Children Education And Care Quality Authority: Funding, Quality Standards, And Support

Current funding

Discuss about the Children Education and Care Quality Authority.

Inclusion in the domain of education is identified as the basic human right towards the foundation of equal society (Cologon, 2013). According to the reports published by The Conversation (2015), inclusive education is a concept where the children with special needs are educated in the mainstream schools. The concept of inclusive education was first used by United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in the year 1996. UNESCO highlighted that inclusive schools are the most effective way to address the indifferent attitudes nurtured by the healthy individuals and children towards the children with additional needs (Australian Research Alliance for Child and Youth (ARACY), 2012). The following assignment is based on inclusive pedagogical practice step-up with 30 children between the age group of 0 to 5 years. Among these 30 children, there are the children with additional needs like Downs syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism, speech impairment, attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) and other chronic diseases. The assignment will initiate with the funding and national quality standards available in Australia for comprehensive management of inclusive pedagogical practice. The assignment will then try to highlight the professional and organization support that will be helpful in handling this diverse set-up. The assignment also attempts to throw light over the special skills that educator must have to successfully operate in this inclusive educational setup.

According to the NSW Department of Education (2018), the main aim of disability and inclusion program is to generate support and funding to help children with disability and additional needs in community preschools to take part in quality early childhood education program on the same basis as all other children. The main overview of the 2018 Disability and Inclusion Program includes

Table: Overview of the funding program in NSW government

(Source: NSW Department of Education, 2018a)

NSW, the main funding is used to recruit additional teachers and school learning support officers in order to implement personalised learning and support for students in their classrooms. The funding is also provided in order to assist classroom teachers. This assistance is given via providing relief for them to use professional learning and to liaise with the carers, parents and other staffs of school. Integration funding support in NSW is only considered when a support team of school requires extra support for students with high to moderate support needs or requires additional resources to personalise the overall support and learning. The integration funding support program mainly helps students who are enrolled in a regular class in a NSW public school; are school-aged; has severe to moderate physical disability, intellectual disability, hearing and / or vision impairment, mental health disorder, autism spectrum disorder (NSW Department of Education, 2018b)

National Quality Standards for Inclusive Education

The Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (2017) has 7 distinct National Quality Standards (NQS) that are designed to extract useful outcomes for the children. The first quality area is educational program and practice. This quality area is mainly directed towards the children and aims to maximize child’s learning and development. The second quality area is children health and safety. According to this quality area, quality education should be provided under an environment that safeguards the health and safety of the child. The third quality area emphasizes over the physical environment. According to this, safe physical environment provides promote children learning and development. The fourth quality area highlights the importance of proper staffing and other arrangements. This is because, qualified and experienced professionals help in establishing warm relationship with the children and thereby providing proper engagement in the learning program. The fifth quality area further emphasizes over the effective relationship with the children and thereby enhancing a sense of belonging and attachment in an educational set-up. The 6^th quality area promotes collaborative partnerships with the family and community groups and this helps in achieving quality outcomes. The 7^th quality area is governance and leadership.

Under quality area 1, element 1.1.2 of standard 1.1 aligns with the need of the children with additional requirement and/ or disability. According to this standard, the design of the learning program must be child-centred that is based on the strengths, ideas, culture abilities and interest of the children. The element 3.2.1 of quality standard 3 states that inclusive environment must be designed in such a way that is supports and engage every child. This element is important for inclusive learning practise as comfortable surrounding environment helps student with additional needs and/or disability to participate in the learning practice. The important aspects of quality area 5 that align with the requirement of the inclusive practise include respect towards the dignity and rights of the children irrespective of their disability and additional needs (element 5.1.2). Quality area 4 and quality area 6 also align with the required practise standards for the children with additional needs and / or disability. (Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority, 2017).

The main professional support that is important while handling culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) children, especially children between the age group of 3 to 5 years (who are learning to speak is, speech-language pathologists (SLPs). The SLPs supports children with speech, language and communication needs and thereby helping them to easily adopt easily with the other children of Australian origin and whose mother tongue is English (Verdon, McLeod & Wong, 2015). However, different SLP must be appointed for the different CLAD children like Mandarin, Turkish and Arabic. This SLPs must be aptly assisted via an interpreter who will effectively interpret their language and dialect and thereby helping the SLPs to work effectively.

Professional and organizational support

The main professional support to work with children with ADHD is a nutritionist and organizational support coming from the mental health professionals. According to Millichap and Yee (2012), a proper diet plan helps to fight against the complexity of the ADHD. A proper diet plan ensures sound sleep at night and adequate sleep in turn helps to retain the attention and reduces the sense of hyperactivity among ADHD children. The mental health nurse will indulge in towards providing comprehensive behavioural support for children with ADHD and thereby helping to reduce the severity of mood swings and hyperactive approaches (Lee et al., 2012). According to Pringsheim et al. (2015), children with Oppositional Defiance Disorder (OFD) often suffer from ADHD, bipolar disorder and at times Tourette syndrome. The main professional help mandate for handling children with OFD includes a mental health nurse just like for the children with ADHD. For handling the neurological complication, a constant support from neurologist is also important (Pringsheim et al., 2015).

According to Reilly et al. (2015), children with speech impairments vary vastly with their abilities. Along with difficulty in communication, these children also struggle with expressing their thoughts, feelings, reading and managing other class activities. Therefore, the main professional support for these special children will mainly come from speech-language pathologists (SLPs). A SLP will provide speech therapy to these children and thereby helping them to overcome their problem since from their early childhood. The main professional support in the children suffering from autism will come from paediatricians. According to Malow et al. (2012), a professional paediatricians help in early recognitions and evaluation of autism along with chronic management of disorder. The main professional support that will be important for managing children with autism spectrum disorder other than psychologist, speech therapist and behavioural support therapist is an occupational therapist. An occupational therapist will help to develop the hand writing skills, fine motor skills and daily living skills (Rodger & Kennedy-Behr, 2017).

Down syndrome is a chromosomal abnormality that occurs due to trisomy of chromosome 21 (Devor et al., 2013). According to Dierssen (2012), individuals with down syndrome are frequently reported with constellation of diverse medical complications like conductive hearing loss and sensor neural hearing loss. Therefore, the main professional help will include audio logic interventions from a trained audiologist. For handling children with cerebral palsy, the main professional collaboration must come from a physiotherapist. It is the physiotherapist who will evaluate muscle strength, muscle tone and gait (walking). This is crucial because children suffering from cerebral palsy suffer from complex neurological problems that affect muscle co-ordination and body movement. Apart from physiotherapist, other professional who will be helpful in managing children with Cerebral Palsy include occupational therapist and speech therapist (Novak et al., 2013).

The main professional support for handling children with chronic health issues is constant support for an emergency care nurse who will modulate their vital statistics in a period manner. Moreover, the organisation must also keep an emergency childcare specialist so that he or she can provide immediate medical assistance if required. Moreover, the organisation must also have a running setup of main emergency care equipment along with paramedic support to handle crisis situation effectively (Hou, Rego & Service, 2013). The organisation must also come forward in providing proper counselling to the parents of these special children along with proper education of home based interventions in order to prove effective support to their child while at home (Raab, Dunst & Hamby, 2016).  The organization must also come forward towards framing a welcoming environment where the educators provides equal degree of care and sympathy towards both the normal and children with additional needs (Raab, Dunst & Hamby, 2016).

For handling children with ADHD and ODD, one needs to adopt supportive and non-judgmental approach towards understanding the requirement of the children. Moreover rather than trying to reduce the hyperactivity, one needs to provide the child with permissible ways to channelize their needs for activity. Other important skills include getting the attention of the children before providing instructions. This gaining attention can be done via visual aids or via using the hand instructions like to remind the child that he or she is distracted and is required to refocus on the activity. According to Kasper, Alderson & Hudec (2012) dominating attention of the children with ADHD demands close physical proximity.

According to Reilly et al. (2015), students suffering from speech problem may be reluctant to answers questions in class or provide presentations in group or individually. An educator handling children with speech difficulty is required to hold his patience while encouraging students to participate in different classroom activities. An educator is also required to provide adequate time to the children to express their thoughts. The main skill required for an educator for managing children with speech difficulty is creation of an environment of understanding and acceptance inside the classroom while encouraging peers to accept the student suffering from speech impairment. Other skills crucial for an educator include effective communication skills along with good listening skills (Reilly et al., 2015).

For inclusive educational practise with children with autism or autism spectrum disorder, the primary goal will be to maximize the ultimate functional independence of the children and quality of life along with minimizing the principle symptoms of autism spectrum disorders. The main behavioural strategy that will be effective for managing child with autism spectrum disorder include allowing the child to known what will happen next and thus enabling them to remain mentally ready to the upcoming circumstances (Maskey et al., 2013). According to Christensen et al. (2016), an educator is also required to provide choices to the children suffering from autism this will help them to feel that they have control over their world and thus helping them to generate confidence.

According to Malt et al. (2013), for effectively handling children with Down syndrome, it is the duty of a pedealogist to work frame special behavioural treatment plan via using ABC’s of behaviour. ABC’s of behaviour mainly encompass antecedent, behaviour and consequence of behaviour. However, the behavioural approaches will differ by age, the complexicity of the problem and the surrounding environment under which the behaviour is commonly expressed. In the domain of cerebral palsy, Novaket al. (2013) have opined that children suffering from cerebral palsy demand long term therapy for achieving better motor and gross motor skill outcomes. For this it is important to set special treatment and training regime at home. According to Frankiet al. (2012) an educator must acquire special skills so that he or she is capable of providing movement training to children of cerebral palsy via play and dance. The skills mainly include proper knowledge about steps or games that will help to promote gross motor skill improvement among the children with cerebral palsy.

The special skills that are crucial for an educator for handling children with chronic health conditions is proper knowledge about early signs and symptoms of the disease so that he or she can immediately call into actions the emergency care nurse via visualizing the initial symptoms. This help to prevent major fatal outcomes (Riegel, Jaarsma & Strömberg, 2012).

Conclusion

Thus from the above discussion it can be concluded that apart from making good use of the governmental funds and comprehensive application of NQS, the educator must also come forward with special skills and responsibilities to make the inclusive pedagogical set up a huge success.  Moreover, the organisation must also create a non-discriminative surrounding environment under which the healthcare professionals of multidisciplinary teams and educators work in unison in an unbiased manner towards successful promotion of inclusion in early childhood education.

References

Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (2017). National Quality Standards. Access date: 3^rd May. Retrieved from  https://www.acecqa.gov.au/nqf/national-quality-standard

Australian Research Alliance for Child and Youth (ARACY). (2012). Inclusive Education for Students with Disability. Access date: 3^rd May. Retrieved from: https://www.aracy.org.au/publications-resources/command/download_file/id/246/filename/Inclusive_education_for_students_with_disability_-_A_review_of_the_best_evidence_in_relation_to_theory_and_practice.pdf

Christensen, D. L., Bilder, D. A., Zahorodny, W., Pettygrove, S., Durkin, M. S., Fitzgerald, R. T., …&Yeargin-Allsopp, M. (2016). Prevalence and characteristics of autism spectrum disorder among 4-year-old children in the autism and developmental disabilities monitoring network. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 37(1), 1-8.

Cologon, K. (2013). Inclusion in education: Towards equality for students with disability.

Devor, A., Bandettini, P. A., Boas, D. A., Bower, J. M., Buxton, R. B., Cohen, L. B., … &Friston, K. J. (2013). The challenge of connecting the dots in the BRAIN. Neuron, 80(2), 270-274.

Dierssen, M. (2012). Down syndrome: the brain in trisomic mode. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 13(12), 844.

Franki, I., Desloovere, K., De Cat, J., Feys, H., Molenaers, G., Calders, P., …& Van den Broeck, C. (2012). The evidence-base for basic physical therapy techniques targeting lower limb function in children with cerebral palsy: a systematic review using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health as a conceptual framework. Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, 44(5), 385-395.

Hou, X. Y., Rego, J., & Service, M. (2013). paramedic education opportunities and challenges in Australia. Emergency Medicine Australasia, 25(2), 114-119.

Kasper, L. J., Alderson, R. M., &Hudec, K. L. (2012). Moderators of working memory deficits in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): a meta-analytic review. Clinical psychology review, 32(7), 605-617.

Lee, P. C., Niew, W. I., Yang, H. J., Chen, V. C. H., & Lin, K. C. (2012). A meta-analysis of behavioral parent training for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Research in developmental disabilities, 33(6), 2040-2049.

Malow, B. A., Byars, K., Johnson, K., Weiss, S., Bernal, P., Goldman, S. E., …& Glaze, D. G. (2012). A practice pathway for the identification, evaluation, and management of insomnia in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders. Pediatrics, 130(Supplement 2), S106-S124.

Malt, E. A., Dahl, R. C., Haugsand, T. M., Ulvestad, I. H., Emilsen, N. M., Hansen, B., … &Davidsen, E. M. (2013). Health and disease in adults with Down syndrome. Tidsskrift for den Norske laegeforening: tidsskrift for praktiskmedicin, nyraekke, 133(3), 290-294.

Maskey, M., Warnell, F., Parr, J. R., Le Couteur, A., &McConachie, H. (2013). Emotional and behavioural problems in children with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 43(4), 851-859.

Millichap, J. G., & Yee, M. M. (2012). The diet factor in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Pediatrics, 129(2), 330-337.

Novak, I., Mcintyre, S., Morgan, C., Campbell, L., Dark, L., Morton, N., …& Goldsmith, S. (2013). A systematic review of interventions for children with cerebral palsy: state of the evidence. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 55(10), 885-910..

NSW Department of Education., (2018a). 2018 Disability and Inclusion Program. Access date: 28^th May. Retrieved from: https://education.nsw.gov.au/early-childhood-education/operating-an-early-childhood-education-service/grants-and-funded-programs/disability-and-inclusion-program

NSW Department of Education., (2018b). Integration funding support. Access date: 28^th May. Retrieved from: https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/disability-learning-and-support/programs-and-services/integration-funding-support

Pringsheim, T., Hirsch, L., Gardner, D., & Gorman, D. A. (2015). The pharmacological management of oppositional behaviour, conduct problems, and aggression in children and adolescents with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and conduct disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Part 1: psychostimulants, alpha-2 agonists, and atomoxetine. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 60(2), 42-51.

Raab, M., Dunst, C. J., & Hamby, D. W. (2016). Effectiveness of contrasting approaches to response-contingent learning among children with significant developmental delays and disabilities. Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities, 41(1), 36-51.

Reilly, S., McKean, C., Morgan, A., & Wake, M. (2015). Identifying and managing common childhood language and speech impairments. Bmj, 350, h2318.

Riegel, B., Jaarsma, T., &Strömberg, A. (2012). A middle-range theory of self-care of chronic illness. Advances in Nursing Science, 35(3), 194-204.

Rodger, S., & Kennedy-Behr, A. (Eds.). (2017). Occupation-centred practice with children: a practical guide for occupational therapists. John Wiley & Sons.

The Conservation (2015). Australia lags behind the evidence on special schools. Access date: 3^rd May. Retrieved from: https://theconversation.com/australia-lags-behind-the-evidence-on-special-schools-41343

Verdon, S., McLeod, S., & Wong, S. (2015). Supporting culturally and linguistically diverse children with speech

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