NSW Department of Education and Training

South Western Sydney Region conducted a range of student support initiatives including:
48 Settling In Program courses for students in all 8 South Western Sydney Region
Intensive English Centres and in an additional 47 schools
three regional training workshops in Settling In with 45 participants
conduct of Families in Cultural Transition program in 18 schools
provision of additional student welfare and support programs such as mentoring
programs and counselling services.
TAFE NSW and Adult and Community Education
A broad range of support services are offered by TAFE NSW to ensure that students can
participate productively in education and training. These include recognition of overseas
qualifications, career education and counselling, support services for students with a
disability, child care, support for women, libraries, learner support and specific services to
address the needs of students from non-English speaking backgrounds.
The Adult Migrant English Service Support (AMES) provides services to students including
counselling, child care, individual learning centres and first language support through the use
of bilingual AMES staff and interpreters.
Guidelines for an additional 11 countries have been developed for inclusion in the
resource Recognition of Overseas Vocational and Higher Education Qualifications. The
resource assists Institute staff in the assessment of overseas qualifications for TAFE
NSW study purposes. The additional countries will be uploaded to the TAFE NSW
website.
Institutes continued to provide a range of counselling and learner support services,
including bilingual support from TAFE counsellors, to cater for the psychological,
educational and social wellbeing of students, including refugees and humanitarian
entrants. Initiatives include:
Provision of accommodation at TAFE NSW - Hunter Institute for a counsellor from the
Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors to
provide services to refugees and humanitarian entrants at Newcastle campus
Recruitment of an additional Arabic speaking counsellor at TAFE NSW - Sydney
Institute.
Strategies
Schools
The Department continued to provide a range of support services for school students,
including those from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. These included school
counsellors, programs to monitor and support student behaviour and attendance, antibullying
programs, student mentoring and drug education.
Settling In, an early intervention program using group counselling techniques, was
conducted in schools with significant refugee student enrolments.
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