Elements and Performance Criteria

Assessment about the child's need for additional care may be based on information may be gathered from:
The child
Parents
Services used previously
Health professionals involved

The service's capacity to provide required care may be limited by:
Staff or care providers with the necessary skills, knowledge and confidence
Venue that has necessary access and characteristics
Availability of special equipment and resources

A plan to develop the capacity of the service may include:
Training program provided
Sups worker, casual ethnic worker or other resource worker to work with service
Information materials provided
Input from school staff or special needs staff

A plan of inclusion may involve:
Spending time with parent
Parent participation at centre
Coordination of various services working with child/family

The plan may be developed through:
Liaison with each party
Convening and facilitating meetings

Additional resources may include:
Resource materials for programming
Staffing
Equipment
Specialised transport services
Training

Support provided in order to demonstrate specific care and management strategies may include:
training programs
demonstrations

A worker's concerns may involve:
Safety issues
Impact on other children
Concerns about their own level of experience and skills

The degree of support provided will depend on:
current skills and confidence of care givers
child's level of ability
request from service and amount of input they wish to use
availability, other demands on the support service

Critical aspects of assessment:
Demonstrated ability to develop the capacity of workers to respond to the needs of all children including those with additional needs, within a philosophical framework of children's services delivery

Context of assessment:
This unit may be assessed on the job or through simulation and should reflect the diversity of settings within the Leisure and Health workplace.

Essential knowledge:
Knowledge of a range of resources that may be utilised - equipment, personnel with specific expertise, specialist services, information resources, toy libraries
The range of services provided by child care organisations in the local community - their philosophy, program objectives, style of organisation
Social justice and access and equity principles
The central role of the family in planning inclusion of the child
Impact on families of a child with a disability eg. Challenges, stress, cultural beliefs and understandings
Impact of migration on children and families
The importance for the child of their culture and language being respected by workers in children's services
Confidentiality principles and complex issues
Organisational standards, policies and procedures

Essential skills:
High level of communication skills - listening, questioning, suggesting ideas, providing information, giving positive feedback, giving negative feedback if required
Skills in assessment of child's needs
Skills in facilitating discussions
Planning skills
Evaluation skills
Advocacy and self advocacy principles
Workplace training skills
Cross cultural communication skills

Resource implications:

Assessment requires access to a range of opportunities defined in the Range of Variables. This includes:

A childcare workplace
Access to children's services, resources and equipment
Access to the local environment

Context of assessment:
This unit must be assessed on the job under the normal workplace conditions for a range of age groups, a range of conditions, over a number of assessment situations