Key Workers and Their Role in Early Childhood Supports

When you choose Everyday Independence, a key worker will support your child and family to achieve positive life change. Key workers are professionals with experience in childhood development and they deliver most of your early childhood support including coordinating the services from the broader therapy team. This may include occupational therapists, speech pathologists, physiotherapists, positive behaviour support practitioners and habit coaches.

Your key worker will be the main point of contact for your family, and will coordinate the communication and sharing of knowledge and skills between the team.

Because the best way to support positive life change is to engage a team of practitioners with the understanding and skills that are vital to helping your child and family make the changes that matter most to you.

What Makes the Key Worker Model best practice?

The NDIS recognise the key worker model as best practice and acknowledge the many benefits to providing early childhood supports in this way.

“These practices focus on fewer, stronger relationships where the family is a true partner, and knowledge can be transferred across disciplines, and from specialists to carers and other important adults in the child’s life.” ECEI Implementation reset project report – NDIS

Key workers have many benefits for young children, but none more important than rapport and relationships. For children, building trust and having consistency is extremely important and by seeing one regular practitioner, rather than up to 4+ different therapists, they’re able to build trust more easily, and achieve their goals sooner. By getting to know the child extremely well, the key worker is then able to communicate with the broader team about their likes and dislikes, what works for them and what doesn’t, and is really able to shape their therapy to be highly productive and positive.

Everything is simplified with a key worker – onboarding, communicating and scheduling of appointments is all much easier when streamlined through a single person, and it can also help make your NDIS funding go further.

Getting Started

Your first step to getting started with early childhood supports is to meet with a key worker, in your home. They get to know you, your family and child and other members of your support team to understand the outcomes you all want.

If you are ready, you can get started, alternatively, if you would like to talk to us about your child’s therapy needs, please call 1300 179 131 to speak to a member of our Enquiries team.