In our own situation, for example, we have a campus at Sale and an Outreach Centre at Mallacoota in the state's far east – a distance of over 300 klm. Staff at Fulham (Sale) Campus are closer to Melbourne than our Mallacoota centre.

It was intended to skill a core group of staff who will specialise in an area of interest and expertise.

This group would then share their expertise by mentoring other staff, allowing the skills developed to cascade down and across the whole Institute staff.

The model needed to be suitable for implementation in any Institute but particularly in those Institutes with smaller staffing - where it is not viable in terms of efficiency, economics and time constraints for many staff to attend centrally-presented Professional Development.