The Social Services Industry Training Organisation is an industry training organisation (ITO) for the social services industry. 

What we do

As an ITO, we help people who are working or volunteering in the social services to gain a qualification relevant to their job. 

Social services is a broad term for many professions that support and help people to achieve all they can. Some of the qualifications we look after are social work, youth work, employment support, counselling and whānau/family and foster care. 

Our four core functions are:

• developing national qualifications for the social services industry
• providing work-based learning opportunities for social service staff and volunteers so they can increase their skills and gain qualifications
• ensuring every person who assesses our trainees’ work is assessing accurately and consistently (this is called accreditation and moderation)
• leading the sector by working with others in the social services to identify current and future skill needs.

Our core functions are supported by a clear vision, purpose and values.

How we are funded

The ITO operates under the Industry Training Act 1992. We receive most of our funding from the Tertiary Education Commission. This funding is based on the number full-time equivalent trainees we have. We also receive some funding from the Ministry of Social Development for our projects that relate to the building of our sector.

A snapshot of the organisation

We have 20 social services national qualifications registered on the National Qualifications Framework.  We currently have around 700 trainees from across the country studying towards a number of these qualifications. The majority of our trainees are enrolled in the National Diploma in Social Work.

There are 41 tertiary education organisations accredited to provide our qualifications.

We have 12 full-time staff based at national office in Wellington and two full-time staff based in the regions. We also have 56 external contractors and registered assessors located throughout New Zealand.