Appreciating Diversity and Difference in Children’s Services
...not just in our children!!!
by Robyn Monro Miller
History lessons frequently cite the ignorance of cultures who attempt to assimilate other cultures into their own. History is full of examples where this has occurred and either failed or resulted in the death of a unique and valued part of a community.
It is timely to reflect on this as we watch the general movement to “assimilate’’ the diverse children’s services in Australia into a one size fits all model for everything from quality assurance to training delivery.
I often lament the Family Day Care experience as a victim of this emphasis on diversity elimination. Well regarded for the type of care it provides in informal small group settings in carers home I have watched with interest over the years as the model has developed. Some Carers now convert their garages into mini long day care centres because of perceived inadequacies in the home environment. The same home environments that would be seen as acceptable for children in the home are increasingly not permitted within a Family Day Care experience. The very qualities that would cause a family to choose Family Day Care as their preferred provider are being eliminated to emulate a centre based care model.
Out of School Hours Services are not too far behind with this push towards the gentrification of service delivery. Our quality assurance system developed by the sector is in of being overtaken by rigorous procedural requirements based in the context. OOSH practitioners are being encouraged indirectly through the validation process to place a greater emphasis on whether or not they have the correct hand washing signs or conduct the right sanitisation of work benches than on the practices that demonstrate that children in the service are collaborated with, challenged and interested. I hear the argument from authorities that this is not the case – but I have witnessed it – not once but consistently. Sadly I have spoken with children and practitioners whose own services have undergone changes and despite the service having reached the highest level of quality the children and many practitioners in them lament the changes, unhappy with the decreased level of interactions and the restrictions on the program that stifle diversity and innovation for fear they will not be appreciated by the validator. There is something disturbing in a quality system that the effects of it’s implementation results in the beneficiaries being disenfranchised in their own services.
A quality assurance system and regulation for Out of School Hours Services must take into account the age and development of the children it is catering for. Risk elimination and curriculum outcomes for under 5’s should not be imposed on children over 5 due to convenience. Out of School Hours Services should not be victims of a simplification of the system that ultimately benefits only those administering it. We must allow our services to be diverse, to be different, to innovate and to challenge and we must have a system that supports this.
Our community has in the last few years glorified the development of a monoculture through media and government. We have seen examples of the mass marketing a brand and the manipulation of the sector that comes from such dominance. ABC Learning was marketed through service delivery, branding, training and recruitment. Its success was as legendary as it’s collapse. Yet the fundamental flaw was that despite the initial economic success it lacked the diversity and difference that comes from the recognition that difference is good, diversity flows when the service is a reflection of it’s community in which it exists. It was it appears more consumed with takeover and control than responsive service delivery.
The example of mass branding and diminished diversity is a timely reminder to our Professional Support Co-ordination Units (PSC’s) and the Government about the important of diversity in training delivery. The development of the model of brokerage for professional development in children services known as the PSC’s, has the potential to undermine diversity within the sector if these new “super agency’s” were to follow the previous Government’s lead and promote streamlined training delivery that negates sector specific delivery. The notion propagated by the previous government in awarding the PSC contracts that training can be delivered without reference to specific service differences, denigrates the philosophy and practice peculiar to a service type.
The role of PSC’s to support diversity in training provision and variety in types of provision is essential and should be supported by Government as a measurement of success. People are not being trained by the PSC, they are being trained by the agencies that the PSC engages as a broker. If we do not support the brokerage model we will see the demise of many small specialised training organizations in Australia. When the funding for PSC’s dries up, as history shows it inevitably will, we could well witness a parallel crisis in children’s services professional development like that experienced by the ABC crisis, except it will be unlikely that we will see a 22 million dollar bail out, our services professional development will be the silent victim.
Children’s services in Australia are unique and different. Each type of service – be it family day care, Multifunctional Aboriginal services (MACS), long day care, occasional care or our beloved Out of School Hours Care, meets the needs of a specific group in our diverse communities. We should fight the desire by any Government or interest group to ‘assimilate” them based on convenience and a misunderstanding of the value of a diverse children’s services sector in Australia.
If you truly believe that an appreciation of diversity makes the world a better place, If you believe that innovation comes from differences in service provision, If you truly believe that our children should be exposed to services that meet their developmental needs not just a government agenda that simplifies …………then it is time to stand up to the threat of a children’s services monoculture.
Can you make a difference? In the words of another great man that broke the mould -“Yes you can!”