The Functional Needs Assessment (FNA) Tool is a new approach to identifying the strengths, needs and adjustments required for students with disabilities and additional needs.

The FNA Tool was developed as part of the Victorian Government’s inclusive education agenda. The Department engaged AHA to undertake a pilot project to validate and refine the tool.

The tool was designed to move away from a deficit-based approach, which focusses on a student’s limitations, to a strengths-based approach that considers a student’s strengths, abilities and needs.

The FNA Tool draws upon the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and aligns with the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD).

The key areas of the FNA are:

• Strengths and aspirations
• Disability
• Needs and learning domains
• Adjustments to the learning environment.

AHA’s role in the pilot was to schedule and facilitate SSG meetings with school-based staff and parents/guardians, and enter the information gathered through these meetings into the FNA Online Tool.

This logistically complex engagement involved deploying AHA’s team of skilled facilitators to 109 participating schools to facilitate approximately 980 Student Support Group meetings across Victoria in a 5 month period.