Our popular Accredited Aged Care Professional™ program is offered as a two-day interactive workshop or an online, live and facilitated workshop spanning three half-days. The program follows a unique, 9-step framework to help you develop the skills and confidence to create solutions for accessing and funding the aged care that best meets your clients’ needs – whether that’s at home, in a retirement village or a residential care facility.
Aged Care Steps is an award-winning education provider and the leading provider of support on aged care advice. Our highly experienced facilitators each have practical experience in aged care advice.
Who can attend?
This program is designed for financial planners, accountants and lawyers who wish to provide financial planning advice for clients accessing aged care services. But it also provides a deeper understanding of aged care for people working in other related fields.
What content is covered?
During the workshop you will learn:
- Our 9-step framework to guide you through a logical process for how to interact with clients and develop advice solutions
- The rules for calculating aged care fees
- Strategies for funding aged care needs with consideration for cashflow and estate maximisation
- An understanding the challenges faced by the aged care services sector
- Practical tips for navigating the Centrelink & means-assessment paperwork
- Alternatives to residential care, including the financial implications of retirement villages and land lease communities
- Navigating the home care system
- How to simplify concepts for client discussions
- Practical tips for how to kickstart your aged care advice business, including pricing, service offering and starting client discussions.
You will receive a workshop folder and be registered in our 10-week follow up program.
Essentials Modules – pre-reading
These five modules are designed to be a self-learning experience and provide advisers with the core knowledge needed to understand aged care and the options available to clients. It comprises five modules for the essentials of:
- The aged care industry
- Aged accommodation choices
- ACAT and home care
- Centrelink and Veterans’ Affairs
- Residential aged care fees.
Each module should expect to take 1.5-2 hours to complete. A multiple-choice quiz must be successfully completed to finalise this component and receive CPD hours.
The modules are included for free when registering for the accreditation workshop and should be completed before attending that workshop so that you have the basics covered.
Accreditation requirements
To achieve Accreditation, you need to satisfactorily complete the pre-reading Essential Modules and quiz, attend the workshop program and achieve a score of at least 70% in the post-workshop online assessment. All components need to be completed within 6 months of workshop attendance.
For FPA members, the Accreditation program is also the education pathway to apply for the FPA Aged Care Specialist designation from the FPA.
Accreditation logo
Successful completion of the ACS accreditation program provides an attainment certificate which you can display in your office to identify yourself to clients and prospective clients as an ACS Accredited Aged Care Professional™.
You will also receive an accreditation logo that can be used on your website, email signature or other marketing materials to promote your services and expertise to clients, prospects and referral networks.
CPD hours
The accreditation program has been assessed for a total of 21.5 CPD hours and covers all 4 FASEA categories.
Essentials pre-reading modules:
| FASEA CPD areas | ASIC knowledge requirements |
| Technical competence (8 hours) | Aged care (6 hours)
Financial planning (2 hours) |
Workshop:
| FASEA CPD areas | ASIC knowledge requirements |
| Technical competence (6.5 hours)
Client care and practice (5 hours) Ethics and Professionalism (1.5 hours) Regulatory compliance and consumer protection (0.5 hour) |
Aged Care (5.75 hours)
Financial planning (2.25 hours) Skill requirements (5.0 hours) Estate planning (0.5 hour) |
Download a flyer on our accreditation program.