Inclusion Support Agencies (ISAs) are part of the Inclusion and Professional Support Program (IPSP). The IPSP is a component of the Australian Government’s Child Care Services Support Program supporting the Government’s National Quality Agenda and child care services to be inclusive of all children. Lifeline ISAs support:

• Universal access to childcare for all children.
• Childcare services to be ready for all children.
• The needs of the total care environment.
• Staff to develop the capacity to meet all children’s needs.

What we do

Inclusion Support Agencies are funded under the Inclusion Support Program to provide childcare services with practical support that will help build their capacity to provide a quality inclusive environment for children with additional needs.

The objective of the Inclusion Support Agencies is to assist childcare services to build the knowledge and confidence they need to be able to offer a quality inclusive childcare environment.

Children with additional needs are those from the following priority groups:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) children.
• Children who have a disability, including children with high support needs.
• Children from cultural and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
• Children with a refugee or humanitarian intervention background who have been subject to torture and trauma, either in their country of origin or during their refugee experience.

Practical Supports

Inclusion Support Agencies provide childcare agencies with practical advice and access to a range of supports, designed to strengthen their ability to create a quality care environment inclusive of all children. These supports include but are not limited to:

• Providing onsite assistance with developing Service Support Plans
• Facilitating access to:
  • Specialist equipment to assist inclusion for children with physical support needs.
  • The general resources library for information and resources to assist quality care.
  • Professional support.
  • Funding for inclusion support or to attend training.
  • Bicultural support.

Service Support Plans

The Service Support Plan works at both a service level and an environment level. It will be underpinned by the processes of reflective practice and will use an Education Change model.

The plan for your service will also allow yourself and your staff to reflect on practices which relate to the Early Years Learning Framework. This will mean that, along with other programs in the IPSP, the ISA will be one tool available to support your service as you explore this new framework, as well as other government initiatives such as “Closing the Gap” for Aboriginal children. 

Other Practical supports that we can help child care services to access include: 

• Flexible Support Funding - for additional staff time for a time limited period to assist the staff to include a child/children with high ongoing needs in the environment. This funding can be used to relieve staff to attend training around the inclusion of the child.
• Inclusion Support Subsidy - for additional staff time on an ongoing basis to assist staff to include a child/children with high ongoing needs in the environment. Funding also allows for relief staffing for training or planning. For Family Day Care and In Home Care the funding provides a payment to recognise the additional care and attention required for children with high ongoing support needs and allows additional worker time to accompany a carer on out of home excursions.
• Access to Bicultural support workers - where needed and available, a Cultural Support Worker (CSW) who speaks a child’s language may be able to support the child care staff to settle or to communicate with a child who is distressed when starting in a new child care environment. They may also assist with cultural programming around the child’s culture.
• Access to Specialist Equipment - to assist the inclusion of children with high level physical needs.