wellbeing doesn’t end there.  

“Our Humanity Life policy is key to our approach.  Given that, as health professionals, when we go out and see people, we look at the person as a whole - all aspects of life, their environment, their family, their finances, their self-care - why would we not do that for our employees?” 

“You can’t set work into one distinct area, separate from our ‘life’, so it’s not so much about achieving ‘balance’, I think, as it is about healthy integration. And that is very much our goal.” 

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We are now accepting applications for the Humanity Health Group Graduate Program.