It has been over three years since the launch of the It Pays to Care policy and principles. While it's a cliché to start an annual reflection with such words, we can't deny the truth: this year has been our biggest and best yet.
In 2024, we spread awareness of the policy and principles to a broadened audience of supporters, embedding the IPTC name as one that stands for best-practice innovation and high-quality outcomes for workers, employers and communities.
In 2025, we focused on the challenging task of shifting that awareness into engagement and action. We acknowledged that simply knowing the right thing to do is not enough - we needed to build our offerings of support and guidance for work injury management stakeholders. We set out to empower sustainable but meaningful change, and we've seen those initiatives starting to bear fruit.
Collaboration and Partnerships
We currently have more active collaborations and partnerships than at any other time in our short history. Recognising that it was time to evolve 'awareness' of the policy into real frontline impact, we've expanded our team's capabilities to offer a number of on-the-ground services and supports.
Some highlights from 2025 include:
- For the first time, the IPTC team produced a series of resources speaking directly to injured workers. Working in close partnership with EML Group, the Australian Education Union (Tasmania Branch) and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association, we developed a suite of factsheets, training resources, contact lists, and Series One of the IPTC Podcast (our magnum opus!).
- Workcover WA invited the IPTC team on our first regional engagement initiative, meeting with a number of groups in the Great Southern Region of Western Australia.
- We toured Tassie with the WorkSafe Tasmania team, engaging and upskilling the public sector workforce.
- Our successful symposia series continued, opening a brand-new discussion with CTP insurance sector.
Thought Leadership
Thought leadership is a fundamental element of IPTC's identity. The broader project rests on the revolutionary policy document developed by Dr Mary Wyatt and colleagues from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.
IPTC's Tanya Cambey, alongside Mary, continued this proud tradition penning a series of challenging articles for RTWMatters, focusing on the role of healthcare in work injury management. Their message: for a significant minority of claims, perhaps 20-30%, healthcare becomes part of the problem rather than the solution.
Working with our IPTC Physiotherapy Advisory Group, we also published a well-received series of articles in the Australian Physiotherapy Association's InMotion magazine, promoting the biopsychosocial approach and early matched care.
We've been present at so many conferences and gatherings that we've lost count! Some of our speaking highlights include:
- PIEF Conference - where Tanya, Mary and Rachael presented several well-attended sessions, Tanya was recognised as a leader in the sector, and PIEF hosted a three-year celebration for the IPTC team.
- Australian Physiotherapy Association Scientific Conference
- ANZSOM Annual Scientific Meeting
- Workcover WA Conference
Supporting Sector Capability
Beyond those initiatives listed above, the IPTC team continued to provide resources, training and guidance to build capacity and capabilities across the industry. Our two major achievements in this space:
- The IECCC Framework - a thorough communication guide for case managers, developed in consultative collaboration with a number of industry partners.
- Early Psychosocial Matched Care: Best Practice Guide - a comprehensive guide to implementing early matched care in work injury systems, written by an expert authorship panel.
But these are just the start! Other accomplishments include a CPD module for medical practitioners, employer resources related to the aforementioned workers project, and a great number of resources for healthcare practitioners (both allied health and medical).
If you haven't already, check out our Resource Library to see resources across all domains.
We express our sincere and heartfelt gratitude to our funders, partners and friends. Without this support we would not be shifting the needle in the work injury management sector.
While the team is diligently planning the next strategic steps in our impact journey, one thing is certain - you'll be seeing a lot more of It Pays to Care in 2026.