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Achievements

Achievements:

- Kurrajong Early Childhood Intervention Service (KEIS) is located in the regional city of Wagga Wagga, NSW and provides an early intervention service for 10 Local Government areas. The population of these 10 LGA's is over 100,000.

- The LGA's are Wagga Wagga, Tumut, Tumbarumba, Gundagai, Temora, Cootamundra, Junee, Narrandera, Coolamon and Lockhart.

-KEIS provides a service for 150 to 200 families who have children with disabilities and developmental delays.

- KEIS has one of the largest early intervention teams in NSW. Since 1995, the KEIS team has grown from 6 to 25 staff members.

- KEIS now has one of the largest teams of therapists and teachers in country NSW. We have 6 Educators, 6 Speech Pathologists, 4 Occupational Therapists, 3 Physiotherapists, 2 Family Support Workers, a Psychologist in full and part time capacities.

- KEIS has demonstrated that the service has the ability to attract and retain this specialised team of therapists and teachers through a program of training, mentoring and peer supervision.

- KEIS is unique in country NSW and even Australia wide because of its transdisciplinary team approach that facilitates coordinated service delivery. This approach uses a team of therapists, special educators and a family support worker working together with families to provide a flexible service able to respond to the individual needs of families.

- Kurrajong Early Intervention Service is regarded as an innovative, leading edge early intervention service in Australia. An independent evaluation in 2002 of KEIS by Charles Sturt University found that 'The integrated KEIS service delivery model is regarded a light house program and has created a great deal of interest both within the state and nationally'

- KEIS is part of Kurrajong Waratah which is a large organization providing a service for people with a disability. KW has been instrumental in assisting KEIS to grow and develop into a successful early intervention service.

- KEIS is family centred and aims to meet the needs of the whole family as well as the child with a disability or developmental delay. Families are 'skilled up' to become their child's most important early intervention worker.

- Since 1995, KEIS has tripled the income through successful applications for grants. In 2004, KEIS was successful in obtaining three grants.

- In 2006 KEIS was awarded Innovations Award for the Rural Beginnings Project by Early Childhood Intervention Association.

- KEIS has an outstanding purpose built centre located in Wagga Wagga which has been expanded through grants and fundraising over a 10 year period.

- The service also provides a high level of specialised resources and facilities which helps to make this service outstanding among other early intervention services.

- The KEIS centre is easily identifiable as a 'one stop shop' site and key organization in the mind of the community for support of families who have children with disabilities in the region (CSU evaluation 2002).

- KEIS is an early intervention service that is readily available and has minimal waiting time for entry (CSU evaluation 2002)

- KEIS has an approach that helps families develop a strong affinity with KEIS (CSU evaluation 2002). KEIS has a caring committed team that is responsive to families needs (CSU evaluation 2002). KEIS responds to the holistic concerns of the family (CSU evaluation 2008)

- KEIS has effective communication and networking with other services and personnel in the local community (CSU evaluation 2002).

- KEIS has written and presented many papers at both State and National Early Childhood Intervention conferences papers including Working towards a Transdisciplinary Approach and Evaluating a Rural Based Early Childhood Intervention Service.

- KEIS coordinates and hosts many workshops and seminars in the Riverina/Murray Region for Early Childhood Educators, other early intervention services and allied health staff.

- KEIS mentors and supports other smaller early intervention services throughout country NSW.

- KEIS strongly believes that it is every child's right to be included in their local community and actively supports the inclusion of children into early childhood settings. Over 80% of all children transitioning to school are included into mainstream school settings.

- Only approximately 10% of all children exiting KEIS will need and use Kurrajong Waratah services.

- KEIS has developed a training package consisting of a video and training package entitled Facing the Challenge - Families Living a Disability'. The video depicts the stories of four KEIS families.. A copy of this video is available from the KEIS parent library.

- KEIS has also published a book 'One Day at a Time'. In this book, families who have a child with a disability have shared their stories.

- KEIS has also published a popular recipe book which is full of great recipes from families and local celebrities. The cost of the KEIS recipe book is $10 and is available for purchase from KEIS.

- Overall KEIS is committed and passionate about making a difference in the lives of families who have a child with a disability or delays in their development.