Workforce development involves more than education, although education and training are key parts of the approach. It is a process of enabling workers to develop the abilities and harness the commitment to contribute to organisational and community goals. It is about supporting and resourcing workers and organisations to carry out their work; in this case, their work with people who are affected by or at risk of hepatitis C.

Guided by a capacity building approach, we value the principles of workforce development. We provide education and related support, helping build links and partnerships in the hepatitis C workforce. We use a capacity building framework developed by NSW Health. More information about this capacity building framework can be found on the NSW Health website.

Our capacity building approach acknowledges that workforce development strategies are most effective and sustainable when supported by other learning activities and service development strategies. Some of the strategies we use involve:

• Networks and interagencies
• Information and resources dissemination
• Service visits
• Planning days
• Workshop inservice facilitation and planning
• Participation on advisory, reference or working groups
• Working collaboratively with services to develop internal service delivery action plans

Hepatitis NSW's Education and Development team aims to encourage and support organisations and workers to build on education and training in order to achieve learning and lasting change. Want to find out more? Look in our following pages:

• thINK about it
• About our team
• Education and training services
• HepLink healthcare worker network
• C-een & Heard speakers program
• StreetShot community arts project
• Hep Awareness Week 2011
• Partnership building services
• Education and training tools

Also in this part of our website, we carry promotion pages and links for key organisations involved in workplace training and capacity building, and in health care worker support: 

• Events calendars
• ASHM website
• NSW Health Workforce Development Project
• National Educators' website