Professional Development for Regional and Local Coordinators

Local and Regional Landcare Coordinators are supported to undertake professional development activities identified in collaboration with their host organisations to assist them to better serve their communities in their role.

A Professional Development bursary payment of $5,000 per FTE (pro-rata) local and regional coordinator role has been provided to Phase 1 Grantees upfront in their first milestone payment. This payment is to be used over the life of the Landcare Enabling Program and once the professional development bursary is spent, no further professional development funding is available under the contract. 

Eligible Professional development activities are listed below. If activities are not listed below, you must seek approval in writing from Local Land Services (LLS) before the activity is undertaken. You will need to provide evidence of LLS written approval during the acquittal processes if they are not listed under eligible activities below.

Eligible professional development activities under the Program include:

• conferences and subscriptions where they are directly related to the role, for example, attendance at State Gatherings and Landcare Conferences
• technical training/courses required to undertake these roles, for example, First Aid, 4WD training, computer skills, grants and governance training (this is role dependent)
• social media, website training and/or media training
• community engagement and well-being training, for example, RuralBiz, Art of Hosting, Mental Health First-Aid, role specific professional coaching
• leadership training such as leading teams and community groups
• academia that is directly related to the role
• best practice management in natural resource management, agriculture, or sustainability.

If you are wanting to use the professional development funding for travel, accommodation and/or staff time costs associated with attending the professional development please submit your requests to Landcare.admin@lls.nsw.gov.au prior for approval. 

It is an expectation that the host organisation will be able to demonstrate how professional development experience relates to:

• the objectives of the Program
• the objectives of the host organisation
• the contribution to regional priorities
• professional upskilling for coordinators to perform their role.

Examples of demonstrating how professional development aligns to the Program objectives and results in an increase in a coordinators ability to perform their role, may include:

• training assessment and/or evaluation of the coordinator before/after the training
• performance development reviews
• statutory declaration from the coordinator stating that the professional development undertaken has led to an increase in skills, experience etc relating to their role
• a description, with evidence, of the flow on impact of a new skill/experience acquired.

Every professional development activity/training/event must be added to the CAT as a separate record for each local and regional coordinator.

Reporting of professional development expenses will be captured in the Program's reporting obligations (financial claim form and CAT entries). 

Allocation of Professional Development Funding per role

Whilst the professional development funding is attached to each coordinator role, it is strongly recommended that the following be considered: 

• split roles – how will the funding be divided equally? Factors such as area of influence, level of activity and support provided by each local and regional staff member may be a consideration
• planning for turnover of staff, if a coordinator employed in year 1 spends all their allocated $5,000 professional development funding in that year, and then leaves the role, no new funding is available for subsequent staff filling that role
• what training and/or skills development will be offered through community of practice events. 

The grantee is responsible for managing the expenditure of professional development over the life of the Program. To be fair and equitable, it is recommended that the professional development funding amount be split pro-rata across FTE and across each financial year.

Scenario: If you have funding for 1FTE and have split the role into two, 0.5FTE and 0.5FTE, then the professional development amount of $5,000 should be pro-rata among these two roles of $2,500 each. If the role is 0.6FTE then the pro-rata professional funding amount would be $3,000.