Child Care / Client Service Officer

Job Title: Child Care / Client Service Officer

STATEMENT OF CLAIMS AGAINST THE SELECTION CRITERIA

Child care/Client Service Officer

1. Demonstrated experience in providing a secure and supportive environment for children and an ability to meet the needs of individual children in special circumstances.

• At Brandon Park Child Care Centre I worked for seven years with children in all age groups. As such I played a big part in creating a safe, secure and stimulating environment for all children. I would set up the room with equipment and plan and implement activities according to the children’s age and development. I always treat children with care, warmth and consideration as I believe that acceptance is vital for emotional wellbeing and also plays an important role in guiding children’s behaviour.
• At High Gate Child Care Centre I worked for two years as a support worker for kids with special needs.  The programs I implemented valued the diversity and were sensitive to the children’s special individual and family circumstances. I believe this work helped those children build their self-esteem and confidence.
• As a bilingual officer in Darwin High School I worked with primary and secondary age children that recently migrated to Australia. Many of them were facing language and other socioeconomic barriers. I believe such experience has heightened my understanding of their special needs and has enabled me to become a more effective communicator and a person who is confident in dealing with members of a wide range of sectors in the community, specifically with people in low socio economic groups and those dealing with hardships in family life.

2. A demonstrated commitment to the provision of quality client service to Family Court clients as well as internal clients.

 It is my belief that in order to provide a quality service it is essential to treat clients with respect and patience, seeing to their needs while always keeping in mind the interests, objectives and principles of the employer.

Being a caring person with strong people skills has helped me in all my roles to establish positive and respective relations with the clients. As results I would often receive positive feedback from parents and carers.

• I have also established good working relationships with my colleagues, managers and supervisors in my former and current roles. I understand the Family Court is a large and complex organisation catering to needs of families and children with many internal departments containing staff with a broad range of skillsets. The current organisation I work for also have varying and specifically different internal departments. I believe I can within a larger framework like the Family Court, develop sound professional working relationships with other staff which I am sure would be crucial in this position.

3. Well-developed communication skills including the ability to actively listen, clarify and understand client needs (including diversity and domestic violence) to respond appropriately to these needs.

• At my role at Brandon Park Child Care Centre I was dealing with parents on a daily basis. My relationship with parents and carers was established on a foundation of trust and two way communications. We were able to discuss practices and develop strategies to protect the child’s cultural identity and sense of belonging.

At my role in High Gate Child Care I developed a variety ways of dealing with the parents in order to meet their needs. For example we set up a Communication book for each child’s parents if that was their preferred way of communicating children’s needs.

• Working with a variety of people, internal staff members and with client community members especially in the Child Care and Education setting has provided me the opportunity to understand the additional needs of people dealing with family hardships including domestic violence, family conflict, financial hardships, language barriers and cultural differences. I believe my experience in my work history has afforded me extra strong skills in communicating sensitively, objectively and compassionately with clients facing such issues in personal life.

4. Demonstrated working knowledge or clearly demonstrated capability to quickly acquire a sound working knowledge of Family court of Australia procedures, guidelines, polices and practice, including the computerised information systems in use by the Court.

• To be able to successfully perform my duties as accounts payable officer I had to learn the accounting software Maximise and had to become familiar with relevant ASG’S policies and procedures.
• While working as a child care educator I wanted to enhance my knowledge and experience. Therefore I enrolled myself to a Diploma Course which I have successfully completed.
• I was employed as a Bilingual Officer at Darwin High School for nearly four years. The position had many roles including performing administration duties that were essential for the effective running of the school. To successfully undertake my responsibilities I needed to understand and utilise a range of software programs including databases, spreadsheet and word processing. I had an excellent understanding of a program called Computer Based Administration System for Schools as I was responsible for entering school enrolments for the unit.
• This experience outlined above has given me the skill to easily adapt and learn with proficiency a large range of computerised systems used by my various employers. I would therefore easily learn computerised systems used in Court. Further working in a Government Education System, Community and Privately run childcares and a Financial Institution has required me to become familiar with procedure, guidelines policies and bests practise standards of varying natures. Whilst I have not worked within a legal framework, I believe I would be able to quickly familiarise myself with procedures, guidelines and practice of the the Court capably.

5. Demonstrated effective organisational skills with the ability to work under pressure achieve objectives and manage competing priorities.

• At my current position as an accounts payable officer I have to code, process and pay invoices by certain time while at the same time dealing with external and internal inquiries.
• In my roles as a child care educator I have to plan, organise and set up room for children, deal with their parents and work in partnership with other staff to meet our goals.
• I consider based on my professional experience that I can work under pressure very well, not only in managing timelines and timeframes but also dealing with and prioritising stressful and unexpected presenting personal and business issues affecting children, parents and colleagues.