Developmental Educator
What is a Developmental Educator?
From the DEAI (Developmental Educator Australia Inc):
Developmental educators are qualified professionals who specialise in working with people with disability using a human rights framework to achieve full and effective inclusion and participation in society. Developmental educators consider the whole person and their sociocultural context. Practice centres on the lived experience, needs, goals and aspirations of people with disability.
Developmental educators collaborate with people with disability to promote inclusion and address attitudinal and environmental barriers. They do so by employing a range of professional and technical skills including applying developmental, behavioural, learning and social theories; assessing the person and their environment; collaborative planning and goal setting; teaching skills through evidence based instructional strategies; supporting life transitions; programming, monitoring and evaluation; advocacy; community education; and capacity building.
Marni offers the following:
Short, medium and longer term support to identify goals and develop plans to achieve these. These plans are individualised and tailored to the needs of the individual.
Assessments including:
- sensory profile
- functional capacity assessments
- adaptive behaviour scales assessments including the Vineland and ABAS
What is a Social Worker?
The Social Work profession is informed by principles of social justice and human rights. Social Workers engage and collaborate with families and individuals to enhance wellbeing and social development, address systemic barriers, protect the vulnerable from oppression and abuse, resolve personal and interpersonal problems and aim to improve and facilitate engagement with the community.
Social Workers supports families and individuals with their unique needs in an empowering and strengths-based approach in the context of their disabilities. Social workers focus on maintaining and enhancing quality of life. We contribute knowledge and skills to assist people with disability, their families and communities through our work in a range of settings. In all contexts, social workers focus on individual, family, carer and community strengths and needs, and work collaboratively to support people to achieve the lives they want. Social workers take a holistic approach that includes the individual and systemic factors. We work alongside people with disability to advocate for their rights and facilitate their empowerment (and that of their families) and achieve their needs and aspirations. Social workers operate from a person-in environment perspective which recognises that individuals can best be understood within the multifaceted context of their environment.
A referral to a Social Worker may occur for many reasons, including;
Social workers can assist in a variety of ways, including during times of crisis, provide advocacy services, linking to community services, understanding and comprehending a diagnosis, innovative solutions for a complex range of issues, support individuals with a disability and their family to make steps through significant change, helping parents of children and young adults with a disability to break down the chaos of everyday life, providing guidance on how to manage a variety of difficult situations, work closely with individuals to build capacity to improve their environments or personal situations.
