Professional Recognition: Overview
The Australasian Housing Institute (AHI) is the professional association for social housing. Our members have a focus on social and affordable housing provision, homelessness and social inclusion. They come from a wide variety of professional disciplines and work in a range of organisational settings. These varied backgrounds in our sector create a strong expertise base for the work we do.
Through our professional recognition program, the AHI intends to:
- unify housing professionals;
- support and promote ethical practice;
- set standards of professional competence for the (social) housing workforce;
- instill a sense of pride in our work and encourage others to see housing as a worthwhile career;
- improve the housing outcomes for our communities;
- and encourage housing professionals to keep up to date with the best in housing practice and to be committed to their own continuing professional development.
Professional recognition for housing professionals sets and acknowledges the highest standard of professionalism in housing practice. Our industry is critical to the well being of individuals and to a civil society, and our professionalism is the key element of our success.
The Professional Recognition Scheme allows housing professionals to demonstrate their knowledge, skills and ethics and to show their ongoing commitment to continually improving their practice. PRS is then another building block in unifying housing as a profession in New Zealand and Australia and assists us to hold our heads high on the world stage.
PRS will be introduced over two years, starting in January 2011 with the Certificate of Housing Practice and the Con-tinuing Professional Development Program. The Certificate in Social Housing will be offered from July 2011.
The Certificate of Housing Practice designates a person to be a housing professional with broad industry experience and expertise across a range of specialisations.
The Certificate of Practice in Social Housing (Management or another area of specialisation) denotes a housing pro-fessional whose experience and expertise is focused on a single area, such as housing management.
The PRC is underpinned by the AHI’s Skills and Knowledge Framework (SKF), developed in co-operation with mem-bers, housing organisations and the Chartered Institute of Housing (UK). This framework is used to ‘accredit’ housing courses offered by Universities and other institutions. The SKF guides our thinking about the elements of profession-alism in social housing and the standards we should set ourselves in our practice.
The Professional Recognition Scheme sets the gold standard for housing professionals: independent recognition by the professional body.
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