Practice Frameworks

Ngala recognises the ‘ecological’ nature of a family’s early parenting experience. They understand that it is made up of the following elements to produce a unique experience for each parent:

• Biological/physical eg. birth and lactation experience.
• Interpersonal eg. family of origin issues.
• Interpersonal eg. relationship with partner, baby and other family members.
• Socio-cultural factors eg. isolation from extended family/culture, financial, housing, work issues.

Parenting education and family support, in its broadest sense, is needed in today’s community due to the loss of extended family, the advent of smaller families, the greater mobility of the population and the changes in family structure. For many families, the combined result of these phenomena can be a feeling of social isolation and lack of confidence.

Ngala has been working with Tweddle Child and Family Health Service (Vic), The Parenting Research Centre(Vic), Tresillian Family Centre (NSW) and Queen Elizabeth Centre (ACT) to develop a parenting framework to guide clinical staff and practitioners in their interactions with parents.

C Frame

The commitment by each of the organisations to achieve the desired outcome, together with underlying trust and respect, provided the necessary environment for the development of the framework. The framework is known as ‘C Frame’ - standing for Connect, Collaborate and Change.

The framework consists of four main phases:

• Phase 1: Creating a collaborative relationship.
• Phase 2: Developing a commitment to change.
• Phase 3: Contextual analysis.
• Phase 4: Negotiating change and intervention

The heart of this framework is to work with a client’s strengths and to provide a solution tailored to an individual’s program.

Child Initiated Approach (CIA)

The Child Initiated Approach is embedded in the fundamental principle of respecting children as natural researchers and motivated learners who actively seek knowledge and learning. The approach views educators (people in the child’s environments) as learners and facilitators of children’s learning by working in collaboration and partnership with children in response to their many and varied learning opportunities. It respects the family as the child’s first teacher.

The application of the Child Initiated Approach in child care translated into educators focusing on the process of development and learning and the acquisition of skills rather than achievement of set outcomes and is guided by principles that include:

• Respect for children
• Child focused routines and rituals
• Respecting children as component learners and natural researchers
• Educators facilitating children’s development and learning through play based learning environments whereby children learning experiences enable them to hypothesis, problem solving and develop conflict resolution skills
• Creating play based environments from the child’s perspective
• Educators capturing ordinary play moments with children for extraordinary development and learning opportunities
• Educators as researchers and learners for children
• Working collaboratively with families
• Working collaboratively with the community

Print this page

Rate this Page: 0 1 2 3 4 5