Inclusion Support at Only About Children 

Only About Children has a long history of emphasising the importance of inclusion of children with additional needs. From your first enquiry, through to meeting the Campus Director on a tour, you are welcome to share any additional needs your child may have with our team so we are best able to support you.   

What is inclusion support in childcare? 

Inclusion support can include toileting difficulties, medical conditions, allergies, developmental delays or disabilities like Autism Spectrum Disorder or Cerebral Palsy. Other common situations are where a child may be already seeing a Speech Pathologist or early childhood intervention service. 

How does the support work at Only About Children?  

Once you let the Only About Children team know your child’s challenges, we have a clear pathway to work with you to determine the best options to best support your child. This may include meeting with you to talk over the support your child may need and planning who in our team may be best to involve. We provide support as needed to our Campus Directors on setting up any equipment, extra resources, team training or accommodations that may be relevant. This includes applying for the Government’s Inclusion Support where appropriate. See more information below. 

  If your child has regular therapists supporting your family, we encourage them to work with your child’s educators too to ensure your child’s participation and progress towards your goals for your child. 

What inclusion support services do Only About Children offer? 

Each campus has access to the Inclusion Support Agency in their state. The Agency’s role is to support early childhood services to identify and address any barriers to inclusion. The Inclusion Development Fund and the Specialist Equipment Library provide extra support if barriers are identified that Inclusion Agencies cannot resolve. 

In some situations, the Inclusion Development Fund may include a subsidy for services to employ an extra educator to support a classroom. The Specialist Equipment Library may be used for example, for children needing a supportive seat for sitting at the table with peers if the barrier to inclusion is due to a physical disability.  Another example is if a child has a broken leg and needs to use a wheelchair temporarily, they may need a portable ramp and specialised toilet frame to continue to use the bathroom.  

At Only About Children, we also have a Health Program designed and delivered by our dedicated in-house team of Occupational Therapists, Speech Pathologists, Vision Specialists and Dietitians. Our Health team are here to support families through individual consultations as well as via information workshops at our campuses and online. These exclusive services are all-inclusive within your daily fee. 

Our Health team will also provide strategies to support educators with your child’s inclusion in the room as well as strategies to support your child’s wellbeing and development at home. Where necessary, our in-house specialists will refer you to relevant public and private services for further assessment and ongoing intervention/ therapy.  

 Our Health Team can assist with: 

• Screenings in relation to development of speech and language skills (eg. speech sounds, using words and sentences, following directions) 
• Language stimulation ideas 
• Support for development of play and social skills to interact with others 
• Support for development of gross and fine motor skills (eg. drawing, cutting, holding a pencil) 
• Support for development of self-help skills (eg. feeding, dressing, toileting) 
• Support with mealtimes, weight gain, picky eating 

We also provide information sessions on a range of topics to support development and wellbeing in collaboration with our industry partners and in-house team. 

For more information about inclusion support at one of our campuses, enrolled families should reach out to their Campus Director or non-enrolled families can contact our team on 138 622.