When Berry Street reviewed their previous LMS they realised it didn’t have the flexibility to meet Berry Street’s needs for a flexible learning ecosystem, which included onboarding, ongoing learning and running an internal registered training organisation (RTO).

The new LMS was needed to support a varied audience of learners, including residential care workers, home-based care workers, family violence workers, community workers, therapeutic staff, educational staff and corporate staff.

Berry Street issued an RFQ with a detailed specifications list and sought submissions from a diverse group of five vendors.

Through previous experience with open source LMS solutions, Berry Street’s L&D specialists knew there were benefits in selecting an open-source learning platform.

One of the vendors on their shortlist was Sprout Labs who proposed using Totara Learn as the basis for their new learning solution.

Once Berry Street made the decision to go ahead with Sprout Labs’ solution, Berry Street and Sprout Labs collaboratively designed a project plan to ensure the development and implementation of a system that would meet all Berry Street’s essential requirements, as well as a number of nice-to-haves.

With tight timelines until the ‘go-live' date, Berry Street and Sprout Labs set about making it happen.

In terms of the system’s functions, analytics and flexible, customisable reporting were important, along with providing managers with the ability to see what their teams had completed and what learning was outstanding. In addition, customized, ‘pre-loaded’ learning programs were important, to ensure learners were across the learning they needed to complete.

The ability to manage face-to-face learning online was very important to Berry Street. Staff are now able to book into sessions within the LMS itself, through the display of all face-to-face events within a centralised online calendar.

The course catalogue is intuitive and easy to navigate, this makes it quick and easy for learners to access the learning they need. So far, there are pieces of online learning in the LMS with topics such as Privacy Training to Working with Children who have experienced trauma.

Berry Street has used the dashboard features of Totara Learn to build topic-based portals around leadership, well-being and out-of-home care. These hub’s include links to courses on the LMS and links to external resources.

"Updating our Learning Management System and creating the Berry Street Learning Hub has provided us an opportunity to create a new culture of learning, while also enabling us to make responsive changes as we continue to evolve and grow. Thank you Sprout Labs and Totara for helping us to make this to happen!"

Aliki Christou, Learning Innovations Consultant, Berry Street

Berry Street’s Totara Learn platform launched in July 2017, with around 1,200 learners using the platform initially. The platform is being used by employees across the organisation, allowing staff from different programs to access their required compliance training and ongoing learning.

One of the key successes of the Totara Learn implementation has been the transformation in employees’ attitudes towards learning.

Learners are increasingly exploring the system, asking questions and discussing the functionality and content organically. The platform has generated a renewed interest in learning, in part, thanks to the inviting look and feel and user-friendliness of the LMS.

"Berry Street is delighted with the services of Sprout Labs, as it was clear from the very start of the project that they fully understood Totara Learn and Berry Street’s requirements and were highly responsive and helpful throughout the entire process. They were approachable, skilled and knowledgeable and this continues to be a highly successful partnership."

Aliki Christou, Learning Innovations Consultant, Berry Street