Feedback invited on Health Training Package HLT02 Review Draft 2

The Community Services and Health Industry Skills Council (CSHISC) has been developing a new Health Training Package HLT02, which includes dental assistant training, since 2004.

The section on dental assisting in their Issues Register notes amongst other things, that "Industry advice from validation focus group meetings is to replace separate Certificate IV qualifications with a single Certificate IV with core units that include oral health education and elective groups including dental radiaography, assistduring conscious sedation and general anaesthesia, dental triage and extended duties (impression taking and fabrication of models)". This proposal was apparently considered in the development of Draft 2 of the Package.

The Review is now at Draft 2 stage and is available for review and feedback. The Draft 2 Validation period ends and all feedback needs to be provided to the Industry Skills Council by Monday 24 April 2006.

The Draft 2 material can be viewed, and feedback provided via three channels:

• It can be downloaded from the Industry Skills Council website at: HLT06 - Draft 2 Qualifications, Competency Standards and Assessment Guidelines (NB. large file warning - download from high speed connections recommended. Follow the instructions for downloading all relevant files so that the MS Word hyperlinks required to navigate through this substantial material will work);
• Via the Online Feedback System (to be activated on 1 March 2006); or
• Via CD ROM (received in the mail).

Specific questions relating to dental assisting, dental prosthetics and dental technology qualifications are posed on page 9 of the Introduction. From here hyperlinks are provided to the relevant sections of the very large file.

If downloading the Draft 2 material from the Skills Council Website or viewing it via the CDROM, stakeholders can send feedback directly to the Skills Council via fax: 02 9263 3599 or email to sarah.fuller@cshisc.com.au

The CSHISC advises that "the Review process is currently tracking towards submission of Draft 3 for endorsement in July 2006".