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  2. Guide to the NQF
  3. Section 3: National Quality Standard and Assessment and Rating
  4. Quality Area 6: Collaborative partnerships with families and communities
  5. Standard 6.2: Collaborative partnerships
  6. Element 6.2.3: Community engagement

Table of contents

Element 6.2.3: Community engagement

The service builds relationships and engages with its community.

What Element 6.2.3 aims to achieve

Services can further support children’s sense of belonging by helping them to experience connections and be engaged with their local community. When services develop respectful and responsive connections with their immediate or wider community, they are likely to further enrich the educational program for all children. Inviting members of diverse groups within the community to share their interests and expertise helps to extend children’s knowledge, and assists the service to reflect on the inclusiveness of its practices. This broadens children’s understanding of the world in which they live and contribute.

Building connections and relationships with people in the community helps children to learn more about various cultures that exist within Australia. Educators engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people about how to embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in the philosophy of the setting, their planning and implementation of curriculum. The history and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is respectfully and truthfully reflected through community involvement and culturally sensitive practices (Early Years Learning Framework; Framework for School Age Care).

Having opportunities to visit places in the community helps children to form relationships with a broad range of people from the community, and to build respect and trust in adults outside their immediate family and service.

Children and young people have opportunities to be experience and participate in multiple communities. This allows older children to develop their capacity for independence and self-direction (Framework for School Age Care).

Assessment guide for meeting Element 6.2.3

Community engagement

Assessors may observe:

 

 

  • an environment that reflects the lives of the children and families using the service and the cultural diversity of the broader community, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
  • images, books and resources that provide a balanced view of contemporary Australians
  • all service staff responding positively to the differences in families’ home lives and lifestyle choices
  • the educational leader and educators planning and implementing experiences in the program to support children’s understanding of the community within which they live.

Assessors may discuss:

 

  • how the service:
    • builds connections between the service and the local community
    • reflects and incorporates the diversity of the local community across its operations
    • strengthens children’s connection with and understanding of their community
    • uses community resources to improve the educational program and provide quality learning experiences for each child
    • demonstrates a commitment to developing their own cultural competence in a two-way process with families and communities
    • shares information about community events relevant for children and families
  • examples of community members coming into the service and examples of the service’s participation in the local community
  • how the educational leader, nominated supervisor, educators and co-ordinators engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and/or other local communities
  • how children are supported to develop an understanding of their social and cultural heritage

School age children

  • how educators incorporate educational excursions or incursions to develop children’s understanding of their local community.

Assessors may sight:

 

  • evidence that:
    • the service liaises with other children’s services, local businesses, schools, health and family support services and other organisations working with families and children in the local area
    • members of the local community are invited into the service to contribute to the program
    • children have opportunities to learn about and contribute to the community in which the service is located
  • planned experiences that involve incursions and/or children visiting parts of their community to extend on knowledge gained.