4.2.9 Bicultural Support

 Bicultural Support is time limited specialist support to assist a child care service to build their capacity to include children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (CALD), refugee children, or Indigenous children.  This support will generally apply when a CALD, Indigenous, or refugee child is enrolling at the child care service or soon after the child has started in child care.

Types of Bicultural Support

Bicultural Support includes:

• assisting child care staff to communicate with culturally diverse families and children (for example: interpreting meetings between parents and service staff, verbal translation of enrolment documents and providing child care staff with key words and phrases that can be used to communicate with the child);

• assisting the child care service to understand the particular backgrounds, cultural experiences and child rearing practices of the children and families;
• providing child care service staff with an understanding of relevant cultural issues and supporting their implementation of culturally appropriate practices and an anti- bias curriculum;
• referring child care staff to professional development, inclusion support and resources available through the PSC and ISAs;
• providing child care staff with information about relevant community resources and services to support the inclusion of culturally diverse children and families; and
• providing bicultural advice and support to Inclusion Support Facilitators as requested.

Bicultural Support does not include:

• providing regular interpreting and translating assistance for families or child care services;
• supervising a child or group of children (for example, to meet staff/child ratios or to provide staffing to relieve child care workers)
• recruiting culturally and linguistically diverse staff/carers for child care services
• providing settlement and community support services to families and children; and
• providing support that is available through existing programs, for example, clients of the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) using child care while they are attending English language tuition. The cost of AMEP-related child care is the responsibility of the AMEP service provider.
   

Service Delivery Model

Child Care Service (CCS)

identifies a need for Bicultural Support

and contacts the PSC toll-free 1800 228 772

PSC

 responds to the child care service,

assesses the request for Bicultural Support, and refers the request to the ISA and PSSP.

And

NOTE: Bicultural Support should be responsive.  Therefore if there is insufficient time, a Service Support Plan (SSP) can be discussed between the child care service and the ISA over the phone, and completed at a later stage.  The development of an SSP should not unnecessarily delay the provision of bicultural support.

Professional Support Coordinator responsibilities

Professional Support Coordinators are responsible for:

• managing the delivery of Bicultural Support that is timely, responsive and flexible;
• ensuring that PSCs, PSSPs, ISAs and IPSUs work collaboratively to manage, coordinate and monitor the delivery of Bicultural Support;
• developing effective performance management systems to monitor and report on bicultural support service delivery to FaCSIA through PSC Quarterly Reports. This includes maintaining relationships with key Bicultural Support stakeholders to identify service delivery issues and opportunities for improvement, identifying bicultural professional support needs in the PSC Service Delivery Implementation Plan and meeting these needs;
• managing the annual funding for salaries of Bicultural Support Workers, which includes providing quarterly acquittal of expenditure and contingency budgeting to FaCSIA;
• identifying and utilising existing community networks and other available resources where appropriate;
• recruiting suitably experienced and qualified Bicultural Support Workers that have adequate cultural knowledge, bilingual skills and experience in inclusive practice,  and according to equitable and transparent processes as stated in the PSC Service Delivery Implementation Plan; and
• complying with the applicable law of a State or Territory when employing persons to work with children. This includes conducting a Police Background Check of prospective employees

Service Support Plans

Service Support Plans (SSP) are developed by Inclusion Support Facilitators and the child care service to identify a range of inclusion support needs that could include Bicultural Support.  ISFs will refer requests for professional development, equipment and resources to the PSC. 

Bicultural Support may be provided prior to the completion of a Service Support Plan. The provision of Bicultural Support should not be delayed due to difficulties in arranging a time with a service to develop an SSP.  Requests for Bicultural Support can be approved over the phone and a Bicultural Support Worker arranged to visit the service.   

Eligibility for Bicultural Support

Bicultural Support is available free of charge to eligible child care services.  Eligible child care services are:

• Australian Government approved child care services, including private and community based long day care; outside school hours care (including vacation care); family day care; occasional care; and in-home care;
• Australian Government funded non-mainstream child care services (non-Child Care Benefit) such as flexible/multicultural services; multifunctional Aboriginal child care services; non-mainstream outside school hours care; non-formula funded occasional care (100 percent Australian Government funded); and mobile children's services.

Requests for Bicultural Support

Requests for Bicultural Support by child care services must:

• comply with the principles and obligations stated in the relevant access and equity legislation; and
• accompany the written or verbal consent of the relevant parent, carer, or child care professional.  

Reporting

The quarterly PSC Performance Reports must include

• information about the management of the Bicultural Support Pool;
• details of bicultural support provided during the period;
• identification of bicultural support issues; and
• an acquittal of bicultural support workers salaries.