Our History
CHILD Australia’s history begins in March 1987 when recurrent funding of $70,000 per annum was provided by the Commonwealth to the local organisation ”People with Disabilities” to establish a Resource Unit that would support, train and resource child care services to include children with disabilities.
By August 1988, the Resource Unit for Children with Disabilities was providing inclusion support and running training sessions to child care and had produced its first marketable resource, the video “The Children are Teaching Us”. “Home” was a room shared with the Ethnic Child Care Resource Unit (ECCRU) and the staff consisted of a full time Coordinator, a part-time administrative assistant and the equivalent of one full time integration worker.
In March 1989, the name Resource Unit for Children with Special Needs, or RUCSN, was adopted to reflect the increasing number of requests for support for children who did not have a diagnosed disability but who nevertheless struggled to be included in child care. In the same year the fledgling organisation formalised its governance with the formation of a Board of Management and election of Office Bearers.
1991 saw RUCSN’s inclusion support extended to country areas through the introduction of a brokerage model, which enabled rural child care services to access funds for the employment of an additional staff member. This allowed caregivers more time to meet the child’s inclusion needs.
1992 was the year for inclusion support to be greatly expanded as a result of the extension of fee relief to private child care services. RUCSN responded with the appointment of 2 Inclusion Workers, each with a regional focus. Growth continued in other areas, with the publication of 2 books to develop caregivers’ understanding and support of children with disabilities and the production of a video on guiding children’s behaviour.
In 1994, the Wallis Report recommended the regionalisation of inclusion services and an expansion of children eligible for support. The new term “children with additional needs” included children from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, those from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island families and children with disabilities. The report also indicated that, in the future, Supplementary (SUPS) workers should assume a trainer/facilitator role, heralding a move towards a more capacity building approach.
The implementation of the Wallis Report began in 1995 and over the next 2 years RUCSN undertook sponsorship of inclusion teams in the Pilbara, North and South-East metropolitan regions, Mid-west Gascoyne and the Great Southern. In 2002 the Goldfields team joined RUCSN. These new responsibilities brought a significant increase in funding and personnel to RUCSN, including many of the SUPS workers who had previously been based in child care services. This was also the period in which the Quality Improvement and Accreditation System was being introduced to child care, resulting in RUCSN’s training and inclusion support henceforth being linked to accreditation principles.
In 1997, the Commonwealth introduced the Special Needs Subsidy Scheme (SNSS) to assist child care services to include children with high and ongoing support needs through the employment of an additional caregiver. RUCSN managed the training for all WA’s inclusion workers in this new scheme prior to its introduction and continued to work with the Commonwealth officers to ensure the success of SNSS. In conjunction with the program, RUCSN took on the management of the Specialist Equipment Pool for children with high and ongoing support needs.
1999 was the inaugural year of the RUCSN scholarship for students with a disability who were entering tertiary education. The theme for this, and all subsequent scholarships, was “Inclusion”, with each applicant obliged to submit an essay on the topic “What Inclusion Means to Me”. The 7 winners for 2008 brought to 40 the number of recipients since 1999.
2000 saw the beginning of the Rural Playgroup Support Service (RPSS) in the Midwest Gascoyne and Pilbara. This program, funded by the then Department for Community Development and managed by the RUCSN inclusion teams in those areas, provided support to geographically or socially isolated families with young children. It served to considerably enhance the teams’ ability to offer a more extensive service through the creation of cost sharing opportunities between projects. RUCSN is pleased that it continues to provide RPSS in these regions today.
2005 marked the start of the West Pilbara Mobile Service, which continues to provide playgroups, school readiness activities and community support to isolated families and communities within a radius of 300km of Port Hedland. 3+, a program with similar aims, now operates from RUCSN’s Karratha office, providing playgroup and parenting support to communities in and around Tom Price, Onslow, Roebourne and Karratha. This program is funded through the Pilbara Communities for Children initiative.
The Commonwealth’s new Inclusion and Professional Support Program (IPSP) brought big changes to RUCSN in 2006. The organisation was privileged to be awarded the management of Professional Support Coordination in WA (and later in the Northern Territory) and also sponsorship of 5 of the state’s 8 inclusion agencies. The Inclusion Support Subsidy (ISS) replaced SNSS in 2006, with management of the program passing from the FaHCSIA to individual sponsors, including RUCSN, which became responsible for all ISS transactions in its 5 Inclusion Support Agency regions. RUCSN also became the central Resource Centre for all Australian Government Approved Child Care Services (AGACCS) in WA and thus was responsible for the amalgamation of the library collections previously held by other Commonwealth funded children’s services. The Resource Centre continued its management of the Specialist Equipment Pool.
While not all those who have been part of RUCSN’s growth and development can be acknowledged, it is important that we thank the 4 CEO’s between 1987 and 2007, Jenni Werner, Heather MacPherson, Kasy Chambers and Tony Morley. Each brought a different set of skills and each made a unique contribution to the organisation.
The expansion and evolution of our programs and services was marked officially by our name change to Child Inclusive Learning and Development Australia in November 2008.
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