The Australian Community Workers Association (ACWA) is the professional body for qualified community workers in Australia.
From setting educational standards through to determining an ethical practice framework, we support community workers in every sphere of their work life.
Set up over 50 years ago, we exist to ensure our members benefit from belonging to a recognised and respected profession and that the community benefits from an ethical and well-qualified community work labour force.
We encourage young people who believe in social justice and equality, and older workers considering a meaningful change in their working lives, to consider a career in this dynamic profession.
We believe that qualified community work practitioners bear a great social responsibility and no matter what job title they hold or with whom they work they will benefit from belonging to their professional association.
Over the course of our 50 plus year history, our hard-working volunteers, members and staff have undertaken many projects and campaigns to promote, standardise and advance the profession of community work. We count among our greatest achievements:
- Successfully advocating for minimum standards to be included in the Community Services Training Package (CSTP) when it was introduced into the TAFE sector
- Developing the profession’s code of ethics and practice guidelines to ensure ethical practice by members.
- Working with education providers to raise the quality of community services courses.
- Representing the profession on government Industry Reference Committees.
- Developing a research agenda to promote enquiry into the community work profession.
- ACWA membership included as a selection criterion by major state government departments when recruiting for relevant roles.
- Identified as Department of Home Affairs authorised assessing authority for seven occupations.
- ACWA membership recognised as part of suitability assessments for NDIS service providers.
- Successfully advocating against a large fee increase for community and human services degrees caught up in the Federal Government’s Job-ready Graduates Package
