Berry Street Web Docs Annual Report 2009 | Page 19

Our Learning and Development Ethic
enabling our staff

If we expect our staff to help people rebuild their
lives, we need to ensure that they have the support,
knowledge and skills to do this well.
We do this by:• Continuing to prioritise training and development
with an allocation of 2.4% of salaries.
• Setting clear and robust expectations about the
importance of regular supervision. Our Employee
Opinion Survey (EOS) showed that 96% of our staff
believe they have an effective relationship with
their supervisor.
• 88% of our staff believe they had appropriate
professional development over the past year
(EOS – April 2009).
• Establishing a new placement unit, to maximize
our capacity to offer placements for students and
other trainees.
• Hosting a visit from Tony Morrison in January 2009,
a leading independent UK social care consultant
and trainer.
• 128 staff completing Aboriginal Cultural Knowledge
and Understanding training; 17 undertaking our
Diploma of Project Management; 18 Team Leaders

and Managers completing the 6 day Diploma
of Business Leadership; 46 completing our
Supervision training; 125 undertaking ‘With Care’
residential care training.
• Encouraging study leave (up to five hours per week),
which was taken up by 30 people and providing
financial assistance to two staff to encourage them
to take up study.
• Encouraging our staff to present at local, national
and international conferences.
• Developing three new online learning modules
(Occupational Health and Safety [2] and Equal
Opportunity), which are mandatory for all staff.
• Encouraging teams to take time out to reflect on
what’s working and how we can improve.
• Bringing together our thirty-seven Senior
Managers and Executive Management Team for
two days, where we focussed on the implications
of the changing environment within which we work,
leadership and advocacy.
• Growing opportunities for secondments within
Berry Street and with our partners across
the sector.

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