APSAA PD Committee Report

2021 Professional Development Committee Report

Cameron Bestwick APSAA PD Committee Chair: Manager, Student Accommodation, University of Melbourne I could hardly have believed it was possible to start and end this past 12 months on more different notes than we did.

At the beginning of this past APSAA year, it was beyond most us to focus on any more than enduring the ever more rounds of Covid-19 variants, outbreaks, lockdowns, ‘pilot programs’, restructures and, perhaps worst of all, false dawns. But now, at the end of the year, and following some remarkable nimbleness on the part of APSAA members everywhere, we are at full throttle serving our regenerated student communities. It has been quite a transformation.

In a similar fashion, the Professional Development (PD) Committee has delivered different learning opportunities throughout the past 12 months that mirrored the shifting focus of our members over the period.

The popular monthly webinar series once again provided relevant, accessible, just-in-time learning which was attended by hundreds of members. The series covered topics as far-reaching as e-safety for university students, student perspectives, design of voice-of-the-customer programs, a briefing on the second National Student Safety Survey, furniture selection, cultural intelligence (CQ), and career paths in the accommodation sector. And as excited as we are to resume major face-to-face PD opportunities, the webinar series is likely to remain a staple of the APSAA Learning program for some time yet.

Since the decision to increase the number of webinars in the professional development mix in 2019, APSAA has amassed a remarkable amount of video resources – which now exceeds 50 hours of content! This past year, those videos were compiled and made available to all members on-demand on the website under APSAA Streaming. This is a brilliant new resource for members to complete self-paced PD in their areas of interest.

Another key change in the past year was to the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) program, where the underlying point allocation system was revised to include more recognition of informal learning experiences and strengthen the CPD credential as a meaningful signal to employers and other stakeholders about your knowledge of the sector.

Best of all, a verified digital badge was introduced which gives members who reach full CPD status a chance to proudly display their accomplishment on LinkedIn, email and other digital channels (pictured below).

And of course, the PD Committee has been planning a resumption of face-to-face professional development opportunities. We understand that the return of treasured learning opportunities like the annual conference, industry guidelines workshops, and the Global Housing Training Institute (GHTI) are eagerly anticipated by members, and the committee welcomes any feedback to enhance these experiences in the ‘new normal’ we find ourselves operating in.

Finally, and most importantly, the APSAA leadership would like to acknowledge and thank the members of the Professional Development Committee: Steve, Daniel, Shana, Misako, Carolyn, Tony, Abigail and, in particular, the enormous contribution of the previous chairperson Laura, who led the committee for several years. The lifeblood of this committee is the ideas and hard work of these membervolunteers and not a single one of the outstanding achievements over the past 12 months mentioned above would have been possible without them.