Industry insights on skills needs
The Animal Care and Management IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast highlighted the following priority skills for the industry:
- Companion and therapy animal skills
- Pet grooming skills
- Captive wildlife animal skills
- Compassion fatigue skills
- Ethical animal use skills
- Animal awareness and behaviour skills
- Emotional intelligence of animal skills.
In addition, the top generic skills identified for the Animal Care and Management industry include:
- Language, Literacy and Numeracy skills
- Learning agility / Information literacy / Intellectual autonomy and self-management skills
- Customer service / Marketing skills
- Managerial / Leadership skills
- Communication / Collaboration including virtual collaboration / Social intelligence skills.
The Animal Care and Management IRC's 2020 Skills Forecast highlights that the public's interest and concern about animal welfare, care and management continues to escalate, driven by major events in Australia, including COVID-19, major bushfires, drought and concern over the welfare of horses' post work or sport involvement. The roles of pets, companion and assistance animals as a central component of human health and welfare has more recognition now, both through formal research and public attitudes. As a result, industry services are also expanding into new fields of care for animals, and current services are experiencing market growth.
Throughout 2020, the Animal Care and Management IRC continued work on two key projects. The initial case for change for the Exhibited Animal Care and Marine Wildlife Project was predicated on the increased demand for services in both exhibited animal care and marine rescue. Animals in exhibited environments require expert care, with job tasks varying depending on the size and type of the animal and its environment. Responding to marine wildlife events can be extremely dangerous and requires very specialised training to ensure safety and to meet animal welfare standards. It is important that these sectors are supported by up to date skills standards, so that consistent high level care can continue to be provided. The case for endorsement was approved by the AISC in February 2021. Key outcomes of the project include:
- The qualification ACM30X20 Certificate III in Wildlife and Exhibited Animal Care was revised to reflect current industry practices, terminology and skill gaps, and the title was changed to reflect current industry terminology.
- The Certificate IV in Captive Animals was superseded by the Certificate IV in Animal Facility Management, with a specialisation in wildlife and exhibited animal facilities.
- Eight new skill sets were developed to address skills needs, including large whale disentanglement, animal welfare management, zoological horticulture, exhibited animal visitor experience, orphan native wildlife care, exhibited animal behaviour and training, species population management, and marine animal stranding.
- Fifteen captive animal units and 10 species specific units were updated to provide greater focus on animal welfare, enrichment, habitat design and behavioural conditioning to support the mental and physical health of animals.
- Five units were developed for marine animal incident management, describing the unique skills required for responding to animal incidents in a marine environment, including entanglements, strandings and pollution events.
People in Australia place a great deal of value on the health and happiness of their pets and assistance animals, recognising how this can in turn benefit their own wellbeing. As the importance of pets in our homes and communities increases, including the use of assistance animals, people are looking to a broader range of options to keep their pets healthy and happy. This is causing demand for more skilled workers in areas such as pet grooming, animal health care, animal training, animal-assisted services and animal regulation and management. Job roles in these areas rely on similar foundational skills to care for animal wellbeing, while also requiring specialist expertise to perform tasks relevant to each field. The Pet Care and Animal Training Project arose because most qualifications related to Animal Attendants and Trainers, pet grooming and styling, companion animals and captive animals had not been fully reviewed since 2010 and industry had indicated that they were no longer considered fit for purpose and needed to be updated to reflect the full breadth of the sector and the changing ways animals are valued. The case for endorsement was approved by the AISC in February 2021. Key outcomes of the project include:
- The Certificate IV in Animal Care Facility Management was developed to replace the existing Certificate IV in Captive Animals and Certificate IV in Companion Animal Services. The revised qualification reflects the skills and knowledge for team leaders, supervisors, and specialist technical roles within an animal care facility, including companion animal and exhibited and wildlife environments.
- The Certificate IV in Animal Behaviour and Training was developed to offer an entry level qualification for animal trainers and/or animal behaviour practitioners working with a specific species, or across a range of species and workplaces.
- The Certificate IV in Animal Control and Regulation was revised and retitled to Certificate IV in Animal Regulation and Management. It was updated to include specialisations for investigations, animal holding facilities/shelters, animal management education, and rural and remote communities, and reflect current work practices and community values.
- The Certificate III in Animal Studies, Certificate III in Companion Animal Services and Certificate III in Pet Grooming were merged to create a Certificate III in Animal Care Services. This qualification can be undertaken as a general qualification or individuals can select to specialise in one or two of the following areas: animal care, pet grooming or customer service.
- The Certificate I in Animal Studies was revised and retitled to Certificate I in Animal Care Industry Pathways to better reflect its outcomes and users – many of whom are learners with special needs and/or people seeking community engagement, doing animal care work activities undertaken under close supervision.
- Forty-one units of competency were revised and 11 units developed, to support skills across animal-assisted services, grooming, and behaviour and training.
- Two skills sets were revised for microchipping dogs and cats and promoting animal health in remote communities.
- Six skill sets were developed that cover grooming, animal shelter work, animal assisted services, animal breeding and animal management coordination in remote communities.
The Animal Care and Management IRC's 2021 Skills Forecast highlights two key areas with specific skill requirements – animal-assisted services and animal incident management.
Multiple sectors in the animal-assisted services industry are now becoming established. The skill needs in each sector varies depending on the service, the professional practitioner and the species of animal used. Different combinations of skills are required for training different animals, different tasks and being responsive to different conditions, including intellectual, physical, sensory, cognitive and psychosocial conditions. Distinct sectors have emerged, requiring skills for training animals to assist with:
- Animal-Assisted Therapy: services delivered by qualified allied health professionals such as counsellors, psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health nurses, community health workers, social workers, and trauma specialists.
- Animal-Assisted Learning: services provided by educators and coaches, involving an animal in a learning environment assisting an individual or group to develop skills, tools and strategies to achieve specific learning outcomes.
- Animal-Assisted Activities: an animal with its trained handler or animal team delivering informal therapeutic visits to people in workplaces, hospitals, aged care facilities, and schools to contribute to wellbeing.
- Assistance Animals (usually dogs): animals trained to support people with impairments to participate in and access various aspects of personal and public life. Dogs are trained to perform specific tasks related to their owner’s special needs, such as vision or hearing impairment, mobility impairment, medical conditions (diabetes, seizures, asthma), psychiatric and physiological conditions.
To improve services for people with disabilities using assistance animals, the Commonwealth, state and territory governments are working together to develop options for a nationally consistent approach to the regulation and accreditation of assistance animals. The establishment of formal approaches to developing the capabilities of ‘assistance animal trainers’ is considered by stakeholders as a key enabler of this process.
There is a clear need for additional skills in managing animals during disasters because of past shortcomings:
- Disaster planning needs to extend beyond the protection of human life and property to the broader social environment, including companion and working animals.
- Skilled animal care professionals and volunteers are needed to respond to natural disasters, particularly bushfires. Relying on insufficiently trained response workers and untrained individuals to do the best they can to rescue, assist and care for animals is not sufficient.
- Bushfire evacuation protocols and procedures need to be developed to ensure appropriate support is provided for people and their animals, including a process for animal registration at evacuation centres and effective identification of overflow sites when preferred facilities are at capacity.
- Boarding kennels need to be prepared for various eventualities during a bushfire emergency, including their own evacuation or sudden influxes of animals needing food, medicines, treatment and places to rest. With adequate planning and staff training, local boarding kennels and shelters could be used as evacuation centres, while existing evacuation centres would be enabled to cater for people bringing their domestic animals.
In 2021, the Animal Care and Management IRC undertook work on three projects:
The Horse Care Project is focused on strengthening safety skills across all environments in which people interact with horses, capturing the full breadth of skills required for those who work alongside horses either directly or indirectly, and supporting flexibility of delivery and career pathways throughout equine related qualifications. The qualifications will be updated to promote movement between schools and VET and support learners from entry level positions through to more niche expert roles. Skill sets will be updated and developed to support skills for emergency shoe replacement, coordination of horse care tasks and workers, and safety skills across a range of environments, including while instructing learners, while handling horses, while transporting horses, and working around horses. Units will be revised and developed to strengthen safety skills and ensure flexibility of use across different job roles involving horses.
The Small Companion Animal Incident Management Project aims to provide a national approach to the skills standards for responding to incidents involving small companion animals. The project arose from the 2019–2020 bushfires which highlighted the important role of animal facility workers, emergency service workers and evacuation centres in supporting injured and displaced animals. With many evacuation centres overwhelmed, the need for revised evacuation protocols, procedures for accommodating companion animals and staff training were recognised as essential.
An improved understanding of the benefits of assistance dogs has seen an increased number of people accessing them for support, for a broader range of conditions. The expansion of assistance dogs into fields covered by the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and other health streams has also increased demand for greater regulation and skilled delivery of assistance animal training. The Trainers of Assistance Dogs Project has been developed in response to industry calls for nationally recognised training so that workers possess the core skills to prepare dogs for a variety of purposes and peoples' needs. Not for profit organisations such as Assistance Dogs Australia and Guide Dogs Australia have long waiting lists, which has seen more people access the services of independent dog trainers. It is important trainers performing this work possess the skills to work with dogs and people to achieve the best outcomes. Industry subject matter experts will be consulted to define the skills required to train dogs for different environments and tasks, as well as to train people in how to care for their assistance dog.
