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.
