History of OSHC in South Australia

In South Australia the earliest OSHC services started operating in the 1970s as vacation recreation programs and as the title suggests these programs were designed to set up safe holiday programs for children. Most of these were operated on school sites and frequently staffed by existing school ancillary staff.

Around this time there were also some OSHC services established that operated on school sites but were operated by an incorporated management committee, similar to long day care centres. (This model still exists in a few cases and has been occasionally used in recent years when other operators could not be readily identified within a community).

As a result of the women's movement throughout the 1970s there followed a time where there was significant expansion and development of the OSHC sector. Women were returning to the workforce while they still had dependent children and so they needed reliable care to support their workforce participation. Services were funded under a Commonwealth / State agreement. In South Australia there was a collaborative working relationship that supported the establishment of new services and a well established process of re-allocating un-used places across the state. The operational support for services was administered by the state through the Children's Services Office which later became part of the Department of Education & Children's Services.

The OSHC expansion continued steadily through the 1990s culminating in a short period (2001/2002) when there was limited growth. Today the sector continues to grow steadily. There has also been steady and continuous growth in the size of services. The biggest services attract around 100 children in after school care and vacation care.

In the late 1990s the Australian government changed the funding process for OSHC services by introducing childcare assistance which was the fore runner of the current childcare benefit. This change offered financial support directly to families instead of an operational subsidy for services as had been the case.

This change also altered the relationship between OSHC services and the State. The State maintained its level of financial support to OSHC by providing project staff, increasing the level of support to assist with the inclusion of children with additional needs. There were also several other short-term projects.

Until the uncapping of childcare places in the 2006 Budget, the allocation of new OSHC places was agreed to by a state based planning advisory committee. This committee was comprised of representatives of the 3 levels of government as well as industry and welfare bodies. This committee used statistical data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics to determine where new services were needed. New places were then made available to a community. Now, once an individual or group is able to demonstrate that they qualify as an appropriate person or agency to provide OSHC, CCB places can be allocated.

New services are required to comply fully with the operational requirements of the Australian Government which includes meeting the National Standards and OSHC Quality Assurance.

OSHC is synonymous with change and service operators and the employees are regularly confronted with the need to adapt to new requirements.

In 1995 the Commonwealth and all states signed off on the National Standards for OSHC and it was agreed that these were to be implemented nationally by 1998. In SA there were some changes to the National Standards to improve safety in services where it may be needed for a staff person to work alone at certain times – these changes were incorporated into the OSHC Standards SA.

The nationally agreed date for the implementation was met in South Australia and, for those services that operated on state school sites where the Minister provided additional support, it was determined that services must fully comply with the Standards. For several years the Department of Education and Children’s Services undertook to monitor the compliance to the Standards but a review of staffing numbers in the unit responsible for this work saw this practice replaced by a process of voluntary self auditing.

There are two detrimental outcomes of this decision: (a) there is now no reliable statistical data readily available about the compliance with standards and (b) sadly not all service operators follow due process.

On several occasions work has been undertaken to introduce regulations into the OSHC sector in line with the requirement for care for pre school children but the process has stalled on each occasion so far. The sector would welcome the clarification of certain grey areas that would come with the introduction of a regulatory framework.

From the middle 2003, OSHC services across the nation began completing the 5 steps for of the Quality Assurance Accreditation. This process is designed to enhance to opportunities for children in care and offer families a consistent quality framework in all types of care where ever they may be. The Quality Assurance process has formalised some practices and procedures in services and there are some clear benefits apparent, Staff in Services have adopted a more professional approach to their work.

OSHC replaces the safe neighbourhood play of yesteryear. With the rapidly changing family dynamics, many children need safe and reliable care for extended periods each day. OSHC meet this needs effectively and efficiently. Also as available back yard space for children diminishes with the current trend in residential development, OSHC services offer children an excellent opportunity for social development in a recreational care setting. A quality OSHC service is an asset to its community but like any other business it needs to be run efficiently and given opportunities top grow and develop so that outcomes are also improved.

As the peak group for OSHC in SA, the OSHC Association was established in 1992 and NOSHSA was incorporated the following year. In both instances the groups are reliant on the capacity of volunteers to keep them operating.

It is vital that OSHC has its own voice and therefore imperative that the association grows and develops to be that voice. We need the support of services to maximise this effectiveness of the voice of OSHC.