This page is specific to Certificate III Community Services CHC32015. ICAN Learn delivers this qualification to build a specific practice context for community workers who want to work or are working in a financial capability related role.

Community services work with a financial literacy elective stream requires:

  • Competencies that relate to a broad variety of areas including assessing the client, ability to develop rapport and skills to educate consumers about financial rights. This work requires a solid understanding of the ethics and principles of social justice.
  • An understanding of the life situations for people in our community and includes knowledge and skills to work with vulnerable people including those who may be at risk of homelessness or suffer from complex issues.

What is Skills Recognition?

Skills Recognition is the general term given to a formal assessment process that measures the candidate’s skills and knowledge from previous study, training, work, or life experiences against the outcomes of the course in which they require a qualification. The 3 categories in which skills can be recognised are:

• Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)

This is a process which acknowledges that people learn in many ways and that learning may have been obtained through formal learning, non-formal or informal learning or a combination of all. The candidate’s skills, training and experiences are assessed against the requirements of the qualification they require.

• Recognition of Current Competence (RCC)

This is a process through which the candidate may need to be re-assessed against a qualification they already have, to make sure that their competence is current. This is particularly relevant for licensing authorities.

• Credit Transfer

If the candidate has completed accredited or formal training previously or at another registered training organisation, ICAN Learn will recognise the units of study and associated competence, giving the candidate a credit transfer for the same units in the qualification they apply for. The unit codes must be identical to those in the course the student enrols in to be granted CT.

What is Competence?

Competence is the demonstration of skills and knowledge that the candidate has gained through life and work experiences as well as any training they have successfully completed that can be matched against a set of industry performance standards referred to as units of competency. These units are grouped together to form a specific industry qualification. In this toolkit we have grouped related units into clusters.

Qualification Requirements

The Certificate III Community Services CHC32015 comprises 5 core and 7 elective units; The elective units are selected by ICAN Learn and meet specialist skill needs for financial resilience and financial capability work. ICAN Learn can only provide skills recognition for elective units for which it has assessment expertise; units outside of the ones outlined in this kit may not be assessed for skills recognition for this qualification.

Overview of the Skills Recognition Process

Get Started

Once enrolled with ICAN Learn the candidate completes the preliminary self-assessment form here: https://forms.office.com/r/1LyD6G3X76

Once submitted, an ICAN Learn assessor will contact the candidate and advise them of the next steps which includes gathering evidence.

Gather Evidence

Gather information for yourself that you can produce to verify your skills, knowledge, and experience. Evidence can take many forms, including:

• Your resume
• Position description
• De-identified copies of documents you have completed at work
• Portfolio of workplace documents
• USI transcripts
• Certified academics transcripts or qualifications from previous study
• Third-party reports
• Candidate statements

There are several broad approaches that an assessor can consider in applying a recognition process.

These are:

• Real work / real time activities, including direct observation and third-party reports.
• Questioning, including oral and written.
• Portfolios that include collections of evidence compiled by candidates.
• Resume (current).

Please contact administration@icanlearn.edu.au if you have any questions regarding the Recognition of Prior Learning process.