Workforce Development

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What is Workforce Development?

Contemporary views about mental health & addiction workforce development encourage a systemic approach whereby employers, such as DHB’s and NGOs, are guided to engage in activity spanning the entire workforce system. These activities include organisational development, recruitment and retention, developing capabilities, training, capacity building, enquiry and information use.

Traditionally workforce development has focused on increasing participation, by attracting more people into existing disciplines with their corresponding skill mix. Future constraints on labour supply require a greater focus now on finding better ways of working more efficiently with available resources.

Simply put, the national outcome for workforce development is to ensure the right people are in the right place doing the right thing at the right time – for the benefit of people who need to access services (Ministry of Health, 2007).

The purpose of locally led workforce development is to develop a workforce to better meet the mental health and addiction needs of the people we serve, ensuring sustainable delivery of the type and volume of services required in this district.

Our Local Strategy

Te Ara Whanaketanga-Linking Pathways of Development: Mental Health & Addiction Workforce Development Strategy 2007-2011 was completed in 2007 with the input of many skilled people representing varied areas of the local mental health and addiction sector. The strategy details local responsibilities and links to national workforce development imperatives and actions led by the Ministry of Health. Te Ara Whanaketanga (2008) aligns to the CMDHB Workforce Development Plan (2007) and focuses on providers delivering local services within the district.