ACECQA shares four tips for clear service roles and responsibilities

The Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) has issued four tips to help approved providers and other service leaders to ensure that all staff understand their roles and responsibilities while fostering a reflective and learning-oriented environment. 

 

Background

 

Setting teams up for success is an important and rewarding aspect of leadership within education and care settings, ACECQA notes. 

 

The National Quality Framework (NQF) emphasises the importance of leadership and governance in establishing and maintaining quality environments for children. One important aspect of effective governance and leadership is covered in element 7.1.3: Roles and responsibilities.   

 

The Guide to the NQF supports staff in education and care services to understand that roles and responsibilities must be clearly defined and understood by all team members, volunteers and students.

 

Ensuring roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and implemented across the service includes highlighting them in key documents, ACECQA continued. This includes the service policies and procedures, statement of philosophy and code of conduct. 

 

Additionally, all staff should understand the legislated responsibilities that may apply to their role under the National Law and Regulations, as well as those of the approved provider and nominated supervisor. Other obligations, such as child protection and workplace health and safety laws, must also be considered. 

 

Four tips

 

These four tips have been shared to help approved providers and other service leaders ensure all staff understand their roles and responsibilities while fostering a reflective and learning-oriented environment. 

 

Tip 1: Create clearly defined and documented policies and procedures. 

 

One way to clearly define and document roles and responsibilities at service level is with robust and accessible policies and procedures. 

 

Collaboratively developing policies and procedures that outline implementation responsibilities is crucial when providing quality environments that ensure children’s safety, health and wellbeing.  

 

ACECQA has developed a set of guidelines that can be used when preparing and reviewing policies and procedures. Each guideline has a section on roles and responsibilities, including examples of how responsibilities can be clearly defined within the procedure.   

 

Tip 2: Deliver robust, role-specific induction programs.

 

Each new staff member, volunteer, student or committee member should have a clear understanding of their role, responsibilities and performance expectations. 

 

Service leaders should provide a thorough induction program tailored to their role, including a deep dive into their position description, the service philosophy, the NQF, and how to implement documented policies and procedures. These conversations should continue beyond the induction period. 

 

One way to do this is to pair new educators, staff members and volunteers with experienced team members as mentors. Mentors can guide the new team member through the induction period and beyond, offering support, role modelling and practical guidance. 

 

A well-structured, collaborative and ongoing induction program helps new staff feel confident and successful in their roles. In turn, this supports the wellbeing, health and safety of all children. 

 

ACECQA has also developed a series of NQF eLearning modules that can be used as part of an induction program. Also, the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) has published Guidelines for the Induction of Early Career Teachers in Australia. 

 

While this resource was developed with early career teachers in mind, there are some great ideas to consider for your service’s context.  

 

Tip 3: Facilitate ongoing team communication, reflective practice and feedback. 

 

Services should promote a culture of curiosity, communication and reflective practice where educators and staff regularly reflect on their practice and seek new ways of working. Educators are often experienced in reflecting on their pedagogical practices. However, do they also reflect and provide feedback on the practical implementation of responsibilities, policies and procedures? 

 

Leaders could consider holding regular reflective sessions at staff meetings. This might involve communicating updates and changes while providing opportunities for staff to ask questions, seek clarification, offer feedback and suggest improvements. 

 

Clear communication and actively seeking feedback helps prevent misunderstandings and ensure everyone is successful in their role. 

 

Section 4 of the Guide to the NQF has details about the legislated responsibilities of the approved provider, nominated supervisor and family day care educator. This is a great tool that can be used as a point of reflection. ACECQA also has a series of eLearning modules to help approved providers and persons with management or control understand their responsibilities.   

 

Tip 4: Ensure the implementation of documented roles and responsibilities. 

 

It is the approved provider’s responsibility to ensure staff follow their service’s policies and procedures. Approved providers must take reasonable steps to meet this obligation under regulation 170. 

 

The way approved providers and their services take these reasonable steps may look different. Having well-documented roles and responsibilities within policies and procedures is not enough to ensure legislated responsibilities are met. 

 

Approved providers and persons with management or control should consider developing and implementing strategies for supporting, training and monitoring staff. It’s important to ensure they understand and follow policies and procedures as well as documented and legislated responsibilities.      

 

ACECQA has a guide that breaks down six reasonable steps to ensure staff follow policies and procedures. In the guide, leaders and providers will find suggested strategies and examples of documented or observable evidence of practice. 

 

There is also a great video on the Queensland Department of Education website titled Policies and procedures: Not just a tick and flick.

 

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