Inclusive Practices
Inclusive child care services enable children with a disability, children from Cultural and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children to access and participate successfully in children's services. The sense of belonging maximises learning opportunities, particularly learning English as a second language.1, 2
The provision of inclusive child care is an indicator of quality. Universal child care programs that serve all children provide a stronger foundation for developmental outcomes. For a child care service, the knowledge from working with children from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander or CALD backgrounds or children with a disability has been found to benefit all children in care and result in higher quality care .
There is no universally accepted definition of inclusion, but it is usually understood to involve programs in which all children, including those with additional needs, participate jointly in educational curricula, activities and environments. It enables each individual opportunities for acceptance, belonging and participation (National Alliance of Disability Resource and Training Agencies, 2001). It is our responsibility to model and create opportunities for positive interactions between the children in our care.3
Inclusive practice means:
- Openly valuing and accepting all children;
- Celebrating their uniqueness and diversity, without tokenistic gestures;
- Enabling all children to have equal opportunity to participate in all experiences;
- Ensuring all children's uniqueness is embraced, but never overemphasised.
Inclusion is a worthwhile practice, but does not happen automatically. Just putting children together of differing abilities, ethnicities or backgrounds, does not mean inclusion will occur.
Successful inclusion requires the participation of the whole staff team, the parents and children. It also requires the environment (which in centre based care includes the specific room but also the entire centre) to be carefully considered. Inclusion is primarily about interactions.
3 Siraj-Blatchford, I., & Clarke, P. 2000. Supporting identity, diversity and language. Open University Press. Buckingham UK
4 Toohey K 1996 Learning English as a second language in kindergarten: a community of practice perspective. The Canadian Modern Language review 52, (4),(4) 549- 576
