ACA Qld President’s Report

ACA Queensland President’s Report

Welcome to the first Early Edition of 2021!

I would like to wish all our valuable ACA Qld members a very Happy New Year. We are looking forward to an amazing 2021 packed full of many professional development opportunities, Early Childhood Educators Day, and our annual ACA Qld National Conference! Over the last few months, ACA Qld has undergone some change; it was with great sadness and excitement that we farewelled ACA Qld CEO Brent Stokes and wished him all the very best on his future endeavours. Creating an exciting opportunity, we would like to officially welcome Kate Tully as the new CEO of ACA Qld. Kate is a seasoned leader with significant experience in strategic thinking and organisational growth, particularly in the non-profit/social sector. We are very excited to have Kate join the ACA Qld team and for those who were unable to attend our Members’ Meetings in February, we look forward to introducing her to you at our National Conference in June.

We are excited to announce the office teams for ACA Qld and your College for Australian Early Childhood Educators (CAECE) have moved to a great new location! The new office presents an exciting opportunity to hold all future Committee Meetings, Members’ Meetings and CAECE face to face classes. You can now find us at 2/10 Welch Street, Underwood Qld 4119. Postal address and telephone numbers remain unchanged. ACA Qld continues to meet with State and Commonwealth education Ministers and Departments to advocate for reform to improve outcomes for early childhood educators, service providers, families, and children across Queensland. ACA Qld is working hard in developing an Action Plan to further strengthen our approach to the pressing issue of workforce shortages. Our Action Plan includes advocating with ministers and departments, further growth of CAECE to increase the supply of high-quality Cert III and Diploma qualified educators, collaboration with universities to increase enrolments into 0-5 and 0-8 ECT degrees and involvement in training and workforce initiatives at state and national levels. ACA has sent a Pre-Budget Submission to the Commonwealth government to engage in conversation and work towards a solution on this matter. ACA National is planning upcoming face to face meetings and meeting monthly in between to ensure we continue to improve outcomes for the early learning sector. The Department of Education has released the revised Queensland Kindergarten Funding Scheme (QKFS) requirements, applicable from 1 January 2021. We were very pleased to see a number of important changes that ACA Qld has strongly advocated for, including that approved activities now include: ‘up to 1 hour per day which can be inclusive of the ECT’s lunch break and/or programming time’. This is a great outcome for ECTs and services.

ACA Qld held another successful round of Members’ Meetings in Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Ipswich, Toowoomba, and Townsville. We were fortunate enough to have guest speaker Paul Mondo, ACA National President attend via Zoom at both our Brisbane Members’ Meeting and Gold Coast Members’ Meeting / Annual General Meeting. If you were unable to attend a meeting, the virtual Members’ Meeting will become available on the ACA Qld website shortly. The ACA Qld Annual General Meeting was held on Tuesday, 16 February. Thank you to those who attended and voted. We would like to congratulate Nicole Fowler and Brent Stokes on their reelection onto the ACA Qld Managment Committee for another two years. We are proud to announce your training college, College for Australian Early Childhood Educators (CAECE) has now reached 400 students! We are also thrilled to announce we are engaging in conversations with universities to discuss recognition of early childhood qualifications in the hope to encourage more students to become early childhood educators. This year’s ACA Qld National Conference has an amazing line up of speakers including Maggie Dent, Anthony Semann, Toni & Robin Christie, Dr Kaylene Henderson, Alina Dan and many more! Visit our conference website childcareconference.com.au to view the program and to register! Early Bird prices close 31 March! Membership renewal is fast approaching, and we encourage you to renew your membership to continue receiving amazing ACA Qld benefits! All current Members should have received their renewal invoice via email, which is due for payment on or before 31 March. If you have any questions regarding your membership, please don’t hesitate to contact our office at qld@childcarealliance.org.au or 07 3808 2366.

We would like to acknowledge and thank all of our new Supporter Members who have joined ACA Qld. You can find a complete list of all ACA Qld Supporter Members and contact details on the ACA Qld website. In an event of another COVID-19 lockdown, we will continue to consult with the Department of Education and will inform members as soon as possible. Thank you for your continued support.

Majella Fitzsimmons ACA Qld President