When Lurline Jenkins saw a Facebook post pop up about a ‘Caring in the Region’ program, she had already been thinking about a career change.

The post was encouraging registrations for the course. “I’d been cleaning for 20 years and I knew I wanted a change, so I rang Far North Community College to find out more. The course is all about providing care for people who need it, whether due to a disability, ageing or other reasons,” explained Lurline. “By the end of the conversation I was making plans to come in and fill out the paperwork,” said Lurline.

The training, funded by the Queensland Government through its Skilling Queenslanders for Work initiative, was run by Far North Community College with the support of Far North Training & Consultancy. The program aims to give participants as much hands-on experience as possible in a supportive and small group training environment. When asked what Lurline thought of the course, she says, “I was overwhelmed at first. I asked myself a few times whether I was doing the right thing because I had to get used to learning all over again, but everyone was in the same boat and our trainer was fantastic.”

“There is so much to remember when you’re looking after the elderly. In our practical training and also during our placements we dealt with real patients, so I wanted to make sure I was doing everything right,” said Lurline. And Lurline must have been doing something right: not only did she graduate from the Caring in the Region program with a CHC33015 Certificate III in Individual Support (Ageing, Home and Community) but after only two weeks in her work placement position she was offered a job. Lurline accepted and is now working as an Assistant in Nursing.