Aussie Childcare Network Forum

Hi Everyone.

Im about to start filling in the NL01 form in relation to the case scenario about Larry. Just to give you the information, the scenario is as follows:

Part 1
Larry Rainbow (4yrs born on 16th of August 2010) has just started attending Skittles Family Day-care 5 days a week and wears the same clothes often for 4 or 5 days in a row. His clothes show evidence of the painting activities done the day before and are quite smelly. The educator attempts to change him but finds no spare clothes in his bag. Educator uses centre spare clothes to change Larry and finds multiple sized bruises on his upper right thigh and a large bruise on the left side of his ribs.
He is always the first to sit at the table to wait for his lunch and always says that he is hungry. He has little food supplied daily in his lunch box despite educators asking his parents for extra food to satisfy the minimum daily requirements for nutrition and also to satisfy his hunger.
On many occasions when his mum rushes in to drop him off in the morning, she says that there was no time for breakfast but that he can wait for morning tea which is not far away. The educator then supplies him with some toast anyways. As Larry is eating his toast he complains about a sore right wrist. Upon educator looking at his wrist believes it to be broken due to colouring and severe swelling.

Part 2
The educator is sitting at the morning tea table with the children and starts talking about what the children do when they go home. Some of the children say they sit and watch TV and then have dinner. Others say they have to have a shower or bath and put their pyjamas on while mummy cooks their dinner. It is at this point that Larry says he never has to have baths; he just plays in his room and sometimes gets to choose biscuits for dinner time. The educator decides to not further question Larry at the morning tea table but later talks to Larry when he is at the painting table by himself and asks what sorts of things he has for dinner. Larry again repeats what he said earlier and further explains that he gets to have spaghetti sometimes which is his favourite but mostly has sandwiches and sometimes gets left over take away if mummy doesn't eat it all. At all times the educator responded with nods and was aware of ensuring positive body language.

Part 3
When the educator checks Larry’s record at the centre, she finds that he lives in unit 5/230 Brisbane Street, Neverland. She is also reminded that Larry’s mother is a single parent and is not currently employed and is behind on payments for care by 4 weeks. His file has other information such as Larry has a pet fish called Robert and has one cousin that lives nearby but no siblings. She has also observed that Larry loves painting and other craft activities but has difficulty identifying and remembering his colours.

I believe that the part of the form i need to tick is Part C: Type of Notification should be Number 5? Would you agree or is it one of the others? Also the next part of the assessment asks me to write an observation. I have spoken to my Tutor (who was not very helpful) and she told me that the observation needs to come from all of the information in the scenario. I would rather write 3 separate observations to show that the observations have been ongoing. Does this make sense. Also, by the wording used in the scenario, it would make more sense to use 3 separate observation to not appear as though the situation has been ignored up until this first lodgement of the form. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks and sorry for such a long post.

Sorry just to clarify: I meant Part C Number 5 - Complaints alleging that the safety, health or wellbeing of a child was or is being compromised.

Thanks Lorina,

Thats what i thought as well but i didnt get much of a response back from my tutor so im going to go ahead and do the three seperate observations and if i have to re-submit well at least i know that i did what i think was best. I will also check with my vocational placement mentor as i start today. Very exciting.

Kelly

Sorry Lorina,

I have another question in relation to this. If I am to fill out the observations and sign them as myself, then do i also fill out the NL01 form as myelf. The tutor told me ye but im struggling with how to word it all. Obviously the observations will be in first person (I, Me) but what context would the form be in?

This is what the tutor told me "For the NL01 form, if the information is provided in the scenario, then you need to put that into the form. That is, you are given the name of the service but not the name of the approved provider, so you will have to make that up. For Part E, you can be the Notifier as well as making the Declaration."

Hi Kelly,
Looks like I am doing the same cluster as you! I am finding the NL01 form the hardest of all the questions and as my centre has never have to write one ( which is actually great!) I don't have anyone to ask for advice either! Regarding the observation I have also written it in three parts ( over three days) for it to make more sense! From what i understand you can use the Approved provider number from the placement that you are at and then for the Approved service you can make it up! I am filling it on on behalf of myself as the only way we would be filling it in would be if we were in the position to do so ( i.e. we were the director or supervisor) My director has offered to sign it for me but think it makes more sense if I do the declaration rather than her..

What I meant to say is I have used my provider number but obviously the approved provider is Skittles..

Hi Paula,

Yes, it sounds like we are both on the same track. My tutor is so unhelpful. It would be so nice for yes to just say yes, go ahead and do 3 different observations or No, you will fail if you do that. It makes more sense to me to do it as 3 so that's what I'm going to do as well. And i agree, the Form has been the hardest to understand so far and my centre has never had to write one either. Although they have given me some advice as to what they would do. I still havn't been able to find a direct reference as to where it is stored once it is completed and lodged other than 'In a separate file, in a lockable location by the director'. Doesn't sound like a very in depth answer tho!

Morning Kelly,

Just wondered have you managed to go to any of the tutorial sessions? I am doing my course with Brisbane Tafe and they have them every two weeks and have found them quite helpful - Better than anything i have got out of E-mailing my tutor anyway who tends to give nothing away!! .. At the last session we were told that you could do running observations including times and dates even though these are not in the scenario, you can then go on and put those same time's and dates in the NL01 form to give it more weight around the Observation making sense - even though they are not in the Scenario. There would have been running observations anyway in a real setting before you would fill in the form while you were gathering the evidence so it would make sense to me to do more than one Also the area on the form that we have to document everything is tiny so I am writing all of mine on a separate piece of paper and attaching it with the form
As for where to store the NL01, I work at a centre so already knew the answer to that question so I had to search and search to find where it was written in concrete evidence!! If you look at the Guide to the National law and National Regulations I found page 117 quite helpful.. doesn't say anything about the files being stored separate to the childs file though which I also understand to be correct, I am sure I have read that though somewhere along the way and I am annoyed at myself for not noting down where I found it!!

Hi Paula,

Thank you for that information, i will have a look as soon as possible. I didnt even know that there were tutorial sessions??? I have never come across them. I will also look into that asap! Im doing mine through tafe, qld but i think its basically the same thing.

Ahh i just had a quick look, are you referring to the ones you have to go to on the campus? Unfortunately with 3 kids and a partner that works both some days/some nights it has been too hard for me to get to them. Its also about an hour drive from me so that's a bit of a shame to miss out on as it sounds like you learn a lot from them.

Hi Paula, I think i have found some useful info but it does relate to a different state? Have a look in my.tafe under the 'WEB LINKS'...almost all the way down the bottom is a link called 'legal assessment 2 help'. Have look

Hi Kelly Yes I have the same link!! Thats where I saw it.. knew I had read it somewhere Thankyou! I trawled all my saved websites yesterday and was getting really annoyed and there it was all that time haha..
Yes I went to one of the tutorials that they have in the evening, I learnt a lot from the last one but not so much on the first one I went too so think it depends on which tutors are there! I think I am almost done with the NL01.. I might have gone a little over the top in how much I have written, might have to down size it

I'm still not sure if it is enough 'concrete evidence' after reading the question again today. I spent 6 hours just reading and re-reading saved pages and i felt like it was a big fat waste of time. I think I'm ready to sit down tomorrow and tackle writing the observations, and then I will finish off the From NL01. Otherwise, apart from finding a final answer for Q5, I think I am finished. I aim to have it handed in by friday before the school holidays start and i have my little munchkins home to distract me. Plus I have already signed up for the next cluster which starts in October so I need some time to focus on that. Fingers crossed it all goes to plan.

Update: After i wrote that last post i realised i also had to finish my bibliography, proofread the whole assessment (by the way, out of curiosity, how many pages has yours ended up being in total?) and then finalise all the last bits and pieces. So in a mad panic, I left hubby to look after dinner, dishes, washing and putting the kids to bed and frantically worked solidly for the last 2 hrs. I finished the observations. I also have a very lengthy NL01 form so may have to cut mine down a little as well although i dont want to compromise and lose any of the information. So I'm now feeling a lot better. Having said that, Im sure I will get up in the morning and start proofreading only to realise i have a thousand mistakes to fix up!

Hi Kelly I think its concrete evidence, they supplied the link.. also you sound like me and are maybe reading too much into where you got every bit of info.. I don't think they will need it if you just reference the websites/ books at the bottom of the answer.. wow you will be busy starting the next cluster! I have not enrolled yet for the next one but beings as I am away on hols overseas for the whole of December I am going to have to look at the dates!! I wanted mine in before Friday too but working all the rest of this week so not sure I am going to make it before school breaks up - and my kids need to see me as I have been head down with work Well done sounds like you really got it out tonight!! I'm not sure how many pages it is but I have the actual assessment, the ob which is two pages ( But quite spread out) the two policies, the NL02 form which I think will be an extra two pages as hand written - but Its probably only a page and a half.. I have written and re - written a few of my questions to get it sounding right. Must stop reading it and just accept that its okay Im beginning to dream about it now haha!!

Yes, I believe you are right! We both may be reading too far into it. I now have 4 different answers for just the 1 question yet i still haven't decided which one i am happiest with. I guess being the first assessment, Im trying to get it right but im aware that its all a learning curve and i may well have it all completely wrong. It has been great to get some feedback, ideas, tips etc from you. Thank you for that My email adress is kellym20@hotmail.com if you ever want to chat. Anyway Im going to try to get another hour in before bed and then yes, I very well may have dreams about it too Good luck with getting it done by friday. Must be hard having to work as well as study and have kids. I was lucky that i have 12 months of leave from my previous job up my sleeve so I was able to take that due to a health issue with my back. Still, Im struggling so i can only imagine how hard it must be for you. Sound's like you certainly deserve that holiday in december.

Yes Im looking forward to the holiday! I said to my husband tonight maybe I should start the next cluster in Oct and he said you might want to think about that thought of having two months off isn't good either though as my brain will freeze up hehe!! Will friend you on here then I think we can send private messages