Pam Anderson This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. DoCS: Inside Out - childrens services advisors

   www.community.nsw.gov.au/html/ - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/1/2004   Last Visited: 1/3/2007

   "We're educators and advisors," says Pam
   
   Sending children to pre-school, long day care or even occasional care is often a huge step for parents.
   
   Behind the scenes, a lot of work is done to ensure that childcare services are licensed and in top shape to care for their precious charges.
   
   Someone with a close-up view of this process is Pam Anderson, who has been a DoCS Children's Services Advisor since joining the Department back in 1989.
   
   Pam was initially based in Blacktown and has worked in the DoCS Office of Childcare.
   
   Today she works from Wollongong with a caseload of 60 children's services.
   
   "My role is varied - it ranges from providing professional advice aimed at enhancing and improving the care environment to checking services are meeting licensing requirements. I also work with caseworkers to assist them find suitable placements in our services for children and families they are working with," said Pam.
   
   Every day, Pam liaises with preschools, long-day care centres, mobile pre schools and resource and support services, such as toy libraries, ensuring each service is adapting to and meeting the regulatory and contractual demands in place as part of the licensing process (a three-year cycle) and service agreement.
   
   "This process involves a huge collection of paperwork. Services do find it challenging to meet all these legislative responsibilities - in terms of occupational health and safety, national accreditation, public liability and more. It's a comprehensive list.
   
   "Accountability is greater than it's ever been," said Pam.
   
   "We also provide a lot of professional advice in our role to children's services," said Pam.
   
   For example, she recently provided advice to a local service about improvements to its physical environment as a result of an issue about inappropriate supervision.
   
   "As an early childhood educator, I was able to recommend changes that would provide a balance between respecting the child's sense of free play and exploration and the need for children to play in view of supervising staff."
   
   Pam enjoys providing guidance, information and advice and seeing the positive results when practical suggestions are implemented.
   
   Her role is also to witness to the results of new ideas and policies being implemented - such as the introduction of the NSW curriculum framework.
   
   "DoCS developed a resource literacy kit to assist staff working in child care services to implement the curriculum," said Pam.