Department of Education / Specialist Allied Health Services to Schools Prequalification Scheme - DoE1695694444

The Department seeks to establish a Specialist Allied Health Services to Schools - Prequalification Scheme. The Scheme will comprise a panel of pre-qualified external providers and is intended to support NSW government schools across the state to meet their legal obligations to students with disability by facilitating quick and easy access to specialist allied health services where needed to enable school access, attendance and participation.

The Scheme is now open for suppliers to pre-qualify to provide a range of behaviour and therapeutic support serivces such as:

• Completing therapeutic, behaviour, risk or environmental assessments
• Develop and implement support plans, in collaboration with school staff, parents, carers and other service providers
• Deliver structured support programs to students and training to schoold staff  to support learning, safety and wellbeing at school

Relevant disciplines include occupational therapy, speech pathology, physiotherapy, psychology and specialist behaviour support.

Pre-qualified providers will be appointed to the Scheme under a modified NSW Human Services agreement. There is no funding directly allocated to this scheme. Schools will use the scheme to select their preferred suppliers and will be responsible for funding and managing their own engagements.

NSW Public Schools have 70% of the Education budget and are in the best position to determine the programs to deliver focussed support to students with disability so that they can access, attend and participate at school. Schools will be able to use their School Budget Allocation to engage a provider/s to supplement and build on existing school programs and enhance their capacity to target support where required based on school community needs.

The aim of the Scheme is to establish an arrangement for engagement under the NSW Human Services framework to reduce red tape for providers and simplify the engagement process for schools.

Key benefits of establishing the Scheme include:

• Quicker timeframes to procure providers as schools will be able to choose from the list of pre-approved providers.
• Reduced administrative workload for schools, providers and the department and a transparent process through the use of Standard contracts across all providers.
• Centrally managed provider compliance and capability assessment
• Ability to identify and track performance of provider programs.
• Better understand schools' need for specialist allied health services for students with disability

The full detail of the EOI application requirements is provided in the document set which can be downloaded by clicking on "Download a soft copy" below.

Scheme Conditions and Mandatory Requirements are detailed in the documents provided below.

Services are expected to be available under the Scheme commencing term one 2020.