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Senior Early Childhood Education Specialist Kimberley Talbot explains her role
Freya Lucas
Mar 07, 2024
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Windermere’s Kimberley Talbot began her career in early childhood education and care (ECEC) soon after she finished school, working her way up to a Bachelor qualification before moving into an inclusion support role within Early Years Management.
Using her ‘boots on ground’ experience of working with children and families, she supported educators with strategies to support inclusion and to provide parents with guidance on accessing support for additional needs.Her early experiences helped her to make ‘the natural progression’ to an early intervention role.
Ms Talbot joined Windermere in 2019, a role she was drawn to because it was an opportunity to use the experience she had gained working with key workers, and her passion for supporting families who face challenges in addressing their children’s additional needs.
“From the very beginning, I felt my knowledge and experience were valued and seen," she said.
Her first role at Windermere was as what was then called an early childhood intervention practitioner (ECIP) in Windermere’s Early Intervention & Therapy Service (EITS) team.
A year later, she advanced to the Senior Early Childhood Education Specialist (ECES) position which she currently holds.
In her current role, Ms Talbot extends her expertise as a key worker primarily in Warragul and Latrobe Valley regions. The wide and varied functions of her role include providing strategies and ideas for families on the NDIS, supporting their capacity building, linking them with other professionals as needed, delivering direct therapy and assisting with transition to kinder or school.
Her functions further extend to assisting with ECEC enrolments, offering support to educators and other professionals involved with the children and even engaging with child protection services and other agencies when required.
As these are families on the NDIS, Ms Talbot also helps them with their NDIS reviews and appeals, to help them access the right supports, and advocates for these families during their transition to school.
Taking a ‘team around the child’ approach, she readily draws on the knowledge and experience of other practitioners in the EITS team including occupational therapists, speech therapists and physiotherapists.
“A child with complex needs may need multiple people,” she explained.
“I find that my role is to bring different people together to make sure they are all on the same page. As a key worker, I consult with the wider team if there’s something outside of my scope or they accompany me on visits.”
Some of the highlights of her time with Windermere include expanding her knowledge and exploring different avenues.
“For instance, we’ve tried different group programs and this term we successfully ran Little Rays Supported Playgroup for children from zero to six years of age and shared the learnings with the team.”
This six week playgroup that Ms Talbot runs with another Early Childhood Education Specialist, focusses on parent training through the use of handouts and other learning resources. One of the benefits of the program is that it is accessible to those parents who are still on the waitlist and are yet to receive any key worker support services, something which has drawn positive feedback from families.
“It's not about doing this work for the recognition, but it is the little things that make a huge difference; what they convey through their body language, their little comments or words of gratitude that I find rewarding. I've even had pictures drawn for me,” Ms Talbot said.
To find out more about our Early Intervention Therapy services visit here , call the team on 1300 946 337 or email info@windermere.org.au For more information on the Little Rays group program visit here.
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