Another year is coming to a close, another year of accomplishments that the Australasian College of Health and Wellness is immensely proud of.
We had our first nomination at the Australian Beauty Industry Awards, saw our students succeed in phenomenal ways, and just recently celebrated at graduation events around the country!
Please come with us as we take a closer look at some of these achievements, as well as some news from the industry, and then give you a sneak peek at what we have planned for 2025.
2024 marked the first — but we are confident not the last! — time that ACHW was nominated in the Australian Beauty Industry Awards (ABIAs) as a finalist in the category of Educator of the Year – Organisation!
Launched in 2012 by Mocha Group, providers of the definitive media, digital, and awards network for the Australian hair, beauty and barbering industries, the ABIAs are the trusted national award platform for benchmarking excellence across 30 specialist and individual categories in beauty, dermal therapy, and more.
Previous winners at the ABIAs include our very own facilitator Gay Wardle!
It was an honour to be nominated, and we had an amazing time at the awards ceremony, which was held at the Star in Sydney on August 25.
We expect to be there next year and hopefully take home some hardware.
Our entire purpose as an educator is to help our students succeed, so there is nothing more satisfying for us than to watch them achieve their career goals and become stand outs in the dermal therapy industry.
One example of a student we would like to highlight is Lorinda Bissaker, who is currently studying the Bachelor of Applied Health Science (Clinical Aesthetics). Lorinda has run two successful salons and has now launched her own cosmeceutical line In Practice Skincare, which gives back to the community with a $1 donation to important causes, such as Beyond Blue, for every sale made. You can learn more about Lorinda and her accomplishments by reading this article.
To further support our students, we were able to offer 166 scholarships in 2024. Knowing that great dermal therapists can come from many different circumstances, we are very proud to provide this tuition support to deserving students.
Our favourite events of the year are our graduation ceremonies and ACHW was grateful to hold three ceremonies in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Thank you to Hyatt Centric, Doltone House, and Cloudland in these respective cities for providing us with beautiful venues worthy of our incredible graduates.
It fills us with such an incredible sense of joy and pride to watch our students formally finish their studies and embark on the next chapter of their dermal therapy careers. The Class of 2024 had a total of 135 graduates who we are proud to include amongst the ACHW alumni.
We are so proud of all their success, which we hope demonstrates the quality education and support provided by the Australasian College of Health and Wellness, and we are very excited to see where their careers go from here.
You can learn more about our graduation ceremonies here.
2024 has seen two several major developments in our industry.
The first is that the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is cracking down on how cosmetic injectables can be advertised in Australia, making it clear that advertising for health services identifying prescription-only medicines, including most cosmetic injectables, is unlawful. As we discussed in our article linked above, this is particularly interesting because it puts a spotlight to the regulatory landscape of our industry in Australia, which many predict to be changing significantly in the near future.
The second is that Undergraduate Certificates, a class of higher education qualification that was introduced during the COVID pandemic, are approaching their current final issue date of June 30, 2025. The Department of Education is reviewing this course type and is expected to make an update on whether they will be reaccredited early next year.
Third, the beauty and dermal industry is facing a landmark moment. For the first time in 20 years, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is conducting a comprehensive review of how occupations are classified across Australia and New Zealand through ANZSCO (Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations). This review represents a crucial opportunity for our industry. It will reshape how beauty and dermal therapy roles are recognised and defined, potentially affecting qualifications, scope of practice, and professional standing. In partnership with the Aesthetic Beauty Industry Council (ABIC), ACHW has been advocating to ensure our industry receives the recognition it deserves in this updated classification system.
As we prepare for the year ahead, we are excited about the opportunities and challenges that lie before us. One of our core focuses next year is to create new courses at a range of academic levels so we can provide health science education to people in a greater variety of experience levels and particular roles in the industry.
Our academic development team is changing and expanding, and we are very excited to see the great work our colleagues produce.
We will also continue to advocate for the wider dermal therapy and clinical aesthetics industry, supporting any endeavours for greater regulation and in turn respect for the high level of skill and knowledge required of practitioners.
Thank you for being a part of ACHW’s journey in 2024.
