Human services workforce
scholarship program
Tackling the questions
Your general response
Identify the question markers
Look for how, why, what, who and where question tags—make sure your answer targets the right
question tag. Do not answer a how or why question with what your job title is—your job title may be
background information you need to include, but it does not fully answer the question.
Structure your response
Answer the question generally in the first few sentences of your response. Then, explain or
substantiate this response by providing extra details (how, why, what, who, where). Give the assessor
the bigger picture first, then delve into the details. For example:
The scholarship would give me the skills and training I need to address client needs and help
me develop strategies to assist in making positive and sustainable life changes.
(Main point)
In my current position as an Aboriginal child welfare worker, I work with disadvantaged
Aboriginal families who are hesitant to contact welfare services. If I had the necessary
qualifications, I could serve as a point of contact for those families to access the assistance they
require…
(The why and how)
If you give details first, the evaluator will not have a clear idea of where you are headed and might
miss out on some of the value of your response.
Shape your writing
Make sure your writing flows and you are not jumping from one idea to a new, unrelated one without
connecting them. Also, as a result, then, because and in addition are helpful tools to join your ideas
together.
Use commas, dashes, full stops and dot points to make your reader’s task easier. Shape paragraphs
around a single thought. Each new idea must start a new paragraph.
Support your claims
If you make an assertion, give your evidence! This statement needs supporting evidence:
I am an experienced aged care professional specialising in dementia patients.
This is better:
I am an experienced aged care professional who has specialised in dementia patients. For the
past seven years, I have worked in a nursing home, in the dementia ward, where I was
working closely with medical staff and pastoral care professionals…
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Keep reality switched on
Make sure that you are realistic in what you claim. This statement’s time frames and processes, are
perhaps not believable:
This scholarship would allow me to become a world-leading expert in early childhood mental
health care in the next year.
More realistic is:
This scholarship would be a first step towards further studies and research into the area of
early childhood mental health, and it would enable me to improve specific services by...
Use plain English
Think about what the assessor wants to know about you: he does not need to be impressed by
academic language and long, convoluted sentences. Assessors simply want to understand what you
are saying. Being misunderstood in your responses is a risk you do not want to take!
Keep your sentences short: no more than two lines. Use plain English, not industry jargon or
unexplained acronyms.
You have a 300 word limit for each response. Make sure you use those words to provide insightful
ideas and information rather than just…stuff!
Be disciplined in your writing
Think before you write. Your ideas must be clear before you can even consider writing them down. Do
not start writing with the hope that you will eventually come across a stray thought that might, possibly,
be relevant to the question.
Once you have your ideas clearly set out in your mind, organise them in order of importance—big
picture first, details afterwards.
Every sentence and every paragraph must follow this pattern. The main focus must always be at the
beginning.
Check your work
Mistakes undermine your credibility in the eyes of an assessor. Make sure that your grammar is
correct. Check for spelling mistakes, typos and weird punctuation. For example, their and there are
different words and have different meanings!
You are writing a formal response. Stay away from slang and contractions such as don’t and we’re.
Avoid informal turns of phrase and clichés because, at the end of the day, they undermine the
strength of your claim.
Tackling the questions
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Tips for responding to question 1: ‘How will this
scholarship help you make a positive contribution to the
organisation’s service delivery and support and enhance
the wellbeing of all Victorians?’
Answer the actual question!
Make sure you answer the question, which is about your positive contribution, the organisation’s
service delivery and the wellbeing of Victorians.
Then, use the question’s words in your answer. ‘Positive contribution’, ‘service delivery’, ‘support’,
‘enhance’ and ‘wellbeing of Victorians’ are terms that will help you structure your response. For
example:
This scholarship will directly enable me to research and improve the organisational processes
that underpin the delivery of services to an especially vulnerable group—young Victorians who
are homeless.
Do not answer questions that are not asked. ‘Why do you deserve the scholarship?’ or ‘Why is this
scholarship everything you have ever wished for?’ are not the questions you are being asked.
Put your strongest example or reasons first
Do not make the assessor dig through paragraphs and paragraphs for your compelling reason as to
why you should receive a scholarship.
Put into the first or second paragraph how you would make a (really!) positive contribution to your
organisation and the wellbeing of Victorians.
Keep pointing in the right direction
Do not go off on tangents. Your life story, hardships, talents, studies and work ethic are not always
relevant to the question that is being asked.
Make sure your answer is complete
Make sure every claim you make and every example you give is related to your positive contribution,
the organisation’s work and values and the wellbeing of Victorians.
Be concrete
Speak of the outcomes that will result if you are granted a scholarship. For example, what specific
benefits will flow to your organisation? How will practices, projects and initiatives be improved? How
will clients benefit?
Do not assume!
Do not assume that the assessor is an expert in your particular field or knows the work of your
organisation. Make your ideas clear and concrete!
Tackling the questions
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Tips for responding to question 2: ‘How do you envisage
this scholarship will enhance your career?’
Answer the actual question!
Do not give the same answers you gave before. You are answering a different question!
Respond by explaining how the scholarship will improve your prospects and equip the
post-scholarship ‘future you’—the more-qualified, more-skilled you—to do better work.
What does ‘enhanced career’ mean?
An enhanced career, in the context of this scholarship, is a career that enables you as a professional
to be more effective in assisting other Victorians. It is not about a pay increase or faster promotions or
becoming prime minister.
So, look outwards—you are a professional in a community
Do not forget about your contribution to your community and your workplace as a dedicated
professional.
Speak of professional outcomes—for example, skills, qualifications and expertise. What type of a
professional will the scholarship allow you to become?
Are these skills in short supply, either generally or in your organisation?
Be creative and imaginative
What does the workforce in your sector need to be more effective or to provide different services in a
more cost-effective way?
Then, think about what you can do, with better skills, to solve current problems. What part will you, the
future you, play in being the solution? Speak of actual, measurable, demonstrable skills, qualifications
or knowledge.
Be positive and realistic
Focus on what you realistically can achieve as a professional and how this scholarship will help you
professionally to do better work.
Solutions are always more important than a restatement of problems—especially important if the
solution is you!
Tackling the questions
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Model response
‘How will this scholarship help you make a positive contribution to
the organisation’s service delivery and support and enhance the
wellbeing of all Victorians?’
This scholarship will allow me to work towards a master’s degree in child psychology, which would
assist me in my role as educational leader in Foot Forward early learning centre. My role is to work
with educators in our team to devise and implement effective curricula for the children in our centre.
We work with refugee communities, and our children have often been victims or witnesses of abuse,
or have suffered extensive trauma and hardship. As an educational leader, I must take this into
account when designing and implementing educational programs. My role is made more complex by
the diverse background of the families we work with.
By completing a masters in child psychology, I will:
• better target the needs of the children our organisation works with
• improve my understanding of childhood trauma and its psychological effects
• develop strategies to recognise and approach mental illness in children
• acquire basic knowledge of language acquisition in children
• develop insights into the role cultural awareness and belonging play in child development
• devise more effective, tailored learning experiences for my organisation’s clients
• develop a clearer understanding of the role of families in children’s development, and how to work
with them.
By acquiring these basic insights and knowledge, I will be able to incorporate more effective, holistic
teaching measures into our curriculum. The result will be improved learning outcomes and, I hope, an
enhanced ability of our children and their families to adapt and settle into the Victorian and Australian
communities.
‘How do you envisage this scholarship will enhance your career?’
The role of an educational leader requires specific knowledge of educational practices and theories.
With this in mind, I have successfully completed a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education
since I stepped into this position in ‘Foot Forward’. As a result, I have improved my practice and
implemented effective curricula and programs into our organisation’s delivery. This degree has not,
however, given me the necessary knowledge, skills and insights to deliver a more efficient program to
children who come from disadvantaged background, situations of family and personal trauma and
linguistically diverse backgrounds.
A master’s degree focusing on child psychology would give me expertise in the finer details of child
development in different situations and contexts. It would provide me with more specialised, targeted
strategies to better support disadvantaged children’s learning and development. This enhanced
expertise and knowledge will allow me to improve learning outcomes for children in my centre, and to
become an advocate for greater awareness of disadvantaged children’s educational needs in the
broader early childhood sector. By becoming a qualified expert, I will be able to provide practical and
effective advice on regulation in the broader area of early childhood education, and work towards
more inclusive development programs which are community-focused.
Tackling the questions
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To receive this publication in an accessible format email [email protected]
or phone Sarah Rossi on 9096 5760 (Tuesday or Friday) or Heidi Preston (03) 9096 1665
Authorised and published by the Victorian Government, 1 Treasury Place, Melbourne.
© State of Victoria, Department of Health and Human Services May 2017.
Available at <http://www.dhs.vic.gov.au/about-the-department/ourorganisation/careers/scholarship-and-ethel-temby-research-grant-program>
Tackling the questions