Community consultation

Hello. I am Dr Nicole Dargue, a member of the Autism CRC project Assessing, differentiating, and reporting children’s functional strengths and support needs.

This project will develop an evidence-based framework to address the current gap in knowledge and lack of consensus about how best to assess, differentiate, and report children’s functional strengths and support needs. The Framework will address all children aged 0-12, regardless of whether they have a diagnosed condition or not, or whether they may receive a diagnosis in the future. The approach we are taking emphasises the importance of understanding each child and family for who they are, in order to provide the most helpful information for planning supports, if a specific need is indicated. The Framework itself will inform professional practice, operational guidance, and decision making.

To develop The Framework, we will be reviewing recent research, completing an environmental scan of current assessment approaches, and consulting with the community. As part of this process, we are now inviting members of the community to share their views surrounding what appropriate and helpful assessments look like. So, if you have an interest in supporting children aged 0-12 years who have been identified as having developmental concerns, we would love to hear from you. You are able to share your views via our survey either as an individual, or on behalf of an organisation, and the information that you and others provide will directly inform the framework we develop.

Within the survey, you will be asked to answer questions about understanding children’s strengths and support needs. The questions are designed to help us work out what works well, what does not work well, and what we can do to make it better. You will be asked to write your answers, but there will also be opportunities to upload artwork if preferred. We anticipate the survey will take between 10 and 30 minutes to complete, depending on how you choose to answer the questions.

If you are under 18 years of age, or are unable to provide informed consent at this time but still wish to participate in the survey, a parent or guardian will need to provide consent and support you in accessing and/or completing the online survey.

Please remember that the survey is completely voluntary and you can exit at any time. If you have any questions though, you are more than welcome to contact the project team directly. Our email address is aofframework@griffith.edu.au. You can find this email address on the project information statement, along with a more detailed overview of the project.

We thank you for your interest in this project, and for taking the time to share your views, which will help inform the development of an evidence-based framework surrounding how we can best assess, differentiate, and report on children’s functional strengths and support needs. We will be sharing updates as the project progresses – so be sure to keep an eye out on the Autism CRC website to keep up to date with the project.