CQU has launched a new Reconciliation in the Workplace and Community course, to be delivered jointly by Nulloo Yumbah (the Indigenous Learning, Spirituality & Research Centre) and staff from Social Work and Welfare Studies.

The new course will be open to students enrolled in any program of study at CQU (including distance education) and will be mandatory for Social Work students.

It will use a problem-based pedagogical approach, and assessment methods appropriate to students' individual styles and needs.

The course addresses the need for relevant knowledge and skills to constructively identify, assess and address issues of reconciliation.

It mirrors the shared aims and values of Nulloo Yumbah and the disciplines of Social Work and Welfare Studies in the Faculty of Arts, Health and Sciences.

The stakeholders' aims include:.

meaningful, critical and constructive engagement with the contemporary issues facing Indigenous people and individuals from all backgrounds;.

provision of leadership in scholarship and research in the areas relating to the study of reconciliation;.

provision of access to current knowledge on reconciliation for the community;.

and to equip graduates with skills and knowledge about reconciliation and its relevance to the workplace and community.

The course is innovative and timely. The CQU team could not locate another Australian university-level course of study of its type.

The course complements the CQU Reconciliation statement and fits with the University's commitment to develop study programs relevant to community needs.

For example, the Social Work discipline has a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Child Safety. The Department has expressed a need to provide its staff with professional development opportunities in respect to working with Indigenous people, and providing them with a greater awareness of the impact of reconciliation debates on its services.

Photo (clockwise from front left): Ros Dunphy, Associate Professor William Oates, Professor Errol Payne, Wayne Ah-Wong, Dr Daniel Teghe, Associate Professor Jane Maidment and Laurel Hunt at the launch of the new Reconciliation course.