Teachers working in Early Childhood Intervention.
A short survey was sent to ECIA VIC/TAS members and the Early Childhood Intervention Best Practice Network. Results were captured over 5 days.
Respondents were asked to indicate where they deliver services and demonstrated a mix of metro, rural and remote or all types of geographical areas. Most respondents were in NSW, ACT, QLD, VIC.
The results represent 19,811 children in their services with 1,435 FTE from 1,849 practitioners in total.
Of the 1,848 practitioners 626 are bachelor or masters qualified teachers, equating to 33%.
In preparing this snapshot we asked for some comments. A sample is listed below.
- ECT’s are a valuable part of our multi-disciplinary workforce and are extremely well versed in working with both child and family.
- ECI Teachers are highly experience and a valued part of the Early Childhood Intervention team, experts in Early Childhood Foundational learning and EC development
- Out EC Teachers are an integral part of our service and have the most experience in child development. When therapists join our team they all comment on how much they learn from our teachers. The Best Practice/Key Worker model works so effectively with skilled teachers on our team.
- All 5 of our bachelor qualified teachers have over 20 years experience in the early childhood intervention space. Many of whom were Directors in Preschools. Up until recent years we had a team of over 10 educators, changes to the NDIS impacted the makeup of our team.
- Our Specialist Teachers provide extensive expert knowledge around school transitions, kinder/childcare funding options and enrolments and specialist school settings.
- Within my area I am the only Early childhood teacher delivering early intervention services. The nearest early childhood supports are in a town 2 hours away and they have a waitlist spanning 10 months.
- We employ the majority of our staff as Degree qualified minimum Early Childhood Teachers to operate in the Key Worker Model of service. We use our allied health staff as consultants who do initial intake consults , write an action plan for the Key worker to help implement in the natural live, learn and play environments for the child and family, they will review and consult with the Key worker and adjust actions and review goals as necessary with family involvement.
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