National Aged Residential Care: Migrant Care Workforce Acclimatisation and Practice Support Pathway

Lead organisation:

Aged Care Association

The Aged Care Association is developing a sector-wide practice support pathway for migrant care workers already employed in aged residential care. The package will include a co-designed minimum practice framework, plain-language micro-learning modules, an employer toolkit, a light-touch buddy model, and a structured 30/60/90-day support plan giving providers a consistent, low-burden way to support new workers through their first months on the job.

The project responds to a workforce that carries significant weight in the sector: caregivers make up around 72% of the roughly 36,000 people employed in aged residential care, and an estimated 20% of caregivers are migrant labour. Providers consistently report that early support around communication, documentation, handover, escalation and cultural safety is inconsistent, and that new workers often lack confidence to ask questions and seek help early pressures compounded by rising occupancy and New Zealand's ageing population.

Rather than a training programme, the pathway is designed as a reusable, sector-ready resource that any provider can adopt regardless of size, location or ownership model. It will be shaped through co-design with providers, frontline leaders, supervisors and migrant care workers themselves, guided by an ARC provider reference group, with Māori and Pacific workforce input and an accessibility-by-design approach built in throughout.

The immediate impact will be an implementation-ready package that reduces reliance on ad hoc local induction and informal buddying. Longer term, ACA expects stronger worker confidence and role clarity, reduced supervision burden for employers, improved retention, and safer, more consistent care for older people with the completed package shared openly across the sector to support wide, sustainable uptake.