Key capabilities in child care and protection

Practice Learning Opportunities

A requirement of the Key Capabilities is that whatever practice learning opportunity a student is engaged in, they must be able to evidence their knowledge and application of child care and protection, as it is relevant to their setting. For example, students working in an adult setting might be working with adults who are grandparents, who have regular contact with children, who have caring responsibilities or who have committed sexual offences. Adults have been children and their current difficulties could be connected to experiences from their childhood. Students need to demonstrate that they can make relevant links between child care and protection and their current practice learning opportunity.

A further requirement is that during one of their assessed practice learning opportunities, students should undertake an assessment of a child or of parenting capacity. The student may not necessarily be primary case holder, rather they might be co-working within or across organisations.

Throughout the document there are examples of how a student's learning in child care and protection could be measured. These suggestions are not comprehensive and each HEI and practice teacher may have different methods of assessing a student's learning.