About us
The first service of its kind to be established west of the Blue Mountains in 1981, Bathurst Early Childhood Intervention Service (BECIS) has been an integral part of Bathurst and its surrounding community for over 40 years.
We are a not-for-profit organisation and registered NDIS provider that employs specialist teachers and therapists to partner with parents/caregivers in providing support, resources and information tailored to meet the needs of children and the family as a whole. BECIS provides individualised therapies, programs, resources, information and connections to services that meet the needs of children with disabilities and/or developmental delays aged 0 to 8 years of age, and their families and carers.
Our vision is for a fairer and more inclusive community where all children have a clear pathway to access resources and support, enabling them to reach their full potential. BECIS works in partnership with families and communities to build an inclusive life for children with differing abilities by providing holistic, flexible and innovative early childhood intervention programs in a supportive environments including natural settings.
We strive to provide a high-quality, individualised service promoting inclusion. We believe passionately in the provision of evidence-based early childhood intervention and the benefits it provides to children. We are flexible and responsive to the individual needs of each child and family within their community. We work collaboratively within all partnerships to achieve the best outcomes for each child and family. We work with honesty and integrity to provide a nonjudgmental and respectful service.
Through our services we build a bright future for young children with different abilities, helping them reach their full potential.
Programs we believe work
With little known to the detail of what Thriving Kids should look like, BECIS represents an existing model that works. BECIS meets and moves with evidence-based practice in order to provide current evidence-based and high-quality practices that enable all children who engage with BECIS to shine, and to be included in settings they access on an everyday basis.
For a not-for-profit early intervention service to continue to work tirelessly for families for over 40 years, this represents what Thriving Kids should look like. BECIS has established and collaborative relationships with a variety of stakeholders within the community. BECIS receives intake phone calls and face to face referrals from families, schools, early childhood services, community health, GPs, Paediatricians, Aboriginal Liaison persons, playgroups, local health services. We currently see at least one referral a day, where we may have to work with the family to identify a child’s needs that may lead to developmental delay, neurodiversity and other concerns. In the current system, BECIS staff then generally support families through the process of obtaining NDIS funding. However, in the time that it takes to obtain funding, sometimes taking 9+ months, little support is available focusing on the child’s developmental needs. This is outside of BECIS’ control as the ECI NDIS partner should be providing appropriate supports but is not always sufficient. BECIS would provide foundational supports to fill this gap if we had the funding to do so.
In Bathurst, we are seen as the referral platform and the safe place for all families of all backgrounds. Our distinct ability to see strengths in each family and child and use this to shape our human and rights-based approach to delivery is quintessential in seeing kids thrive. Since the NDIS Early Childhood Partner replaced our role in the community, we have seen a significant number of children “fall through the cracks” and miss out on those crucial early years for early intervention. Many children come to us ready for school; but could have come to us 12 months+ prior if it were pre-NDIS. Fortunately, our Start Strong Pathway program (see below for more information) has been able to fill this gap to some extent; however, unable to provide intensive individual family support due to capacity, and this funding is only in place until the end of the 2025.
The Sector Capacity Building Program funded by the NSW Department of Education, provides BECIS with the opportunity to engage with community-based preschools. Through these consultations - face to face and on phone - engagement is able to support the early childhood services in supporting and identifying children with developmental delay and support for their families.
Another program, also funded by the NSW Department of Education, that currently works to support the needs of children identified with developmental delay or neurodiversity is Start Strong Pathways (SSP). SSP enables families to enter services in a ‘soft entry’ way where families have wrap around support through a potentially complex process of accessing appropriate supports. The ultimate aim of this program is to support children to access quality early childhood education and care settings. This program not only supports children and families with developmental delay or neurodiversity, it also supports other vulnerabilities that can impact the development of children such as domestic violence, trauma, cultural diversity and low socio-economic status.
The BECIS Bites Professional Development Program sees BECIS provide Professional Development to early childhood services where initiatives support the identification of children with developmental delay and neurodiversity and provides Professional development on how to support families.
This combination of services provides many ways to engage with children, their families and the community to support development and build capacity.
Access to the NDIS has been a drawn out process for many families; they are reportedly frustrated, with limited face to face practical supports. It has been our experience that children and their families have not received the intensive support, that we once provided as the only EI service in our local area.
Here is one example of how supports were offered before the NDIS:
BECIS provided a 10-week Short Term Program for children, which proved successful. This program was run by Early Childhood Specialist Teachers (Early Interventionists). The program involved:
- Background information of the child gathered by meeting with the family; visiting the child in community settings, at the home or at BECIS; meeting with all stakeholders.
- Ages & Stages Questionnaires® (ASQs) completed to determine developmental areas that were typically developing, requiring monitoring and/or needing further investigation and intervention support.
- Development of a Family Service Plan in consultation with the family and specialists involved with the child.
- We followed best practice guidelines in terms of early childhood intervention, such as face to face supports depending on the family’s priorities and child’s needs. This support was Play based and
routines-based intervention provided by an EI/Key worker. A transdisciplinary model was successful, however, this shifted to a multidisciplinary model.
- Additionally, the Key worker, linked the child and family with other EI professionals at BECIS or external therapists and specialists depending on the child’s needs e.g. Paediatrician, childcare/preschool setting, school, Speech pathologist, psychologist.
- At ~10 weeks, an ASQ was completed, the Family Service Plan and child’s progress was reviewed. The child was identified as either requiring ongoing supports and intervention with BECIS or exiting from the BECIS short term program (with established links to community services etc and plan in place).
What we want Thriving Kids to be:
- Universal mainstream supports available for everyone at the level they need.
- Respecting what is working well and funding it for long term sustainability.
- Understanding that primarily a family’s goal is not about diagnosis, it is to have their child supported and thriving in their everyday activities.
- Acknowledging that specialist Teachers play a vital role in early childhood intervention supports.
- Recognise that the Key Worker model represents best practice - In the Key Worker model, Early Childhood Specialist Teachers, Speech Pathologists and Allied Health Assitstants visit early childhood education and care services and schools on a frequent basis to support children. This model sees consistent, highly regarded consultations and engagement. It builds the capacity of mainstream service providers to support children in their everyday settings.
- Recognising —
- Family-centred practice
- Strengths based supports
- Play based supports
- It is the team around and with the child
- The importance of not working in silos
- The importance of a timely response and support early
- The importance of services delivered in natural settings supporting meaningful participation and inclusion delivered by qualified and experienced practitioners
- That a range of options are available to families such as — individual supports, group supports, diverse evidence-based programs to build capacity
- Any perceived conflict of interest to provide supports both as a registered NDIS provider and as part of the Thriving kids initiative can be managed by organisations as robust policies are in place along with professional standards, a code of ethics and trusting providers that have a genuine desire to support children and families in the best way that they need.
References
Alexander, S., & Forster, J. (2012). The Key Worker: Resources for Early Childhood Intervention professionals. ECI. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/307927003_The_Key_Worker_Resources_for_Early_Childhood_Intervention_Professionals
National Best Practice Framework for Early Childhood Intervention [National Best Practice Framework - Early Childhood Intervention | Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing]
Bathurst Early Childhood Intervention Service 1439 Charles Sturt University Panorama Avenue Bathurst NSW 2795 p: 02 63384453 e: becis@csu.edu.au www.becis.org.au
Enriching the lives of children and their families