Rattler magazine issue 117, 2016

TECHNOLOGY IN SERVICES GOING DIGITAL AT MAAS THE NDIS MEET THE MINISTER INFECTIOUS ADVOCACY VOX POPPETS + MORE

COMMUNITY CHILD CARE CO-OPERATIVE QUARTERLY JOURNAL 117 AUTUMN 2016

talk TECH

EXPLORING THE POSSIBILITIES

Rattler is published quarterly by Community Child Care Co-operative Ltd. (NSW) and funded by subscriptions and sponsorship revenue.

CEO, Community Child Care Co-operative Leanne Gibbs Editorial Committee Lisa Bryant, Marie Deverill, Leanne Gibbs, Camille Howard, Eddy Jokovich, Gerard Moon, Wendy Shepherd.

Managing Editor Eddy Jokovich (02) 9310 4955 Journalist/Assistant Editor Camille Howard Art Director Deborah Kelly Production ARMEDIA Printing Pegasus Print Group Contributors Danielle Aynsley, Camille Howard, Tahnee Jamieson, Eddy Jokovich, Lily Katakouzinos, Margie O’Tarpey.

Contributions: By publishing a range of opinions, Community Child Care Co-operative Ltd. (NSW) hopes to stimulate professional development and discussion. You can contact the CEO or Managing Editor to discuss your ideas or send in an outline of your article.

Copyright is normally held jointly by the publisher and the author. We reserve the right to edit submitted material.

Copying: Please email for permission to copy or reproduce any article or part thereof.

Subscriptions (02) 8922 6444 Annual subscription to Rattler $80.00 (4 issues).

THANKS Community Child Care Co-operative gratefully acknowledges the support of Microsoft Corporation in providing Community Child Care with free software under their Community Assistance Initiative.

Registered by Australia Post Print Post Publication No 100001554 ISSN 0819-9132 ©2016 Community Child Care Co-operative.

Disclaimer The opinions expressed in Rattler are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Community Child Care Co-operative Ltd. (NSW).

Office and Postal Address Addison Road Community Centre, Building 21, 142 Addison Road, Marrickville NSW 2204 Phone (02) 8922 6444 Fax (02) 8922 6445 Email info@ccccnsw.org.au Web www.ccccnsw.org.au Facebook www.facebook.com/

RattlerMagazine Twitter @RattlerMagazine ABN 81 174 903 921 2 | Rattler 117 Autumn 2016

editorial T

his issue is headlined ‘Tech talk: exploring the possibilities’ but it is really all about change: change through technology, change through advocacy and change through systemic and policy reform.

By now the term ‘digital disruption’ will be familiar to you and it is imperative for the future of early childhood education—and for children— that we engage with the term and the culture and meaning around it. Technology has changed everything we do in education and care, whether it is to make administration more streamlined, record children’s development, plan for learning, professional development or embedding technology in experiences for children.

So think about your technology possibilities as you meander through this issue. Read about how Gowrie Victoria addresses their technology challenges, forming new partnerships with families, and how a family day care scheme has progressed planning and programming with technology. Plus our Vox Poppets tell us how they use technology in their outside school hours centres, and we see how children become empowered through technology in museums.

If you’re curious about how the NDIS policy reform will work for children and families, Margie O’Tarpey’s article examines the collaboration and integration that is so fundamental to its success.

Camille Howard tells the story of change for Jindi Woraback Children’s Centre, whose educators wanted to spend more time with children, and our interview with Cindy Blackstock explains how she makes change through ‘mosquito advocacy’.

There is so much inspiration to draw on in this issue.

I usually say my thanks to our Rattler production team (Eddy, Camille and Deborah) and our editorial team (Marie, Lisa, Gerard and Wendy, with Eddy and Camille) at the end of the year but, as June 2016 marks a change for me, I’d like to do that now: thanks Rattler team, you’re the best!

I’ll be leaving the CEO role, so this is my last letter to you, our loyal readers. I hope you have loved your Rattler as much as I have loved being a part of this beautiful, clever and inspiring publication. It’s been one of the great joys of my role to collaborate with our team, bringing Rattler to you four times a year, and I am incredibly proud of the quality we deliver.

I wish you all the very best in your mission to provide high quality early childhood and middle childhood education and care programs for children and families. I’ll continue advocating for change to achieve ‘gold standard’ early childhood policy, funding, remuneration and programs and practice, and I certainly hope to see you on the path up ahead.

My very best wishes, Leanne Gibbs CEO, Community Child Care Co-operative Cover Artwork: Deborah Kelly

in this issue THE LOWDOWN

4

THE TIES THAT BIND

6

Your guide to what’s up, who’s where, and why.

Quality connections are key at the award-winning Jindi Woraback Children’s Centre.

MOSQUITO ADVOCACY 10 Cindy Blackstock explains the simple tool that enabled her to enact change for Canada’s First Nations children.

VOX POPPETS

14

Children tell us what they want from using technology in OSHC services.

Rattler 117 Autumn 2016

FACE2FACE

Meet Simon Birmingham, the federal Education Minister.

BOOKWORM

A preview of what’s new on the shelves.

29

30

EDUCATOR WELLBEING 25 EC:Living tool puts educator wellbeing in the spotlight.

NQS CASE STUDY

26

Western Riverina Family Day Care Scheme is implementing technology one step at a time in its educational program.

TINY TINKERERS 22

PHOTOGRAPHY: BRONWYN MCNALLY / MAAS

Technology provides great opportunities for public spaces to engage with and empower young children.

C’MON GET SAVVY

16

NDIS ROLLOUT

19

How technology can help make management processes more streamlined & efficient.

We explore how the NDIS will function in the sector when it rolls out nationally from July.

Bernadette addressing a 2007 ratios rally

THE

Lowdown who

what

why

Sharing stories

BEST WISHES, BERN

The board of Community Child Care Co-operative has farewelled its chair Bernadette Dunn, who recently resigned from her role.

“Bern has committed 18 years of energy, expertise and enthusiasm to the role of Community Child Care board member, and Community Child Care has thrived under her board leadership,” said acting chair Wendy Lindgren, who made the announcement.

“We wish to thank Bernadette for her significant contribution to the organisation, to community based education and care in particular, and to the sector broadly in her role as chair and board member. She will be sorely missed.”

Community Child Care is accepting expressions of interest from members who may be qualified to take on this role, or fill other board positions.

Please send enquiries to info@ccccnsw.org.au

Little Diggers Preschool and Child Care Centre and Lightning Ridge Preschool were recent recipients of matching totem poles created and donated by local artist Darryl Ferguson, a Gamilaroi man from Collarenbri.

Darryl is a parent at Little Diggers, and says his artwork was inspired by the area he has lived in most of his life. “My country has inspired me to create unique artefacts using a natural canvas from this country’s beautiful timber,” he says.

He and his wife Carol worked on the project together, capturing local native wildlife to showcase Aboriginal culture for children, and to allow them to touch and interact with the totem and tell their own stories.

“The long neck turtle (Girrabirrii) is the totem of the Yuwaalaraay people of the local area. The sand goanna (Mangunaali) is the totem of the Gamilaroi, the Collarenebri area,” Darryl explains of the design.

The butterfly and bogong moth represent the Dreamtime story, ‘Pallah Pallah, how the opal came to be’, as told by Aunty June Barker.

Sarah Chamberlain, director of Little Diggers, says that by having the same totem pole the project has also connected the two Lightning Ridge preschools in north-west NSW. “[We share] the story that reflects our community context and culture.”

Darryl Ferguson presents the beautiful carved totem pole to children and educators at Little Diggers.

what’s on

CONFERENCES AND EVENTS EARLY YEARS EXPO & PDT FORUM

30 April–1 May Rosehill Gardens Event Centre, Sydney www.eyec.com.au

ECA RECONCILIATION SYMPOSIUM 13–14 May Sydney Showgrounds, Sydney Olympic Park www.ecareconciliation symposium.com.au

EYES CONFERENCE 20–21 May Pan Pacific Hotel, Perth www.eyes.org.au/ conference/2016

QLD EARLY EDUCATION & CARE CONFERENCE 24–26 June Brisbane Convention Centre www.candk.asn.au/ conference2016

4 | Rattler 117 Autumn 2016

VULNERABLE CHILDREN TO MISS OUT

New research shows the Jobs For Families Childcare Package will further disadvantage the most vulnerable Indigenous children.

The Deloitte Access Economics research, commissioned by SNAICC, the national peak body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, revealed two major components in the package that will impact Indigenous children experiencing vulnerability: ◆A bolishment of the Budget Based Funding (BBF) Program: currently, 80 per cent of BBF services are for Indigenous children. More than half of families currently accessing BBF services will be subject to higher outof-pocket costs under the changes. ◆A ccess to subsidised services under the mainstream system will be halved for children whose families earn less than around $65,000 per annum (including an estimated 78 per cent of Indigenous children in the BBF program) and who don’t meet the ‘activity test’.

To read the full findings, visit www.tinyurl.com/SNAICC-research

eSafety

In 2015, the Office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner was set up to help children and their families deal with cyberbullying.

As well as educating children and parents about how to protect themselves online, the Office has a complaints system to help children deal with serious cases of cyberbullying, with powers to have offensive cyberbullying material removed from social media providers.

To find out more visit the website: www.esafety.gov.au (formerly cybersafety.gov.au)

NO MORE SCREEN TIME

LIMITS? In the midst of the ongoing debate around how much is too much screen time, American medical experts are modifying their position.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) used to recommend that children under two have no exposure to screens, with older children limited to up to two hours a day.

In a recent issue of AAP News, the Academy suggests more nuanced guidelines should be followed, because scientific research and policy is lagging behind the pace of digital innovation.

“In a world where ‘screen time’ is becoming simply ‘time,’ our policies must evolve or become obsolete,” writes Ari Brown, lead author.

Last year AAP convened a symposium with top researchers and experts in the field of media use and children. Here is some of the resulting advice for parents/caregivers: 1. Media is just another environment: Children do the same things they have always done, only virtually. Like any environment, media can have positive and negative effects.

2. Caregiving has not changed: The same caregiving/parenting rules apply to children’s real and virtual environments. Play with them. Set limits; kids need and expect them. Be involved. And limit your own media use, modelling good online etiquette.

3. We learn from each other: Talk time between caregiver and child is critical for language development. The more media engender live interactions, the more educational value they hold. Optimal educational media opportunities begin after age two.

4. Content matters: The quality of content is more important than the platform or time spent with media. Prioritise how children spend time rather than just setting a timer.

5. Be engaged when your kids are using technology: Adult participation with media facilitates social interactions and learning. For infants and toddlers, co-viewing is essential.

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING OPEN FOR BUSINESS Children’s Services Central’s 2016 professional development offerings are now open for bookings.

Services should have received a hard copy of the Handbook and Calendar for NSW Education and Care Services. If not, take a look online at www.cscentral.org.au/pd As Professional Support Coordinator in NSW, Children’s Services Central has been providing relevant, targeted, professional development to the early education and care sector since 2006.

As of June this year, the Professional Support Program will no longer be funded by the Australian government. So it’s your last chance to take advantage of Children’s Services Central’s professional learning opportunities.

Rattler 117 Autumn 2016 | 5

bind The ties that

Starting at the grassroots level and spreading far beyond its four walls, connections play a vital role at the award-winning Jindi Woraback Children’s Centre.

By Camille Howard.

Children’s portfolios support programming.

6 | Rattler 117 Autumn 2016

R

elationships are key at Jindi Woraback Children’s Centre. Its very name, given to the service by the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, means ‘to join and unite’.

Located on the St Albans campus of Victoria University in Melbourne, connections drive Jindi Woraback’s commitment to delivering quality education and care to every child.

So much so, the service recently made the decision to only offer 95 places, even though it is licensed for 131 children. It’s all about building quality relationships, explains director Michelle Walker.

“We wanted to give children the opportunity to have more time with the educators, rather than the educators focusing on so many children,” she says.

As a community based service funded through fees, Walker says it was a tough decision to reduce numbers. “It has meant we have a longer waiting list, but we wanted to make sure all our children were receiving the best quality care we could offer.”

And thanks to strong connections with the university’s education department and TAFE’s education department (also on campus), they are fostering the development of quality educators of the future.

“We do a lot of work with the university and TAFE, and children will participate in programs, spending time with students, so they have more opportunities for hands on interaction with children while studying.”

Connection to culture When Jindi Woraback was awarded an Excellent rating by ACECQA in 2014, and named Australian Family Early Childhood Service of the Year in 2015,

both accolades recognised its strong commitment to Indigenous culture.

“We do have a strong Indigenous program, and we link with the university’s Indigenous studies unit, Moondani Balluk,” Walker explains.

But she admits this connection wasn’t always strong.

“In around 2009/2010 we realised we were really tokenistic with our name,” Walker says. “Our kinder teacher challenged us to do better and look at why we weren’t doing things.

It came out that my educators were scared of doing the wrong thing. But we realised if we did nothing we were just as negligent.

“We worked hard to make sure we found the people that could help us.

We researched, we reconnected with Moondani Balluk on campus, and really made sure we got it right.”

After receiving a government grant, Moondani Balluk helped them plan and create their Indigenous garden.

“We were lucky in having them available to us, but even so, they wouldn’t have wanted to participate if they couldn’t see we were being genuine. It was really important that we made a strong commitment.”

This commitment was spurred on by the arrival of a four-year-old Indigenous child into the service last year.

“He came to us needing us to be really strong in his culture.

He identified himself as a strong blackfella, and we really needed to make sure we were ready for him.”

The child’s foster parent, a nonAboriginal student at the university, wanted to make sure she was respectful of his culture, and his need to identify with his heritage.

“We worked strongly with the Indigenous community and Moondani

Children explore Iramoo Fields Indigenous Garden on campus at Victoria University.

Balluk, and it helped him settle in really easily. It proved to us that we needed to be doing this all the time.”

Not only that, Walker found that with a diverse cultural mix (most families come from Vietnamese, Bosnian, Arabic, Sudanese, Italian, Maltese and Greek backgrounds), the strong storytelling in the Indigenous program helped them link into other cultures. “It helped us weave our multiculturalism as well,” she says.

“They all tell stories; they all hold onto their culture through stories.”

A professional approach To ensure the team at Jindi Woraback continues to reflect and build upon its commitment to Indigenous culture, Walker implements regular professional development sessions for the staff with an Indigenous trainer. “At the moment we’re building our own curriculum, FIELD, which is Foundation in Early Learning Development, and one of those foundations is Indigenous culture. So she is helping us to build our knowledge and Indigenous culture into our curriculum.”

At the moment, Jindi Woraback’s curriculum is based on TeWhariki (the New Zealand curriculum) and the Early Years Learning Framework. “TeWhariki is over 20 years old, and we want to make sure we’re up to date, so we’ve decided to develop our own curriculum and tie in the EYLF and TeWhariki.

“A lot of our educators are coming to us without any foundation in brain

Jindi Woraback built its own Indigenous garden, with the help of the Indigenous studies unit, Moondani Balluk.

development, and we want them to understand the importance of brain development in children, particularly children who are facing vulnerability,” Walker explains.

“We have families who are refugees, or who are struggling, and it’s about identifying families and children that are vulnerable, and understanding that the relationships we build with these children and families are so important to the learning of each child.

And if a child is not feeling safe, they’re not ready to learn: they need quality care. We thought if we build our own curriculum, based around the needs of our community, then their children will get what they need.”

Thanks to the Australian Government’s professional development fund (LDCPDP), Jindi Woraback was able to spend $72,000 on a professional consultant to help in getting this curriculum right.

This means involving educators in its

creation. So, working in teams, they are researching and working on one foundation at a time.

“It’s about making sure they are always working to further their own education,” Walker says. “By building our own curriculum, and being part of it, they will know how to implement it and put it into practice.”

The children are central to this process as well.

“We’ve moved a lot of our curriculum into the program with the children, and they participate by working in their own portfolios—they have become part of the teaching model with educators.

We use a lot of their ideas and words and their own skills in our curriculum, so it is truly based on what the children are telling us they need and what they’re interested in and what their learning is about.”

When it comes to the learning of her 38 staff, Walker acknowledges that Rattler 117 Autumn 2016 | 7

managing the professional development needs of so many educators is challenging.

“I was looking at the roster and how many staff I had and how overwhelmed I felt trying to keep them up to date with their own learning. I found doing appraisals was monotonous and boring—it took me two weeks and at the end of each day I felt so drained. And having an appraisal meant discussing what was good and not-so-positive, and I found [staff] walked away listening to the negatives and not the positives.”

She needed to come up with a way to engage her team in a more positive way.

“I found that children engaged really well with their portfolios, so why not try it with the educators. It changed the way they wrote about themselves; they became really positive. They saw they were doing many things they hadn’t been documenting and they had a lot more courage in what they were doing,” Walker says.

Then, during their assessment and rating process, the educators used their portfolios as evidence of their practice.

And rather than being afraid or nervous around the assessor, educators were confident about showing her what they do. “The assessor said she had never experienced that before, and she could tell that they knew and were confident in what they were doing.”

Each educator has a portfolio of their

own, and in their portfolio they have goals that they set for the year, which they evaluate at the end of the year.

“We also developed a passport for learning,” Walker adds. “So educators are working in the quality areas and discussing what they are doing and how they can do it better in relation to the [relevant] standard. Once they have written about it, I have a conversation with each educator and stamp their passport to move onto their next quality area.”

Community engagement As well as documenting their own learning, educators record interests in their portfolios, and share these with children and families. “I really encourage each person to be an individual with their portfolio and share what their strengths are.”

Educators are also encouraged to build connections and relationships with the wider community at an individual level, and to share these experiences with families.

“I wanted my educators to understand how you connect with your community, so we started off doing community projects where we asked educators to share what they do in their own community, and bring that into the service to share with families. Because if they don’t understand how they make connections, how can they help families connect?”

Children are also involved in completing risk assessment with educators. “We leave the service to visit the uni campus at a moment’s notice, and it means the children are prepared and ready.

If you involve them in the risk assessment they look out for each other.”

With a university campus in Jindi Woraback’s backyard, there are many opportunities for exploring the wider community.

8 | Rattler 117 Autumn 2016

So they created a notice board for educators to share their experiences of taking their own child to dance classes or a sporting club, for example. This includes details about the location, who can participate, and any other information that might help families connect with their local community.

The community connections grew after the wider early education sector began to take notice of their program.

“It moved from the [community connections] to services wanting to come and have a look at our service, and wanting to know how we did particular programs, so we share with a lot of services.”

There are also many invites to attend staff meetings at other services, conferences and events, to share their knowledge and experience.

And now there’s the connection with Shine for Kids, a not-for-profit organisation in NSW and Victoria that provides support for children whose parents are in jail, and their guardians.

“We saw the need to reach out beyond our four walls,” Walker explains.

So together with Shine for Kids, they have developed a program where guardians/carers visit Jindi Woraback once a fortnight for a parenting session.

“It will help them not feel so isolated, and allow children who don’t participate in any early childhood activities to come to our service and participate while the carers are meeting with Shine For Kids,” Walker explains.

“Whatever their struggles are, [the carers] can meet with other families and see that they’re not alone, get help with particular parenting skills, or feel they belong.”

And the children, many of whom who are dealing with loss and confusion, and sometimes shame and stigma, are given the opportunity to be exposed to early education before they go to school, where they may otherwise miss out.

Family focus Children and families are central at Jindi Woraback, and Walker uses innovative ways to communicate with them. As well as using portfolios, she implemented a novel idea to introduce families to ACECQA, and to Jindi Woraback’s quality improvement plan: ACECQA child, a doll designed and built with the children’s input.

“The idea of the ACECQA child was to introduce the families to ACECQA,”

Walker explains, “because they were fairly new to the service and the sector, so it was important that they knew who ACECQA [the organisation] was.”

It was a fun and interactive way to share the QIP with families, as well as reduce paperwork. It was also a way for the children to drive the QIP, and ensure that it didn’t just become something discussed at rating and assessment time.

“We wanted the children to use ACECQA child to tell us their story, tell us what they want in their program, so ACECQA was developed from the child’s imagination. And they could take her and include her in anything— they ended up building an ACECQA homestead, which changed into a winter wonderland!”

She ended up becoming like a mascot.

“The children felt connected with what they were doing, and they felt responsible for her, and wanted to make sure she was looked after.”

Just like the QIP, children are actively involved in programming at Jindi Woraback, which Walker says is more like a timeline. “Our program never finishes; you can’t take the program off the wall and pack it away. So all year

round the program moves around the room and changes, and the children are able to do the reflection with the educators.”

Children are also involved in completing risk assessment with educators. “We leave the service to visit the uni campus at a moment’s notice, and it means the children are prepared and ready. If you involve them in the risk assessment they look out for each other and know what they need to be doing to keep themselves safe. They start to trust each other and trust themselves because they know what’s safe and what’s not.”

When it comes to tree climbing, for example, they get the children to think about if they climb high, what will they need to do to keep themselves safe. “Are you concentrating? Have you eaten enough lunch to allow yourself to be that physical? Have you had rest to make sure you can concentrate? If you’re riding your bike fast around the yard, can you stop? And if you can’t stop, what are the consequences? It opens up so many possibilities for discussion.”

So whether it’s the QIP, portfolios, programming or risk assessment, children have a big say in what happens

‘ACECQA child’ enables children to connect with and drive the QIP.

at Jindi Woraback. “The children are the fundamental reason we are there,” Walker says.

“I want to make sure the children are always receiving what they should be in terms of education and care, and we need to focus on how we deliver that.” ★

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advocacy

10 | Rattler 117 Autumn 2016

Her advocacy for the rights of Canada’s First Nations children may have attracted surveillance from her government, but Cindy Blackstock remains steadfast in her vision for equality, no matter the personal cost. By Camille Howard.

ILLUSTRATIONS: DEBORAH KELLY

M

osquito advocacy.

If reading this phrase conjures up something annoying, irritating and infectious, you have understood Cindy Blackstock’s key advocacy tool for her work on behalf of First Nations children in Canada.

As an advocate for children for many years, Blackstock fights the inequalities Canada’s First Nations children face every day.

In her role as executive director of First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, she fights for the rights of all First Nations children to grow up with their families, receive quality education, be healthy and to be proud of their heritage.

It’s a fight she and her organisation took to the Canadian government, filing a human rights claim against the government for racial discrimination.

The move not only cost her organisation its funding, it also cost Blackstock her personal privacy. (See page 13 for more about this case.)

But before it came to this, Blackstock’s advocacy followed the usual pattern: meeting with relevant government representatives, sharing research about inequities faced by First Nations children, pleading their case, sharing solutions and waiting for the government to enact change.

Government change proved to be a long time coming, so Blackstock decided she needed to change.

The turning point came after a trip to India, where Blackstock visited a museum at the former home of Mahatma Ghandi. After taking a quick tour, she found herself in the garden

with a maintenance worker. When he asked her about what she did for a living, he listened while she described her battles with the government to create change for First Nations children.

Then he told her she had it wrong. As Gandhi’s work teaches, he explained, governments don’t make change, they react to change.

Returning to Canada, Blackstock realised she had to come up with a way to make enough noise and involve enough people to ensure the government couldn’t ignore the issues any more; they would have to react to the demands of the people.

Creating a buzz Growing up in Northern British Columbia, Blackstock recalls the massive mosquitos that annoyed her outdoors. “I spent my whole childhood sitting in the smoke of the campfire, moving my [seat] to try to avoid these things,” she says.

Blackstock thought about how this small insect could take on something much larger and affect change.

“So I started to really unpack what they do. Number one, they are focused and targeted; they know exactly what they want. They’re not messing around wringing their hands thinking ‘should we do education or early childcare or child welfare’.

“Second, they’re infectious. They

understand that broad based change is about social movements, and they need to infect others in order to leave the legacy.”

And mosquitos swarm. “You may have one mosquito in your tent but there are 100,000 of them flying around outside waiting for you.”

Then there’s the very irritating buzz.

“They will irritate you to get what they want. And they’re persistent, they don’t give up.” For advocates, this buzz is generated through social media, traditional media, events and using great storytellers to carry the message.

“And in the end,” Blackstock says, “some of them will bite.”

But this ‘bite’, she explains, is something that’s peaceful and respectful. “So the whole thing is enveloped in the types of examples I want to set for children.”

And this is why going to a Caring Society event is a joyful experience.

“Even though we’re sitting outside parliament and the kids are reading letters to the Prime Minister, you’ll find them blowing bubbles and singing songs because we’re celebrating a change that we’re going to be making in the country.”

Free ways to make change Many First Nations families have low incomes, and because they are the ones experiencing the hardship most, Blackstock says they are the most motivated to be a part of the solution.

Which is why the Caring Society ensures the support it asks of people doesn’t depend on financial ability.

“A lot of charities in my country ask the public to get involved by making a donation. [But] that’s not asking me to get involved, that’s asking my wallet to get involved,” she explains.

Instead, the Caring Society offers free ways to make change, where individuals and organisations are encouraged to show their support by signing up to campaigns, writing letters to politicians, and raising awareness through their own networks.

HOW TO INFECT CHANGE

* Stand for something, not against something. * Frame your issue in national values. * Make the issue easy to understand. * Focus on achieving action. * Maintain momentum.

Rattler 117 Autumn 2016 | 11

One of the Caring Society’s most successful campaigns, in terms of public engagement, is the I Am Witness campaign. This involved asking Canadians of all ages and ethnicities to bear witness to the case against the Canadian government (see page opposite) and make up their own mind about the government’s actions.

All relevant documents and reports from both sides of the court case, as well as video transcripts, were uploaded online, with almost 14,500 individuals and organisations signed up to be witnesses. Some children also attended court proceedings and posted witness reflections, either in drawings, videos or articles that they had written. (Check them out at www.fnwitness.ca) Empowering children Much of Blackstock’s advocacy centres on putting children’s needs first. This means giving children and young people a voice in the issues that directly affect them, as they do in I Am Witness.

It also means allowing the children to take charge of how they deliver their messages. A children’s committee decides on what events they are going to do, and these events have one rule: no adults talk.

“So imagine if we had an early 12 | Rattler 117 Autumn 2016

PHOTOGRAPH: FLICKR—THOMPSON RIVERS UNIVERSITY

“I want to raise a generation of kids, Aboriginal children, who feel proud and honoured to be who they are and who have grown up in friendship to respect the difference of other people.”

childhood event where only the kids got to talk. They organise the event and only they get to talk about inequality and about the social justice efforts they’re taking.”

Blackstock acknowledges it can be difficult to stand back and let the children take charge, especially with the risk of children disagreeing with the Caring Society’s message. “[But] it’s coming from someone who has thought about it and decided that’s the way that they think,” she says. “I would rather raise a generation of children who are critical thinkers than a bunch of blind pen points who are walking along.”

The children also worked with Blackstock to create a set of guidelines, or rules of engagement, for organisations to engage with young people, to hold the organisations accountable. The key, she says, is to engage with children who are enthusiastic about the topic you’re talking about. “Don’t just corral a bunch of teenagers and five-year-olds and say you’ve done your bit.

“When we started the work of actually engaging children themselves there was so many people saying it could not be done: ‘you can’t involve four-year-olds in this, parents will get upset, there’s going to be fireworks all over the place’. That didn’t happen.”

But as those who work with young people know, children have an inherent low tolerance for inequality; it’s the adults who need to question why we have a tolerance for it. “Why do we put up with it? Why do we make excuses for it? When we say we’re too afraid to speak up, how can we possibly say that with any credibility when we’re encouraging little children who are being bullied to have the moral courage to speak up in those circumstances, while we’re hiding under the table.”

And if her nation is serious about reconciliation, it means not saying sorry twice. “I want to raise a generation of kids, Aboriginal children, who feel proud and honoured to be who they are and who have grown up in friendship to respect the difference of other people, and that Aboriginal children do not have to recover from their childhoods.

And I want the non-Aboriginal children to be equally proud of their heritage and where they come from, and to know and respect the lands of which they are now calling home and to never have to grow to say ‘I’m sorry’.” ★

TAKING ON THE BIG GUNS

For more than 10 years, Cindy Blackstock and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society ‘worked’ with the Canadian government to document inequalities facing First Nations children and their families, particularly the unnecessary removal of children from their homes.

Then, in 2005, they presented the government with an evidenced-based solution, backed by more than 20 leading researchers. “Canada agreed with the problem, they agreed with the solution, but they never implemented it,” Blackstock says.

Waiting to find another solution in the hope it might be implemented was not an option. “We added up between 1989 and 2012 the number of sleeps First Nations children on reserve had spent away from their families because of this inequality in child welfare. It came to 187,000 years of childhood.”

The price of waiting was far too high. “We just decided that we needed to do something to show these children we loved them enough to fight for them.”

So in 2007, the Caring Society joined with the Assembly of First Nations to file a human rights complaint against the Canadian government for its failure to provide equitable and culturally-based child welfare services to First Nations children on-reserve, alleging this failure amounted to discrimination on the basis of race and ethnic origin.

It turned out to be quite a fight. “This case is the only example that we know of in the world where your contemporary government, a developed country like Canada, has literally been put on trial for its contemporary treatment of children before a legal body that can force it to change its practice.”

For six years, the government tried to get the case dismissed on legal or technical grounds. “They were unsuccessful in all those legal arguments,” Blackstock says.

Obviously, it’s a risky move to bite the hand that feeds you, especially if they bite back. At the time they filed the complaint, the Caring Society was government funded. Thirty days after filing, that funding was pulled. (The Assembly of First Nations, the co-complainant, saw their last government dollar in that same period.)

Furthermore, in 2011, Blackstock found out the Canadian government had had her under surveillance since 2007.

“Surveillance not just of my electronic communication but of my personal movements.”

Although the Privacy Commissioner deemed this action illegal, there was no recourse to make them stop. So the original complaint was amended to include an allegation of retaliation.

“I am entitled to a financial judgment in that case, which I am going to take but I’m not going to take it personally— I’m going to gift it to the children’s charities that have been cut by the federal government,” Blackstock says.

Thankfully, the people of Canada rallied around them. “Because we have a real public engagement strategy, where we invite every Canadian regardless of income to join us in co-creating a Canada where all children are valued and respected and where we honour our respective heritages, including the Aboriginal heritage, we found all kinds of people sending us money and the communities themselves have rallied around us.”

And because they were no longer beholden to the bureaucracy that surrounds government grants, the Caring Society could be more responsive to the community. “The little money we had could be used for the children and for the communities in ways that truly responded to their needs. And when we were cut we actually created a lot of credibility with the community.”

That credibility will surely rise in light of the findings of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, handed down on 26 January this year. The Tribunal found that the Canadian government is racially discriminating against 163,000 First Nations children and their families, by providing flawed and inequitable child welfare services and failing to ensure equitable access to government services available to other children.

The Canadian government has indicated it will not appeal the Tribunal’s decision.

The Caring Society has also requested the Tribunal order the government to pay compensation of $20,000 for every child who was taken from a family living on reserve after 2006, with the money to be put into an independent trust to pay for healing. At the time of writing, the government claims there is insufficient evidence to support these amounts.

Judgement on compensation has not been finalised.

Rattler 117 Autumn 2016 | 13

VOX POPPETS Technology: what children want Rattler asked children in outside school hours care to share how they use technology in their services, and how they’d like to use it in the future.

“I love using iMovie to create films with Connor and Elis. I like to direct but the other two have lots of great ideas too. We like creating action films and we do our own stunts! We do pretend fighting scenes. When I’m not using technology, I love playing soccer.”

Oliver (9) Fun Club, Wollongong East “My favourite app to use at vacation care is ‘Just Dance’. We all line up, and the app tells us which dance moves we should bust out!”

Ella (8) Burwood Heights OOSH

“Technology helps you look things up if you don’t know something. We use iPads and play games on them too.

I help with the newsletter we write on the computer.”

Maggie (6) Australia Street OSHC “Sometimes we go on the iPads and we also watch the TV—like a movie. [In future?] Allow days where the kids can bring in their own technical devices. Maybe if some of the kids can’t or don’t have their own devices we could maybe have more iPads or computers that they could use.

Alice (9) Stanmore OSHC

meet our panel Ajay

Maggie 14 | Rattler 117 Autumn 2016

Alice

Charlie

Mika

Ella

Isabel

Oliver

Kaylee

Jonathan Christian

Connor, Oliver and Elis at Fun Club.

“At our centre, we use GarageBand to create music.

Using the app, we can record our voice singing, and add any instrument we want to the song.

Listening to the music that we create is the best part!”

Jonathan (9) Burwood Heights OOSH “Well the computers are technology and the educators type on the computers. The TV, we get to watch TV. [In future] maybe we could type on the computers.”

Mika (7) Stanmore OSHC “One Night Werewolf is a Cluedo-like game on the iPad that teaches us about strategy and problem solving. I love this game because it is fun and promotes teamwork. Best of all, everyone gets to play a unique role in the game!”

Isabel (10) Burwood Heights OOSH

“It would be good to work on technology that does not use power to reduce global warming caused by power.”

Charlie (7) Australia Street OSHC

“I can ask one of the staff to download a song that I like, so that we can dance to it, and have fun with everyone” Christian (7) Burwood Heights OOSH

“I play mainly Minecraft and Geometry Dash. I like to play Samsung Galaxy at Fun Club. I bring my music in on my iPad and I share it with my friends.

We make movies together using iMovie.”

Connor (9) Fun Club, Wollongong East

“We sometimes use technology on Science Day or to find out how to make things.”

Oliver (6) Australia Street OSHC

“I only come to Fun Club in school holidays. I use the iPad and I brought my DS this time. I play ‘Pirates of The Caribbean’ on it.

I also like to listen to music and share my music with my friends.

I like making movies with Oliver and Connor—it’s a lot of fun! “ Elis (7) Fun Club, Wollongong East

“We have iPads for the kids. We have a Wii in the year five and six room. We can watch movies.

[In future] maybe we could have more iPads, more Wii games.”

Ajay (11) Stanmore OSHC “Using Bluetooth we connect our iPad to the speakers and we blast out our favourite tunes.

At our centre, we love to sing, dance and play. My two favourite games are musical statues and musical chairs.”

Kaylee (8) Burwood Heights OOSH Rattler 117 Autumn 2016 | 15

C’MON GET SAVVY

From enrolments and communication to banking and payroll, technology offers many opportunities for services to streamline and automate otherwise time-consuming processes. By Camille Howard.

T

hese days you can’t go to an early childhood event or conference without coming across the growing number (and range) of technology providers selling their wares. With most promising to boost productivity and change the way you manage your service, there is much confusion about what services really need when it comes to managing operations.

To help shed some light on the possibilities, Rattler spoke to Michelle Gujer and Rebecca Cooper from Gowrie Victoria, who overhauled the management processes at Gowrie’s Docklands service.

About five years ago, Cooper, operations manager, and Gujer, then manager of Docklands, identified a range of inefficiencies in operational practices and decided to make some changes. Now, as well as overhauling its management software, the service uses technology for communicating with families, banking, payroll and documentation across Gowrie Victoria programs, including the newly opened Broadmeadows Valley Program, which Gujer now manages.

Here’s how they do it…

Child Care Management System With all services required to operate under the Child Care Management System (CCMS), there are opportunities to maximise CCMS software to reduce inefficiencies.

16 | Rattler 117 Autumn 2016

This was the case for Cooper and Gujer, who realised there was too much double handling of information, and set about streamlining their place management system into the one software program.

Fortuitously, one of their parent committee members at the time was a software developer, so Cooper worked closely with him to customise a solution across Gowrie Victoria, which could then be tailored to the needs of individual services.

“It looks after our waiting list as well as our enrolments for the current children that we’ve got booked in, and all our fees and everything,” Cooper says of the software.

To explain how it works, Cooper puts it into a new parent’s perspective: “When they first join our service, the first thing would be to go on our waiting list. We have a link on our website that families can click on which takes them to the [software provider’s] site for them to log their details and log their child onto our waiting list.

Through that there’s a payment gateway where families will pay the waiting list application fee. That’s their initial point of actually providing their child’s details to us.”

This means the service has an immediate record of the child on their system, which they use when it comes time to offer that family a place.

“We can swap the child from the waiting list with a click of a button

to being in our place management system, where we can start to apply booked days, start to apply their fees and gather further information from that family from the enrolment form.”

This system is also used to host a secure parent portal, which they use for re-enrolments each year. “An email goes to the family with a link and a secure password so they can log in and update any of their necessary information. So it cuts out a lot of admin entry work at our end,” Cooper explains.

For security purposes, once a family has been emailed a link, they will also be sent a security code via SMS, which they need to log into the portal.

“So we know that we definitely have the correct person who is going to be accessing their information.”

According to Gujer, this has cut down hours of work. “We actually just did a manual system of enrolling kindergarten at [Broadmeadows Valley] this morning and we were brain dead after!” she says. “Technology has changed our world in terms of that process.”

“Previously we had an access database waiting list system and we were using a different software provider for our place management system,” Cooper explains. “The two systems didn’t talk to each other either, so it was a matter of always having to double handle data entry.”

So each time a family was added to the waiting list, they had to be

Even with technology’s obvious benefits, Gujer says a big challenge is the pressure for everything to be instant.

re-entered when their child was offered a place.

“We also had different arrangements in place about booking, so when it came to marking our rolls, it would take me two days,” Cooper adds.

After spending many hours working with the developer to build their system, Cooper says they now have a tailormade system that will evolve with future plans. “The benefit for us is that we have a system that has met our needs and could grow as we grow.”

Communicating with families The most efficient technology services use to communicate with families is email, which is sent out weekly.

“At each site, the educators and managers will feed into the admin team whatever they want to put into ‘The Weekly’,” Gujer explains. “It covers things like what’s happening in the service, what’s happening in and around the centre, and updates about what’s happening in the kindergarten program. And we use that as a way of promoting our integrated long day care kindergarten program.”

They also use email to communicate with families about parenting support groups and professional development opportunities for the wider early childhood community.

To create and distribute the emails, they use MailChimp, a free online email marketing software that helps you manage your mailing lists, design and send emails, and track the results of your

email campaigns. You can even link it to your social media accounts.

“We use MailChimp because it is easily accessible on computers and on people’s smartphones,” Cooper explains. (While most education and care services will only need MailChimp’s ‘forever free’ plan, once there are more than 2,000 subscribers in a mailing list, you need to upgrade to a paid service.)

Internal communication between staff across Gowrie Victoria services is also done via email, and now there is an expectation that all staff check their emails each day for various messages.

The customised management software also allows for SMS messages to communicate with families, which is particularly helpful in extraordinary circumstances. For example, when a suspicious package was found near the Docklands service, they were forced into lockdown. The SMS system allowed the service to get an immediate message to concerned families that everyone was safe and well.

Gowrie Victoria also uses Facebook to communicate with families and the wider sector, with clear protocols set up from the beginning. “We’re pretty clear in our enrolment process with families about where we will use information and photos,” Gujer adds. “Families need to be clear about where that information is shared and how that is distributed.”

Managing payroll To manage their database of employees, Gowrie Victoria implemented a web-

based system, which allows employees to access their individual payroll information.

“It’s an employee self-service system, where employees can update personal details online,” Cooper says. “As well as their bank account details, they can access all their past payment summaries or payslips. They can also update their emergency contacts, and enter their timesheets and leave requests.”

A key benefit of being web-based is that employees can check in from any computer or their smartphone.

“Obviously, with the casual workforce that we have, for them, if they’ve forgotten to do their timesheet onsite, for example, they don’t miss out on getting paid because they can access that at home,” Cooper adds.

Keeping cash flowing Accepting payments from families is now easier, too, with direct debit rolled into Gowrie’s management system.

Families are given the option of using either their credit card (set up on a secure payment gateway online) or direct debit from their bank account (set up through Gowrie’s bank), with fees automatically deducted every two weeks, less Child Care Rebate and Child Care Benefit entitlements.

This takes a lot of pressure off cash flow. “Previously, we were providing our bank account details to families and they were making their own payments to that bank account,” Cooper says. “We can now can get a result straight away

Rattler 117 Autumn 2016 | 17

“Technology is a fantastic way to communicate with families, but I think as educators we also need to be mindful and remember that technology is there to support our work with families and not to overtake or do our work with families.”

if those payments are being declined. So we can be a lot more proactive.”

When setting up the payment system for the new Broadmeadows Valley service, which is in quite a vulnerable area, Gujer says there was a lot of discussion about whether electronic payments would work for their families.

The final decision was to stick with the direct debit system. “So we’re going into this community with high expectations for families,” she says. Just in case, they are set up to receive payments via EFTPOS, BPAY or cash, if necessary.

It helps that Centrelink services have been pushed online. “We also need to look at how we push people online but support them to do that,” Gujer adds.

They are also investigating CentrePay, Cooper says, a free government service families can set up to pay childcare fees as regular deductions from their Centrelink payments.

Less paper weight Wherever possible, Gujer says she tries to “go paperless”. To do this, all the information within the place management system is stored in the cloud, which means it is stored securely on an external database accessed through the internet (so instead of storing information on your computer’s hard drive, for example, you save it to a remote database).

She also tries to scan information electronically, to eliminate the need to store reams of paper records. Each child has their own digital file, too, which is stored electronically on Gowrie’s server.

“All their written documentation, any information that the staff may have done as individual observations, any referrals, any work with other agencies with that family, that is all saved in that child’s individual file,” Gujer explains. “So as that child moves from room to room 18 | Rattler 117 Autumn 2016

that individual electronic file moves to their new room leader, so a child may have up to a five-year history of data kept electronically.”

However, this year Gujer says they are reviewing their documentation with the help of consultants Anne Stonehouse and Rachel Flottman.

“We’re undertaking a total review and we’re reflecting on every piece of documentation that we keep and whether it is necessary or if we are doubling up,” she says. “The aim is not to come out with a system or a template, it is to get all educators and leaders to think more deeply about the types of documentation that are kept and why.”

Safe and sound As with any confidential information— whether hard copy or digital—security is paramount, so Gowrie has systems in place to safeguard private information.

For security around cloud storage they made sure they used an Australianbased provider, with nothing stored overseas. They also have an IT manager who was heavily involved in the set-up phase to manage overall security of information.

At an operations level, there is also a limit on who can access their management system.

“Everyone needs an individual login,” Gujer explains, “if anything gets changed [on the system] the user’s name is recorded so any change can be tracked back.”

Across the board, staff are prohibited from using their phones in the program to take photos, even on excursions. “They have to take it on a camera and it needs to be then downloaded to the Gowrie files,” Gujer says.

“It’s not good practice for staff to have professional data on their personal phones,” she adds. “We know that

they do access their emails and things like that via their own phones but information related to children and families is not kept on their phones.”

Final word of caution Even with technology’s obvious benefits, Gujer says a big challenge is the pressure for everything to be instant. “Particularly with children’s documentation, where families want that instantaneous [record] sent to their phones. It’s certainly something that we talk about a lot, but every time you get on and enter something into a computer or device, that’s minutes and sometimes hours that it takes you away from a child.

“Technology is a fantastic way to communicate with families, but I think as educators we also need to be mindful and remember that technology is there to support our work with families and not to overtake or do our work with families,” Gujer says. “So never underestimate the importance of a verbal conversation with families and that face-to-face with families and children. That’s critical.

“Also, when we use technology to document children’s learning we need to be thinking about who we are documenting for: the child. So if we are saving that on the hard drive, or wherever, how can a child access that?”

She also cautions against using technology for planning, developing and recording the curriculum.

“There are some systems where you can enter in your observations and it will spit out your strategies and things like that,” she says. “We really don’t that to be part of our practice because we really want educators to think. We want them to be purposeful in what they do and be really thinking deeply about the types of programs they create, rather than some system telling them what areas they should be working on.” ★ * When considering new technologies, services must ensure they are meeting all the necessary security and privacy protocols to protect highly sensitive information. Seek advice from a trusted expert to help determine the possibilities within your service.

Don’t know where to start?

We have created a technology audit checklist to help you on your way.

To find out more, visit: www.ccccnsw.org.au/rattlerresources

NDIS

Early intervention and the

From July this year, the National Disability Insurance Scheme will roll out across Australia. Margie O’Tarpey explores how it will function in the early childhood sector, including early childhood intervention services.

E

arly education and care services are familiar with the support for services to work with the children with additional needs. However, services may need to learn more about how the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) interacts with the Preschool Disability Support Program and the Inclusion Support Programme to support children and their families.

The NDIS is a new way of providing funding for individualised support for eligible people with permanent and significant disability, their families and carers. Disability can affect anyone, so having the right support makes a big difference, especially when it takes into account individual needs, preferences and aspirations.

From July 2013, the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) commenced the first stage of the NDIS rollout, and is now being rolled out in South Australia, Tasmania, New South Wales and Victoria and parts of Queensland, EARLY INTERVENTION APPROACH Western Australia and the Northern National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) has worked with leading early Territory. Full roll out will commence childhood intervention practitioners and researchers to design a nationally progressively from July this year. consistent Early Childhood Early Intervention (ECEI) approach.

The NDIS is being introduced in Early Childhood Intervention Australia (ECIA, the national peak body supporting stages because it is a big change and it children with disabilities and their families) endorses practices that promote, is important to get it right, and make it encourage and support community inclusion for all children and their families. sustainable. It will also ensure a smooth The ECEI approach will help all children with developmental delay or disability transition for people with disability and and their families to achieve better long-term outcomes through support support providers. services in their local community, regardless of diagnosis.

Having a good understanding of the Initially, families will meet with an access partner to discuss their needs. The interface between the NDIS and the access partner will draw on their early childhood knowledge to determine early childhood sector is important. appropriate supports for the child and family, including information, emotional To prepare for the rollout and to find support and specialised early intervention supports. With an emphasis on out more, early childhood education inclusion, each child will be supported in a range of mainstream settings, such and care services should visit the as preschool, playgroup and other early childhood settings.

NDIS website (www.ndis.gov.au). The Here’s a summary of the ECEI approach: NDIS provides factsheets outlining the ◆ A family meets with an experienced early childhood intervention service obligations of the scheme and the early provider (access partner) to discuss their needs. childhood system. The website also links ◆ The access partner determines the appropriate supports for the child and to NDIS information sessions as each family, which may include a number of actions: new area transitions to the scheme.

– information services, emotional support or referral to a mainstream service As well as the national website, – short to medium-term supports or longer term intensive supports. services should check in regularly ◆ The access partner will assist a child and their family if they need more to their relevant state or territory intensive supports. The access partner will complete a support plan and government department (see page 21). submit it to the NDIA for approval ◆ Once the plan is approved, the family can choose the early intervention provider(s) they wish to work with and the support begins.

To find out more visit www.tinyurl.com/NDIS-ECEI-approach

NDIS and early intervention

The NDIS recognises the important role of early intervention and family support in its funding package.

Rattler 117 Autumn 2016 | 19

“We want a society where inclusion is the norm, where children with developmental delay and disability are welcomed in all settings.”

– Margie O’Tarpey

INCLUSION AND EDUCATION

Inclusive and collaborative approaches between early intervention service providers, early childhood education services, as well as other education, health and community services, will reduce the long-term costs of care and support for children with developmental delays or disabilities and their families.

In the broadest sense, inclusion can enhance Australia’s social capital by engaging more people within the community and, through that, better reflect the community’s diversity. To this end, it creates better networks among people, breaks down stereotypes and promotes economic as well as social participation.

A recent national survey conducted by Children with Disability Australia confirmed that children with developmental delay and disability face considerable barriers to a quality education.

The survey assessed the direct education experiences of students with disability.

Results included the following: ◆6 8% of parents surveyed believed their children were not receiving adequate support at school.

To that end, the NDIS provides disability support, which aims to: ◆ provide information and referrals, links to services and activities, individualised plans and, where necessary, supports over a lifetime ◆ raise community awareness and encourage greater inclusion and access to mainstream services, community activities and other government initiatives ◆ s upport service providers to build capacity and be part of the scheme ◆ find new and better ways of providing support, by building on what works well and learning from the lived experience of people with disability.

Assistance from the NDIS is not means tested and has no impact on income support, such as the disability support pension and carers allowance. Existing

◆O ne in four children with disability had been refused enrolment at some point, and a further 17% were only offered part-time enrolment.

Is this the vision we want? Or do we want an Australian society where inclusion is the norm, where children with developmental delay and disability are welcomed in all settings, where early childhood intervention is well integrated in children’s lives, and the process of providing specialised support and services for children who have developmental delay or disability is embedded in their community? We should aim for a society where all ECI supports are provided using a family-centred approach, and are tailored to meet individual needs and support the child in their own environment and in their everyday experiences and activities.

national and state-based services and supports will continue until eligible people start their plan with the NDIS. Under the scheme, early childhood intervention (ECI) service providers are asked to estimate the cost of delivering a ‘typical’ suite of interventions for the nominated period for a child. The costing may include the availability of a range of disciplines required for a child, given

NDIS & INCLUSION SUPPORT PROGRAMME

The NDIS will not be responsible for inclusion supports that enable children to participate in early childhood education and care settings that will be covered by the Inclusion Support Programme (ISP) under the Jobs for Families Child Care Safety Net. According to ndis.gov.au the NDIS will be responsible for:

◆ individualised supports, specific to a child’s disability (or developmental delay), which are additional to the needs of children of a similar age and beyond the reasonable adjustment requirements of early childhood development service systems ◆ early interventions for children with disability (or developmental delay) which are specifically targeted at enhancing a child’s functioning to undertake activities of daily living, but not supports which are specifically for the purpose of accessing a universal service, such as school readiness programs that prepare a child for education.

Read the NDIS Operational Guideline on ‘Supports for early childhood’ for more information at www.tinyurl.com/NDIS-ECEC

20 | Rattler 117 Autumn 2016

their functional needs, the allocation of one of the therapists as a key worker to the family, the delivery of services in the child’s usual setting (home, childcare centre, playgroup, transition to school) and the provision of educational/ information materials to inform the family on how they can best guide the child’s development.

Reasonable and necessary supports are funded by the NDIS to help a participant (family and carers) to reach their goals, objectives and aspirations in a range of areas, which may include education, employment, social participation, independence, living arrangements and health and wellbeing.

In order to be considered reasonable and necessary, a support must: ◆b e related to the participant’s disability ◆n ot include day-to-day living costs that are not related to a participant’s disability support needs ◆ r epresent value for money ◆b e likely to be effective and beneficial to the participant ◆ t ake into account informal supports given to participants by families, carers, networks and the community.

Some types of supports the NDIS may fund for participants include: ◆d aily personal activities ◆ transport to enable participation in community, social, economic and daily life activities ◆ therapeutic supports, including behavioural support ◆h elp to a participant by skilled personnel in aids or equipment assessment, set up and training ◆h ome modification design and construction.

There are some kinds of supports that will not be funded or provided by the NDIS, including when it: ◆ i s not related to the participant’s disability ◆d uplicates other supports already funded by a different mechanism through the NDIS ◆ r elates to day-to-day living costs that are not related to a participant’s support needs ◆ i s likely to cause harm to the participant or pose a risk to others.

A related ‘capacity building program’ for service providers and organisations that support early intervention and inclusion

KEY NDIS WEBSITES

NDIA: www.ndis.gov.au NSW: www.ndis.nsw.gov.au Western Australia: www.disability.wa.gov.au Queensland: www.communities.qld.gov.au South Australia: www.dcsi.sa.gov.au/services/disability-sa Tasmania: www.dhhs.tas.gov.au/disability NT: www.health.nt.gov.au/Aged_and_Disability/Office_of_Disability ECIA: www.ecia.org.au in the community has been created through the Information, Linkages and Capacity Building Framework (ILC). ILC connects people with disability, their families and carers, with appropriate disability, community and mainstream supports and assists children and families to gain access to other supports that are not directly tied to their individual funded NDIS package.

The transition to the NDIS will mean changes for ECI service providers and for the broader childhood education sectors.

To prepare for the roll out, early childhood education and care services may benefit from working in partnership with their local early childhood intervention providers to

discuss the particulars of: ◆g eneral supports available for children and their families ◆ how and when more specialised supports will be provided ◆ r esponsibilities of early education and care services and early intervention providers.

As providers transition, maintaining networks and links will be of vital importance for children, families, and early intervention and early education service providers. ★ Margie O’Tarpey is CEO of Early Childhood Intervention Australia NSW/ACT, the peak body supporting children with disabilities and their families in NSW/ACT.

Rattler 117 Autumn 2016 | 21

TINY TINKERERS

Thankfully, when it comes to engaging with children in public spaces, the days of ‘look, but don’t touch’ are all but gone. Danielle Aynsley and Lily Katakouzinos explain how they are empowering young children with technology in museum settings.

W

hen it comes to crafting experiences, exhibits, programs and spaces for young children, the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS) takes a holistic view. Rather than thinking of technology as an addon or enhancement, we like to see how engagement with a variety of different technologies can be used to empower young children to engage with objects and ideas on a deeper and more complex level.

As a Museum, we are not just interested in the content or the ideas on show, but rather engaging children in the process of learning itself through play. It is curiosity and creativity that 22 | Rattler 117 Autumn 2016

encourage children to value a museum environment while fostering a desire for lifelong learning. At MAAS, the tools we use to facilitate learning can be as simple as a pencil or as complex as a personal interaction with a robot.

We also think about what is unique to our exhibitions, collection and environment that will spark curiosity in young minds. STEAM—or science, technology, engineering, arts and maths—provides a foundation for our approach. And it is the exploration of where these disciplines collide or intersect that underpins our programming for children and young people. In this respect, the objects we select to explore with children are intrinsically linked to our collection and our exhibits. Our programming has a focus on promoting curiosity and creativity through hands-on experiences, and we aim to foster a curiosity in young children about the world around them and encourage them to question how things are made and used and where they might come from.

Tinkering provides an excellent pathway to encourage this curiosity. As arts educator Rachelle Doorley writes in her book, Tinkerlab: a hands-on guide for little inventors, tinkering begins with problem solving and curiosity about how something works. “At its core,

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY MAAS

tinkering is a hands-on way to explore how something is assembled in order to learn from or improve it.” Giving young children the opportunity to tinker with technology can provide an avenue for discovering how something works in a creative and open-ended manner.

Very Slow Explosions, a program at Powerhouse Museum, gave families the opportunity to engage with the practice of tinkering. Here, families and children over the age of five were presented with old computer hard drives to deconstruct using a variety of tools. There was no set agenda, rather the activity was an open invitation to explore the internal workings of a piece of technology children see or use every day, in a handson and self-directed way.

Children have an innate sense of operating digital interfaces, but it’s another wonder entirely to take this technology apart to see what’s inside and how it works. What was beautiful to see was the interaction between children as they helped problem solve or find different materials. Naturally, appropriate safety precautions were taken, such as removing the power source and encouraging carer supervision and involvement.

Tinkering is not something to be restricted to older children; preschoolers can find great joy taking part as well. Deconstructing objects such as mechanical clocks, typewriters or even stuffed toys can be a safer introduction to tinkering, while still building an understanding of how everyday products work and becoming familiar with using basic tools, with supervision.

Engaging the youngest visitors Our latest pilot program targeting the Museum’s youngest visitors aged birth to five years is about exploring the different facets of STEAM and involving carers in the learning interactions. The underlying principles found in the practice of tinkering—via play-based, hands-on exploration of materials, self-directed engagement, creativity and curiosity—provide the basis for this program, which aims to introduce engagement with different technologies to the youngest of our visitors.

One element includes introducing young children to historical objects of technology through deep and thoughtful interrogation. As a group, carers and young children are presented with an object such as a rotary phone,

but are not told what it is. Children can touch the phone, play and explore its features and are then invited to discuss what this object could possibly be. For pre-language learners, carers can guide the process through demonstration and conversation. At MAAS, we know from research that kids are naturally drawn to objects (whether in a museum or home setting) and that they enjoy finding ways to relate to those objects in their own lives. We also know that access to objects encourages active learning and helps with the development of language, and museums are places that are enjoyed by children within a social context, often spanning a number of generations.

A helpful interrogation tool we apply at MAAS is See-Think-Wonder, an enquiry-based learning structure originally developed by the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Project Zero. First, using the example of the phone, children and their carers are asked to describe what they observe, such as colour, size, shape or any interesting features. The next layer of questioning targets what they might be thinking. For example, we might ask: what do you think this (pointing to the dial) is used for; who do you think used this; do you think this is used today? The final phase of questioning

moves into the realm of imagine, dream hypothesise, or I wonder…? I wonder if your grandparents used this; I wonder what this is called; or even, I wonder if a hippopotamus could use this. SeeThink-Wonder is a simple approach that encourages even our youngest thinkers to be a part of a more deeply engaging experience with technology, even when these objects are unfamiliar.

See-Think-Wonder can be easily adopted at home or in a childcare setting to foster the type of thinking and creativity needed for the next generation of innovators. As Grace Hawthorne, co-founder of ReadyMade magazine, says, “Makers have a curiosity for the built world around them. Understanding where things come from, how they are made, the potential of their function now and beyond, and what it takes to make something not only provides a context to appreciate the object at hand, but is essential to imagining infinite possibilities for the future.”

Learning through discovery Deeply engaging learning using technology also works for children aged from birth to two years. Heuristic Play, an idea coined by child psychologist Elinor Goldschmeid, centres upon the notion of self-discovery of material properties. While this concept is certainly not a new one within early Rattler 117 Autumn 2016 | 23

It is common in these programs to see young learners teaching the parents how to program with Scratch.

This skill exchange positively reinforces the validity of learning experiences and is far more rewarding for the young learner than praise. childhood education, it is a great method of introducing babies and toddlers to artefacts and is a key element in our pilot birth-to-two program. Setting up ‘treasure baskets’, filled with objects such as CDs, textiles, mirrors, kitchen items, bells and musical instruments, allows our youngest visitors the opportunity to feel, smell and taste different objects. These baskets give babies and young toddlers the freedom to create their own experiments: what happens if I bang this with that; does this roll; does this bounce? Presenting made objects and materials juxtaposed with natural ones allows babies to make their own discoveries about the different textures, sights and smells of the world around them.

At MAAS, engaging young children with technology also includes interaction with a whole variety of digital interfaces. The Wiggles Exhibition, our current dedicated underfives space, capitalises on traditional childhood activities (singing, dancing, physical play and games) but also uses touch screens, iPads, audio recordings and imagination-rich interior landscapes to encourage children to make their own choices and explore the space with a sense of agency and autonomy.

The Thinkspace digital learning labs 24 | Rattler 117 Autumn 2016

explore the use of digital technologies with school-age learners. According to Oliver James, digital learning manager, programs traditionally had a minimum age of seven years, because this is when young children develop the ability to articulate their right and left hand together, doing multiple tasks simultaneously. This allows learners to start using a mouse and keyboard.

However, the changing nature of digital technology with the use of touch screens allows learners to interact at a younger age, as they only need to use one hand to effectively use the device. This has allowed us to successfully move into a wide range of programs with six-yearolds, including movie making, electronics and programming.

Importantly, learning in the Thinkspace digital labs can be done as a family unit. Our family programs don’t just encourage the parent or carer to supervise the learning experience but be an active participant, ensuring both the learner and parent/carer have their own independent set of tools needed for tasks. Each program is designed to be challenging for the adult and young learner with a focus on giving them the skills needed to continue to foster learning collaborations in the home environment. For example in

our ‘Scratch’ classes, involving a visual coding language designed by MIT, the complexity of the projects built can be differentiated with a wide range of abilities. It is common in these programs to see young learners teaching the parents how to program with Scratch.

This skill exchange positively reinforces the validity of learning experiences and is far more rewarding for the young learner than praise. Creating platforms for sharing learning experiences is a key mandate of the museum.

Certainly, when the Powerhouse Museum opened its doors at the current Harris Street venue, it was renowned for cutting edge, hands-on interactive technology. It was the Museum of ‘buttons, levers and screens’. These days, using technology is more seamless. Of course, there are iPads and touch screens and buttons and interactive displays, but more importantly, there is now a twoway dialogue and active participation by children using technology as just one of the access points.

Whether it is self-directed discovery of material properties with babies and toddlers or a deeper interrogation of objects and technology, the most important factor is fostering curiosity and creativity in our littlest makers, builders and innovators. ★ Danielle Aynsley is a program producer at MAAS, focusing on developing programs for children and young people across the Powerhouse Museum, the Sydney Observatory and the Museum Discovery Centre. Lily Katakouzinos is head of programs at MAAS.

Wellbeing in the

SPOTLIGHT A new program from Community Child Care Co-operative is putting educator health and wellbeing front and centre.

H

ealth and wellbeing is becoming an increasingly important issue for educators, with more attention given to better lifestyle choices and general wellbeing in the areas of food and diet, fitness, mental health and personal financial management.

Being an early childhood educator is a very rewarding and fulfilling role, but research suggests that educators working in early childhood education and care suffer from far greater stress levels from the beginning of the second year of teaching than teachers from other educational levels, and also have a greater attrition rate, with educators in early education moving to primary school education, or leaving the sector altogether.

To address this, Community Child Care Co-operative has created a new toolkit for its members: EC:Living. The program seeks to address the workplace and lifestyle stresses that many educators suffer from, offering specialist assistance in the areas of physical and mental health, food and nutrition, community engagement, fitness and financial management.

EC:Living offers a range of resources and professional development and offers Community Child Care members opportunities to implement wellbeing programs within their services, for all staff and educators.

Initiated by Anthea Charalambous and Melissa Woodhouse from Community Child Care, the program was officially launched in November 2015, and featured a number of wellbeing practitioners, including wellbeing expert Dr Suzy Green, laughter yoga therapist Connie Costa, personal trainer Luke George, food nutritionist Kylie McCarthy, and musician Darren Percival.

Speaking at the launch, Woodhouse said the program was initiated in response to feedback Community Child Care received from its membership, and an attempt to focus on practical solutions to improving wellbeing for educators.

“EC:Living is a unique program that focuses solely on educators, with a wide range of fitness and health tips, including nutrition, creative quick and easy food recipes, personal financial management, stress management and exercise, furthering your professional career, engaging with like-minded people in the community—pretty much, everything needed for educators to keep on track.

“We’re also developing professional development programs for services to implement for their staff, so the program is an attempt to introduce these ideas for educators on a personal basis, and at the workplace level.” ★

Melissa

ACCESS ALL AREAS

Anthea

We know early educators are some of the busiest people on the planet, so EC:Living has been designed to provide information about wellbeing in an easy-to-read and accessible format.

The website has regular updates with wellbeing tips, as well as having access to professional development opportunities and discounted prices to publications and resources on wellbeing— everything you’ll need to keep yourself on track … and stay there!

Community Child Care Co-operative members can use their existing membership details for complete access to the EC:Living website.

Go to www.ecliving.org.au and subscribe to receive email updates and wellbeing tips as they are published.

Also, the first edition of the EC:Living magazine will be published in May. This 48-page must-have publication is available at the special members price of $10 per edition ($20 for nonmembers). To pre-order your copy, go to ccccnsw.org.au/shop or order from www.ecliving.org.au

Rattler 117 Autumn 2016 | 25

1

uality Area 1: Q Educational program and practice

What is the Quality Area?

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2

4

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1.1 An approved learning framework informs the development of a curriculum that enhances each child’s learning and development.

1.1.1 Curriculum decision making contributes to each child’s learning and development outcomes in relation to their identity, connection with community, wellbeing, confidence as learners and effectiveness as communicators.

1.1.4 The documentation about each child’s program and progress is available to families.

case study

1.2.1 Each child’s learning and development is assessed as part of an ongoing cycle of planning, documenting and evaluation.

TECHNOLOGY PRACTICE IN

Embracing technology has helped improve planning and documentation at Western Riverina Family Day Care Scheme.

Tahnee Jamieson shares their story.

J

ust a short time ago, fear of technology and resistance to change were barriers among our family day care service.

News that there was to be a major change with the introduction of the National Quality Standards and the implementation of the Early Years Framework were met with horror.

At the time, the service had a changeover of staff, with the new staff committed to implement these requirements to the best of their abilities.

Western Riverina Family Day Care Scheme consists of a diverse range of educators aged from early their 20s to mid-60s, and at that stage were all at differing stages of learning and experience. The attitudes towards technology and education ranged widely too. Some were enthralled in their studies and embraced new understandings while others were hesitant.

Two-thirds were completing tasks online, and had begun their digital journey.

Through research and their own professional development, our staff knew that digital technologies were the way of the future, especially for our scheme and its vast geographical area.

The questions for us at the time were how we would introduce it, how could we encourage educators to embrace it and how would we get it to do everything we hoped it would? The conclusion: one step at a time.

26 | Rattler 117 Autumn 2016

From 2012–2014, most educators were completing some type of formal training, though some did not own a digital device of any kind. Through training forums and child development visits the feedback we received involved fear of trying something new, not being ‘tech savvy’ and a lack of time to learn.

We invited a local technology expert along to a training forum to talk to us about technology, what would suit the educators in their environments and to show them how easy it can be to use. Most educators attended, which showed they were keen to learn despite their apprehension. Having a professional explain the jargon and demonstrate the practical functions, while engaging the educators, was a turning point.

From this day, 90 per cent of educators purchased tablets and commenced experimenting.

Child development visits involved discussions about new apps, how other services were using technology and where they could go for more information; it started the conversation.

Our goals were to use technology within our programs, to facilitate our communication with families, staff and other educators, and to become more sustainable and more time efficient.

Staff and educators spent many months experimenting, and their documentation was ever-evolving. Although educators across the scheme were all working at varying levels, those

educators using technology found it time efficient and easy to use, and the co-ordination unit spent a lot of time researching new ways and networking with other schemes to understand how others were using technology in their spaces.

In practice

The scheme has some educators leading the way in technologies. They have a passion for extending learning, using technology in their spaces and have slowly been trialling a range of apps, researching appropriate content and exploring ways of implementing technology into their practices.

Most children are familiar with the use of technology in everyday life. Using these technologies in the family day care setting is a ‘normal’ occurrence, allowing for responsible practices and encouraging collaborative learning between children and educators.

Working with educators across a vast geographical area has its challenges, without factoring in the co-ordination unit and its pivotal role in supporting educators. Using digital documentation, our educators are able to connect co-ordination unit staff as co-teachers, enabling staff to guide, support and provide reflection at any time, despite the distance in between.

Across the Hay Plains

Hay is 150 kilometres from our co-ordination unit in Griffith, and we currently have three educators there. They use a particular app for their digital documentation which is all cloud based.

Everything they record, either written, photos or videos, is all contained within a digital device. It is time efficient, accessible, sustainable and simple to use.

These educators have great relationships with their families, which has been strengthened by parents being connected to their services via the app. Parents are able to see at any time

Thursday’s group are still highly interested in insects. We explored the back yard again this morning and came across this ants’ nest. The children were fascinated and curious towards the ants’ environment. In this video, I captured the children engaging in our group discussion. Everyone took turns asking questions and they displayed active listening and understanding with the answers I gave them.”

of the day what the services are doing, how their child’s day is progressing, celebrating milestones and being involved in their child’s learning. The parents also have the ability to provide feedback, support their child’s participation and provide ideas.

As an example, the educator at Parkhill FDC recalls how she used technology to extend an experience with children who were interested in insects and came across an ants’ nest that had a partial fracture, allowing the children to see the ants busy at work: “Thursday’s group are still highly interested in insects. We explored the backyard again this morning and came across this ants’ nest. The children were fascinated and curious towards the ants’ environment. In this video, I captured the children engaging in our group discussion. Everyone took turns asking questions and they displayed active listening and understanding with the answers I gave them.”

Turning it into an intentional teaching opportunity, the children discussed the working ants, with the educator asking open-ended questions, all the while capturing the experience on video. This was then uploaded onto the class Rattler 117 Autumn 2016 | 27

TECHNOLOGY IN MANAGEMENT

After our assessment and rating visit last year, we sat down to re-group and focus on the goals we would work toward in the immediate future.

Looking to the future, we wanted to become more sustainable, communicate more efficiently with families, staff and educators and work toward digital portfolios.

The co-ordination unit commenced looking into using digital attendances, saving the educators time, admin staff time and being sustainable by using fewer reams of paper. We have also commenced developing our intranet, to allow educators a portal to access at a click of the button. This intranet will hold all relevant documentation that educators use on a daily basis, a resource library, all legislative requirements, a notice board to advertise professional development and a in-service messaging system. Access is password protected but accessible 24/7.

The intranet also has a parental system attached, including a notice board, parental resources library and in-service messaging system. This should be up and running by the end of the year and it will make over 30 educators and 260 families connected.

feed where parents and co-teachers could watch, listen and gain an understanding of the teaching that was caught at that moment.

And as co-drivers in their learning, the children use technology to share information and communicate their own learning. For example, the following day, the children captured a spider in a jar, and using the video function of a mobile device they zoomed in and around the spider to see the spider from different angles, wanting to share this with their parents.

Down on the farm

Coming from a small rural community, the school-aged children from Little Learners FDC in Barellan are immersed in technology at school. Because of their remote location they have extra opportunities to explore, thanks to the many different devices and options at their fingertips.

At this service, the educators use technology to complement their curriculum, and it is available to use in most learning situations, as required. The children are excited to use the internet for research, such as through YouTube and Google, and they are competent and knowledgeable in how to research online and collaborate to achieve the end product they are working towards.

For example, after watching footage of the floods in northern Australia while at school, the children arrived at the service and began a heated debate over the cause. The three boys all thought they had the right answer, so the educator asked, “How do we find this out?” They all went to a digital device and proceeded to find the videos they had been watching at school.

The boys showed the educator and the younger children the footage they had seen.

The conversation was boisterous, and the younger children were amazed with what they were seeing. A five-year-old 28 | Rattler 117 Autumn 2016

wanted to know how the floods could happen and was worried they may happen in her own community. The educator seized the opportunity to extend this learning experience and show the younger children how this disaster could happen by re-enacting it in the sandpit.

She explained what she wanted to do to the school-aged boys, who were excited at exploring this interest further.

“Can we GoPro and show our teacher what we are doing?”

The significance of them wanting to construct their learning and transfer from one setting to another was not lost on the educator, so she allowed them record their experiment with the GoPro, a small, head-mounted video camera the boys were confident in setting up.

The boys arrived at the sand pit, and after re-watching the YouTube video of the floods on the iPad, they co-constructed the scene as they believed it happened. They instructed the younger children to dig out a dam, with another school-aged child helping to dig further to allow for a steady stream of water. An 11-year-old moved around the scene to capture the experiment from all angles and proceeded to lie down with his chin below the dam wall. He wanted to capture the water spilling over the side as they had on the YouTube video.

The younger children sat either side while a 12-year-old brought the hose over and began to allow the water to come down into their ‘Wivenhoe Dam’. Eventually the water started spilling over the side. The younger children could then connect the video images from the iPad to what they were witnessing at the sandpit: “There’s too much water in there, it’s coming over the side”.

The older boys had a sense of ownership from being able to ‘teach’ the younger children what they had learnt that day. And by filming the recreated flood, they could show their teacher the following day how they had shared their learning with the younger children at the service.

The video was also shared with families via their digital portfolios and day book. The families at this service place significance on the partnerships built between the local central school and the service, as well as the learning opportunities the younger children gain by the shared experiences with the older the children.

We believe that technology is the way of the future and this is being built into Western Riverina Family Day Care Scheme service policies. We have taken on technology one step at a time. We want our educators to grow and become confident in exploring new media, and this takes time. While our journey has been slow, we have come a long way—‘technology’ and ‘family day care’ didn’t belong in the same sentence five years ago. Today, however, it ensures time efficiency, currency and connectedness with families. ★ Tahnee Jamieson is coordinator at Western Riverina Family Day Care Scheme, Griffith.

Since becoming federal Education Minister, Simon Birmingham has come out as a vocal supporter of early education. He opens up to Rattler about who and what drives his passion for the early years.

You have young daughters.

Do they attend an education and care service? If so, what kind?

My youngest attends an early learning centre and my elder daughter has started her first year of school. Both started out with a day or two in community childcare around their first birthday. It’s important to me the early years part of the system ties in with what we’re doing more broadly in education, taking a holistic view from highchair to higher education.

What do you understand as the value of early education as the first part of lifelong education, and the value of it being in the one department (as opposed to it being within Social Services portfolio)?

Learning is life-long, and starts with parents interacting with their children from the earliest age and then, for many children, this is complemented when they move into the childcare system and on through school and beyond.

You can see the importance the Turnbull Government places on early education in our investment of around $40 billion in childcare and early learning support over

the next four years to benefit around one million families, including an increase of more than $3 billion for the Jobs for Families Child Care Package to support parents in balancing work and family life.

You’ve spoken publicly about the importance of early childhood education, how will you ensure it receives the attention it needs, alongside all education and training in your portfolio?

Early childhood education is vital in the development of young lives and forms part of the Turnbull Government’s holistic approach to education—looking at the system from highchair to higher education.

A big part of this coming year is about bedding down the reforms we’ve introduced to ensure our childcare system is high quality, more flexible, more accessible and more affordable. I am passionate about ensuring young children are well prepared for school and with my personal interest and experience I will dedicate much of my time to considering future policies in early childhood education.

You’re also on record saying you’d like all children to have access to two years of preschool—what will you do to see this happen?

We know that learning is most effective when it begins at a young age and that quality early education can significantly improve education and life outcomes for children, especially those from more disadvantaged backgrounds To that end, we’re working to develop a long-term, sustainable funding model for preschool but in the interim we’ve extended the agreement with the states and territories on the Universal Access to Early Childhood Education by two years, bringing it in line with future funding decisions for schools. That provides an extra $840 million to support access to quality preschool programs for 600 hours in the year before full time school, and also ensures the system delivers high quality education outcomes and is more transparent and sustainable.

While we work to make early childhood education more accessible, affordable and sustainable, parents also have a big role to play. I know parents have never been busier and we are all searching for that extra hour in the day, but something as simple as spending just 15 minutes a day reading to your kids can also make a big difference to the start of their education.

What do you want your legacy to be from your time in charge of this portfolio?

Well that won’t be for me to judge. It isn’t about me, it’s about building on what is already an internationally recognised childcare, school and higher education system and I look forward to working with families and the sector to make that happen.

In relation to early learning, I’d be proud to see the sector be simpler and fairer, delivering the support to Australian families who rely on it to balance work or study with family obligations while also supporting clearly defined early learning objectives for all children.

From where or who do you draw inspiration for your role?

My nan, who was a former school teacher and sparked much of the interest in public policy and current events that led to my political involvement.

What’s a little-known fact about yourself you can share with our readership?

On occasion I may have resorted to singing the national anthem to the girls when trying to get them to sleep! ★ Rattler 117 Autumn 2016 | 29

book worm In Rattler’s literary roundup, we preview what’s new on the shelves…

No Place Like Home

Ronojoy Ghosh Random House RRP: $24.99 George the polar bear is a grump. He never smiles, he hates crowds, and he doesn’t even like ice cream. Most of all, he is unhappy with his home; living in the city just doesn’t feel right.

So George sets out on a journey to find his real home, trying a few other homes on for size until he finds one that is just right.

The sweet and colourful illustrations by Ghosh, a newcomer to the children’s book scene, perfectly capture the theme of being true to yourself and finding what makes you happy.

I Need a Hug

By Aaron Blabey Scholastic Australia RRP: $16.99 “I need a hug. Will you cuddle me, Lou?” “What? With those spikes? Get away from me! Shoo!”

All she wants is a hug, but it seems no one wants to give the poor little porcupine protagonist any affection— they all run away screaming. Then she meets a true friend.

Packed with Blabey’s characteristic rhymes and rib-tickling illustrations, young children will appreciate the subtle messages of friendship, acceptance and not judging someone (or something) by its appearance. Suitable for all children over two, this one is ideal for reading aloud to a group—or cuddling up, with or without spikes, oneon-one!

30 | Rattler 117 Autumn 2016

Thinking and Learning About Leadership: Early childhood research from Australia, Finland and Norway

Edited by Manjula Waniganayake, Jillian Rodd and Leanne Gibbs Community Child Care Co-operative RRP: $39.95 Thinking and Learning About Leadership brings together the latest work on early childhood leadership from more than 20 researchers across Australia, Finland and Norway: members of the International

Leadership Research Forum, established in 2011.

This unique, cross-cultural collaboration aims to inform, inspire and influence current thinking and learning about early childhood leadership, both locally and globally.

Despite the geographical distance, the three countries share many of the same concerns when it comes to early childhood provision.

Written for novice to experienced early childhood practitioners, organisational managers, advocates and policy makers, the insights in this book draw attention to the importance of leadership in improving the standard of professional knowledge and expertise of early childhood practitioners and stakeholders.

Theories into Practice: Understanding and rethinking our work with young children

By Andrea Nolan and Bridie Raban Teaching Solutions RRP: $39.95 Theories into Practice explores the impact of the major theories that inform practice in early education.

Covering developmental, sociocultural, socio-behaviourist, critical and post-structuralist theories—and their practical implications—educators are encouraged towards a better understanding of how their practice is supported by theories of learning and development.

Nolan and Raban’s work draws clear links between theory and practice to help educators understand and critically reflect on their practice from a more informed perspective.

Each chapter highlights key theorists’ work, with discussion topics set up at the end to explore the threads of their thinking. And the downloadable ‘Challenging Aspects of Practice’ tool provides a practical way for educators to map their practice across the different theories in light of current pedagogy.

Children’s Accident Protection from Guild.

Because dare devils and little angels – are not as indestructible as they think.

No matter how well you look after the children in your care, accidents can happen.

Whether it’s a leap, a fall or another child’s push, the financial and emotional pain can be devastating for both you and the parents of an injured child.

When you choose Guild’s Children’s Accident Protection Insurance, you’re protected in this scenario and will be able to act quickly providing financial support to the family of an injured child.

Call us today 1800 810 213 or visit guildinsurance.com.au/cap

Insurance issued by Guild Insurance Ltd, ABN 55 004 538 863, AFSL 233791 and subject to terms, conditions and exclusions. Guild Insurance supports your association through the payment of referral fees. This document contains general advice only and doesn’t take into account what you currently have, want and need for your personal circumstances. It is important for you to consider these matters and read the Product Disclosure Statement. GLD3248 Children’s accident protection press ad 06/2015.

A NEW WELLBEING INITIATIVE FROM COMMUNITY CHILD CARE CO-OPERATIVE: PUTTING EDUCATOR HEALTH AND WELLBEING FIRST

EC:Living is a new program promoting wellbeing for educators across nutrition, physical and mental health, personal finances and community engagement.

EC:LIVING

E WELLBEING MAGAZIN MAY 2016

IDE WHAT’SyourINS self first

Putting EY mANAGING YOUR MONpes Quick and easy reci Fit and fabulous

It’s an additional benefit for Community Child Care members, giving you: ● free access to www.ecliving.org.au ● professional development opportunities ● discounts for resources like the EC:LIVING magazine and Wellbeing Diary.

ecliving.org.au

Sign up online for weekly updates from EC:Living, including the latest tips in health and wellbeing, nutrition, fitness, finances and community engagement.

Access exclusive content with your Community Child Care login details.

EC:LIVING magazine

A new 48-page magazine dedicated to educators’ wellbeing. Our expert contributors, led by clinical psychologist Dr Suzy Green, will arm you with all you need to know to maintain your mental, physical and financial health. The first edition is out this May, and is available at the special member price of $10 per edition ($20 for non-members).

Pre-order your copy at ccccnsw.org.au/ecliving

www.ecliving.org.au email: info@ecliving.org.au call: 1800 157 818