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Children's Services NMDS

Identifying and definitional attributes

Metadata item type:Help on this termData Set Specification
METEOR identifier:Help on this term308217
Registration status:Help on this term
  • Community Services (retired), Superseded 21/05/2010
DSS type:Help on this termNational Minimum Data Set (NMDS)
Scope:Help on this term

The CS NMDS collects information about child care and preschool activities that are provided at services which are licensed and/or funded by Australian, state or territory governments to provide child care or preschool.

Children’s services aim to:

  • meet the care, educational and developmental needs of children in a safe and nurturing environment;
  • provide support for families in caring for their children;
  • and provide these services in an equitable and efficient manner.

In this collection, children’s services cover formal child care and preschools. The scope of the collection excludes activities meeting the aims above where they deliver compulsory primary education. However some children’s services within scope are delivered at primary schools. These include outside school hours care, vacation care and preschool activities.

Child care and preschool services are defined as:

  • a range of appropriate care and development activities for children; that
  • promote the social, emotional, physical and intellectual development of children; which are
  • provided by a person other than the child’s parent or guardian; and
  • allow parents to participate in employment, education and training, community activities and personal activities, including family support.

Playgroups, toy libraries and other activities that require the attendance of the parent/guardian and the child are excluded from the scope of the CS NMDS.
Hence the CS NMDS covers a major portion of children’s services—those licensed as child care or preschool services or those that receive Australian or state/territory government funding to provide child care or preschool services. It does not cover ‘full-time primary education services’ for children, playgroups, toy libraries or other services or activities within services that require the attendance of the parent/guardian and the child.

In the CS NMDS, a service is defined as the organisational unit which delivers a child care or preschool service at a particular location. In terms of the CS NMDS, ‘service’ is considered as the main counting unit for the data collection. Information is collected on agencies, the children who use these services and the workers that deliver these services.

Services included in the CS NMDS:

  • Services licensed and/or funded by Australian, state or territory governments to deliver child care and preschool services at a particular location. Services receiving government funding are those that:
    • receive capital grants, operational funding or per capita funding from the Australian or state/territory governments;
    • receive funding as part of an approved educational establishment;
    • receive funding to reduce the cost of charges to parents (e.g. are ‘approved’ for the Child Care Benefit);
    • or a combination of the above.

Services excluded from the CS NMDS:

  • Services that are neither licensed by, or in receipt of funding from, Australian or state or territory governments.
  • Primary education: Full-time education that typically commences at around age 5 and lasts for 7–8 years. In New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, primary education extends from the year prior to Year 1 to Year 6 (or equivalent). In South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory it extends from the year prior to Year 1 to Year 7 (or equivalent). In Queensland it extends from Year 1 to Year 7 (or equivalent).
  • Services such as, playgroups, toy libraries and other services or activities that require the attendance of both the parent/guardian and the child.

Children

Children included in the CS NMDS:

  • All children attending or ‘usually attending’ child care and preschool activities within services during the collection week, which are within the scope of the CS NMDS. Children are classed as ‘usually attending’ if they have attended the service within the last month and either have a place that has been paid for, or who are enrolled in a service with a standing arrangement that they attend specific sessions during the collection week, but are absent during the collection week.

Children excluded from the CS NMDS:

  • Children using a type of service for which the service is not licensed by, or in receipt of any Australian or state/territory government funding.
  • Children who are only attending activities that their parent(s) or guardian(s) are also required to attend.

Workers

Workers included in the CS NMDS:

  • All paid and unpaid workers , including workers funded under CDEP, SNSS and JET schemes, present during the collection week, who undertake duties that mainly involve:
    • direct contact with children
    • management ; or
    • administration tasks;

       for child care and preschool activities at services, which are within the scope of the CS NMDS.

  • Executives, directors or administration workers who are working at the delivery outlet and/or who are involved in the day to day management of the service.
  • Detailed information is collected about paid contact workers, i.e. those workers receiving wages or salary who work directly with children.

Workers excluded from the CS NMDS:

  • Workers absent for the entire collection week.
  • Workers funded under the SUPS scheme.
  • Executives, directors or administration workers within organisations who are not based at the service location and have no involvement in the day to day management of the service.
  • General staff or workers whose main duties do not involve working directly with children. This may include cooks, cleaners, gardeners, drivers and maintenance staff.
  • Workers whose work only relates to activities which are outside the scope of the CS NMDS (e.g. playgroups, toy libraries and other activities that require the attendance of both the parent or guardian and the child).

Collection and usage attributes

Collection methods:Help on this term

Collection process

• The CS NMDS collection would preferably occur during the same collection week in each state/territory on a regular basis. A collection week begins at 12:00am on a Monday morning and ends at 11:59pm on a Sunday night, i.e. from midnight to midnight for seven days ending on a Sunday night. A different collection week will be used for a collection specific to vacation care.
• The data element Service ID will uniquely identify services that deliver child care or preschool activities to children. Organisations involved in the provision of child care and preschool activities have various organisational structures:


Some have a simple structure where responsibility for funding, administration and delivery of services is at the one level, for example private long day care centres or licensed home-based care providers.

Other organisations have a complex, hierarchical structure where these responsibilities are located at different levels of an organisation, or with different organisations, for example long day care centre management committees or family day care schemes.

In a complex structure, one level of an organisation may be accountable to government. A lower level of the same organisation may be responsible for managing the provision of child care and preschool activities at one or more services. It is at these services providing child care or preschool activities to children where data is collected and reported using the CS NMDS.

Source and reference attributes

Submitting organisation:Help on this termChildren's Services Data Working Group
Steward:Help on this termNational Community Services Information Management Group (NCSIMG)
Origin:Help on this term

Children's Services National Minimum Data Dictionary, AIHW 2005.

Relational attributes

Related metadata references:Help on this term
Has been superseded by Early Childhood Education and Care DSS 2010
  • Early Childhood, Superseded 07/06/2011
See also Early Childhood Education and Care DSS 2010
  • Early Childhood, Superseded 07/06/2011
Has been superseded by Early Childhood Education and Care DSS 2011
  • Early Childhood, Superseded 09/03/2012

Metadata items in this Data Set SpecificationHelp on this term

Show more detail
Seq No.Help on this termMetadata itemHelp on this termObligationHelp on this termMax occursHelp on this term
-Fee schedule clusterConditional1
-Service accessibility clusterConditional1
-Child—preschool service received indicator, code NConditional1
-Household—number of parents of child, children's services code NConditional1
-Person (address)—Australian postcode, code (Postcode datafile) {NNNN}

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this data element is only relevant to children who receive in-home child care services. It refers to the child's in-home address. It is used in conjunction with the data element Suburb/town/locality name (person).

Mandatory1
-Person (address)—suburb/town/locality name, text A[A(49)]

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this data element is only relevant to children who receive in-home child care services. It refers to the child's in-home address. It is used in conjunction with the data element Postcode—Australian (person).

Conditional1
-Person (employed)—age range, code N[N]

Conditional obligation:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this item is only applicable to paid contact workers/caregivers in child care and preschool services. Only workers identified as being ‘paid’ and as being ‘primary contact workers’ or ‘other contact workers’ in should respond to this data element.

DSS specific information:

 

Conditional1
-Person (employed)—education field of highest qualification, children's services code N[N]Conditional1
-Person (employed)—employment related study indicator, code N[N]

Conditional obligation:

This item is only applicable to paid contact workers/caregivers in child care and preschool services. Only workers identified as being ‘paid’ in the data element: Paid employment indicator AND as being ‘primary contact workers’ or ‘other contact workers’ in the data element: Work type (children's services) should respond to this data element.

 

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this data element refers to whether a paid contact worker is currently studying for a qualification in a children’s services related field.

This item provides an indication of the number and proportion of staff who are working towards qualifications in the children’s services field. It will allow a comparison of the staffing enrolment status across different service types and worker status (age, qualification level, length of experience etc.) and may contribute to children’s services workforce policy and planning.

This item is only applicable to paid contact workers/caregivers in child care and preschool services. Only workers identified as being ‘paid’ in the data element: Paid employment indicator AND as being ‘primary contact workers’ or ‘other contact workers’ in the data element: Work type (children's services) should respond to this data element.

Conditional1
-Person (employed)—employment type, code NMandatory1
-Person (employed)—highest level of qualification in employment field, children's services code N[N]Conditional1
-Person (employed)—hours worked, total hours NNN

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this item will assist in the analysis of staffing inputs and enable a comparison of the staffing requirements across different job roles and service types.

It is important to include unpaid staff because of the contribution that volunteers make within many children’s services organisations.

This item is asking for actual staff hours worked by all child care and preschool services’ paid and unpaid workers/caregivers, not the rostered hours or full-time equivalent workers/caregivers.

Round to the nearest hour.

Actual hours of work refers to time spent at work for this children’s service during the data collection week and includes:

  • hours actually worked, including paid and/or unpaid overtime; and/or
    additional hours to those rostered; and
  • time corresponding to short rest periods.

Actual hours of work does not include:

  • hours paid for but not worked such as paid annual leave, public holidays or paid sick leave;
  • time taken in lieu or flex time;
  • meal breaks; and
  • time spent on travel to and from work.

Only hours worked in a service activity that is within the scope of the CS NMDS should be included. Any work undertaken by the worker in an activity that requires the parents/guardians of the children to be present should not be included.

Workers who are absent for the data collection week are not included within the scope of the CS NMDS. Therefore no workers should have the total number of hours worked recorded as 000.

Conditional1
-Person (employed)—length of employment in current service, total years code N[NN]

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this is the number of years that the paid contact worker has been employed as a contact worker in the service in which they are currently employed.

This data element provides an indication of the stability of the child care and preschool services workforce. It will enable a comparison of service/staff longevity across different variables such as worker age, qualification level and service type.

The length of time a worker has been employed by the current service should be measured by totalling the number of years the worker has worked as a paid contact worker with the current service, regardless of whether this was full-time or part-time work. Absences of more than 3 months should be subtracted from the total.

The total length of experience should be rounded down to completed years. So, for example, if a worker has worked 2 years and 11 months, this should be recorded as 2 years.

Mandatory1
-Person (employed)—length of experience in industry sector, total years code N[NN]

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, the length of experience of a worker in the children’s services sector should be measured by totalling the number of years the worker has been employed to work with children in a child care or preschool service, regardless of whether this was full-time or part-time work.  Absences of more than 3 months should be subtracted from the total.

In the Children's services NMDS, total years is divided into the following categories:

  • Less than one year
  • 1-2 years
  • 3-4 years
  • 5-9 years
  • 10 years or more

The total length of experience should be rounded down to the nearest year. So, for example, if a worker has worked 2 years and 11 months, this should be recorded in the 1-2 years category.

Experience gained as a paid employee of a children’s service or children’s services agency should be counted. Any time spent as a private babysitter or carer of children is not to be included.

Question:  How many years experience does the worker have in the children’s services sector?     

This item refers to all paid contact workers/caregivers in child care and preschool services. Only workers identified as being ‘paid’ in the data element: Worker/caregiver—paid/unpaid AND only those workers identified as being ‘primary contact workers’ or ‘other contact workers’ in the data element: Worker/caregiver—type of work performed should respond to this data element.

Code 9 Not stated/inadequately described, is not to be used on primary collection forms.  It is primarily for use in administrative collections when transferring data from data sets where the item has not been collected.

This data element provides an indication of the levels of experience of the child care and preschool services workforce. It will enable a comparison of staff experience levels across different characteristics such as worker age, qualification level and service type.

Conditional1
-Person (employed)—paid employment indicator, code N

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, 'Yes' includes workers who receive wages or salary. They can include contract workers or relief workers.
'No' includes workers who are not paid, but who may be receiving in-kind benefits in recognition or exchange for their work. Unpaid staff may include volunteers, unpaid work trainees, parents and family members and students on work experience.
In-kind benefits such as free child care or the reimbursement of work-related expenses in full or part (for example, token payments or small gifts such as t-shirts) are not regarded as payment of salary, and people who receive these are considered to be unpaid workers.

This item allows analysis of the composition of the children’s services workforce. It can contribute to resource and service planning.

It is important to include unpaid staff because of the contribution that volunteers make within many children’s services organisations.

Mandatory1
-Person (employed)—status in employment, children's services code NConditional1
-Person (employed)—tertiary qualification related to industry indicator, code N

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this item is only applicable to paid contact workers/caregivers in child care and preschool services. Only workers identified as being ‘paid’ in the data element: Paid employment indicator AND as being ‘primary contact workers’ or ‘other contact workers’ in the data element: Work type (children's services) should respond to this data element.

If the worker answers 'Yes' then they should provide the highest level of qualification in the employment field (Highest level of qualification in employment field) and the education field of highest qualification (Field of highest qualification in an industry sector (children's services)).

'Yes' includes only those paid contact workers who are currently enrolled in a course of study in a children’s services related field.

Codes 1-8 of the Field of highest qualification in an industry sector (children's services) data item outline the range of qualifications that are considered to be ‘children’s services related’. Only workers that are studying courses that fall within the categories listed in this item should be included as ‘currently studying’.

'No' includes workers who:

  • have completed a course of study and are not currently undertaking another course of study; or
  • have deferred from their training; or
  • are currently enrolled in a course of study that is not in a specified children’s services related field; and/or
  • workers who are not currently enrolled in any course of study.

This item provides an indication of the number and proportion of staff who are working towards qualifications in the children’s services field. It will allow a comparison of the staffing enrolment status across different service types and worker status (age, qualification level, length of experience etc.) and may contribute to children’s services workforce policy and planning.

Conditional1
-Person (employed)—type of children's service work performed, code NConditional1
-Person—activity and participation life area, code (ICF 2001) AN[NNN]

DSS specific information:

This is used in conjunction with an indicator of the need for assistance to determine what activity and participation life area/s a child may need assistance with.

Conditional1
-Person—arrival time at service, hhmm

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this data element should be rounded to the nearest quarter of an hour.

In cases where the person received overnight care, the leaving time should be recorded on the initial day as 2359 and the next day the first arrival time should be recorded as 0000.

For children who are included on the data collection form, but do not attend all or some of the sessions, the reporting field should reflect the child’s non-attendance of these sessions and be filled in as 0000.

Therefore, for children who ‘usually attend’, but in fact did not attend for the collection week, all attendance times should be recorded as 0000.

Times should only be recorded for children who actually attended the service.
Where a child does not attend continuously throughout the day, arrival and departure times should be recorded in both the morning and the afternoon.

Mandatory1
-Person—date of birth, DDMMYYYY

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this data element refers to the date of birth of the child attending the children’s service.

Mandatory1
-Person—departure time from service, hhmm

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this data element should be rounded to the nearest quarter of an hour.

In cases where the person received overnight care, the leaving time should be recorded on the initial day as 2359 and the next day the first arrival time should be recorded as 0000.

For children who are included on the data collection form, but do not attend all or some of the sessions, the reporting field should reflect the child’s non-attendance of these sessions and be filled in as 0000.

Therefore, for children who ‘usually attend’, but in fact did not attend for the collection week, all attendance times should be recorded as 0000.

Times should only be recorded for children who actually attended the service.
Where a child does not attend continuously throughout the day, arrival and departure times should be recorded in both the morning and the afternoon.

Mandatory1
-Person—identifier, children's service worker identifier code N[NN]Mandatory1
-Person—Indigenous status, code N

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this data element is collected twice:

  • for the paid contact worker/caregiver; and
  • for the child attending children's services.
Conditional1
-Person—labour force status, code N

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this item is only applicable to the child's parent(s)/guardian(s).

Conditional1
-Person—letters of family name, text XXX

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this is a specific combination of letters selected from the child’s family name/surname to provide a child identifier within and across child care or preschool services and to assist with record linkage.

Mandatory1
-Person—letters of given name, text XX

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this is a specific combination of letters selected from the child’s first given name to provide a child identifier within and across child care or preschool services and to assist with record linkage.

Mandatory1
-Person—main language other than English spoken at home, code (ASCL 2005) NN{NN}

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this item is applicable to the child and his/her parent(s)/guardian(s).

Conditional1
-Person—need for assistance with activities in a life area, code N

DSS specific information:

Record only whether the child has need for assistance or not. This is used in conjunction with the activity and partipation life area.
Conditional1
-Person—principal role, children's service code NMandatory1
-Person—school attendance indicator, code NMandatory1
-Person—sex, code N

DSS specific information:

This item is collected for the child attending children’s services, for the paid contact worker/caregiver in the children’s service, and the parent(s)/guardian(s) who usually reside in the same household where the child is spending most of their time during the collection week.

Optional1
-Service provider organisation (service type)—mobile service indicator, yes/no code N

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this item is obtained from the register of services held by the collection agency.

This data element is distinguishes mobile child care and preschool services.

Code 1   Mobile

Mobile children's services carry children's services to the community. They offer a range of services including occasional care, vacation care, playgroup sessions and child care, as well as other services outside the scope of this collection.

Code 2   Non-mobile

Non Mobile should be recorded for all other childcare and preschool services. For example, a child care centre, dedicated preschool, community centre, school, home etc.
In conjunction with Service delivery setting (children's services) and Suburb/town/locality name (person), this data element supports analyses of the range of settings in which child care and preschool services are available.

Mandatory1
-Service provider organisation (service type)—number of licensed places, N[NN]

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this is the maximum number of child care and preschool places licensed at a service where service activities are delivered. The number of licensed places in a child care or preschool service is equivalent to the maximum number of children allowed by regulation to attend at any one time.

Licensing includes education department regulations relating to the maximum number of children per preschool class in government schools. Licensing provisions or regulations exist for many, but not all, types of child care and preschool services, and this is not uniform across the states and territories. Where licensing or regulated numbers do not apply to any of the child care or preschool services delivered at the service record 000.

Question: How many places are you licensed to provide at any one time in this service?
Mobile services are to be asked this question per day and session and it should be asked in conjunction with where service was provided, days of operation—per week and the start time and finish time of sessions each day.
Family day care/in-home care services should be asked this question, and should respond for the whole service (rather than for an individual caregiver). Caregivers should not be asked this question.

Conditional1
-Service provider organisation—corporation indicator, yes/no code N

Conditional obligation:

This item only needs to be answered by those services who nominated category 3, 4 or 5 in the Management type data element.

DSS specific information:

This item only needs to be answered by those services who nominated category 3, 4 or 5 in the Management type data element.

The legal entity of the children’s service indicates the involvement of different market sectors in the direct delivery of children’s services. Embedded within this classification is the distinction between corporate services and other services.

Conditional1
-Service provider organisation—main service activity type indicator, code N

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, where a 'yes' is provided, the main service activity type is reported. See Service activity type (children's services).

Conditional1
-Service provider organisation—management type, children's services code NMandatory1
-Service provider organisation—number of available places, total N[NN]

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this is the maximum number of children to whom a service offers child care and/or preschool services at a given time. The number may vary for different times of day or sessions.

In the case of family day care and in-home care, this information is should be provided for each caregiver.

Conditional1
-Service provider organisation—number of service operation weeks (calendar year), total NN

DSS specific information:

In the Children's Services NMDS, this data element refers to the number of full and/or part weeks per year that a child care or preschool service is open for the provision of service(s).

This data element is an indicator of availability of child care and preschool services.

This data element will be used to gain a greater understanding of patterns of service delivery, in conjunction with information about the hours in the day and the days in the week in which child care or preschool activities are available at a service.

New services should count the number of weeks that the service plans to operate in a full year.

This question is asked of all services including family day care/in-home care services and their individual caregivers.

This data element is used in conjunction with the data elements Session start time, Session finish time, and Day of operation.

Mandatory1
-Service provider organisation—organisation identifier (children's services), N(6)Conditional1
-Service provider organisation—service delivery setting, children's services code NConditional1
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