Chapter 12 Leaders in Practice Profiles

Fawn Law Davis

Director, Granny Glasgow Childcare Centre, Carnarvon (WA)

The centre, affectionately known as ‘Granny’s’, is licensed for 42 children aged between birth to 5 years each day. It provides long day care for children from families working in local fruit and vegetable plantations and mining companies. Professionals such as doctors, nurses, and school teachers who accept rural appointments and live in the community for two to three years also use Granny’s for their children. Our community is very diverse and I am committed to employing staff from these communities to support children and families to feel more secure and welcome at the centre. When I was appointed as the centre Director, I realised the need for additional funds to improve Granny’s services. While talking with a friend, I learnt about the ‘grants register kept at the local library’. I borrowed it and went about identifying grants that had anything to do with children’s services, and then wrote a whole lot of application letters to agencies. Over time, we have been successful in getting several grants and these have been used to upgrade the centre, provide professional learning opportunities for myself and the staff, and work with a financial consultant to develop a business plan for the centre.

As the centre Director, I believe it is my role to assess and mentor staff’s professional development needs individually, as well as collectively. Through my awareness of expertise and networks locally and elsewhere, I have been successful in facilitating creative learning opportunities for myself and staff. One of these was bringing a Reggio Emilia specialist from the USA, who had been working in Perth at the invitation of a local school there, to the centre for one week. The consultant worked side-by-side with staff in their playrooms during the week of her visit. I secured sufficient funds for this by applying for grants to pay for everything including the consultant’s fees, airfares, meals and accommodation costs. One of the conditions of these regional grant schemes was that professional learning events were shared with others in the community. In this case, the Reggio consultant offered workshops for local school teachers with 30 attending each night for three days. This also strengthened our connections with the schools.

Since 2008, I have embarked on several fundraising adventures to further develop the outdoor areas. We secured funding for a major redevelopment of the babies’ outdoor playground. This included nearly $100,000 from the state government lottery to remove almost half of the outside play areas and recreate bike tracks, grassed play areas, new swings, soft-fall and landscaping. In 2009, we received numerous small grants to provide books and resources for the children. In 2010, we also received small grants to provide nutrition information to parents in the form of lunch box buzz books, and hats for sun protection. In 2011, we were successful in obtaining co-funding for $740,000 from four separate funding bodies, including state and Commonwealth government to provide funding for an extension to the building to provide us with space for another 12 to 15 children. This will enable us to better meet the demands for long day care in our community.

In 2010, we were also successful in our application to DEEWR Early Childhood Education and Care Best Practice workforce funding opportunities for professional development. I wrote a training program which was submitted and we were one of 14 submissions Australia wide to be successful. We received $20,000 from DEEWR that year to complete staff professional development here at the centre. The title of the project was: ‘Developing understanding about the Early Years Learning Framework, through intensive professional development’. We negotiated the program with Meerilinga Training College in Perth. They provided two extremely experienced and resourceful trainers with hands-on in the room assistance over a week-long period, plus two evenings of workshops for all early years practitioners in Carnarvon, hosted by us at the centre. In the DEEWR program, we maintained weekly telephone and email follow-ups with questions and answers flowing through weekly and sometimes daily sessions. At the end of the three months the trainers returned to the centre for another week of intensive training and again two evening workshops. I did apply for another round of funding for $15,000 to bring them back a third time; however, this funding application was not successful. I was devastated; I’m not used to receiving ‘sorry but you were unsuccessful letters’. However, I don’t give up easily and I have been exploring other avenues for funding this work.

Tiffany Meisch

Director of Colour My World Children’s Centre, Kellyville (NSW)

I have been in the early childhood sector for the past 11 years. I began when I was 18 years of age. In the beginning I worked in early childhood environments that only really allowed for networking within the organisation.

I found it was my own passion and my own curiosity about the sector which motivated me to branch out and meet a variety of educators and professionals. Networking taught me many new things, not just about regulations, accreditation and all the obvious benefits, but it also gave me opportunities to reflect on my experiences and create my own professional philosophy about what I believe and value about the sector as through networking I was able to observe and reflect on what I had observed, heard or experienced.

Networking allows you to feel less isolated and you are able to easily relate to others in the sector who have experienced many of the same things that you have experienced. I think networking gives an added quality to your work as it enables you to evaluate your own practice and to improve. I believe if you remain isolated you run the risk of going stale and it is not possible to improve. Children deserve better than this and really so do educators and families. Every networking opportunity I get I am sure to take it.

I have come across too many directors who feel they know everything and there is no room to learn more. I know I am learning more and more every day and this shapes my practice and keeps me abreast of current thinking and educational theories. I have noticed there are directors’ groups now forming and this is something many in the sector are now seeking. However, it saddens me that there are still some settings that choose to remain isolated and I think that business and competition may be the reason for them not connecting with other programs. If we all networked and created communities of learners then children and their families and staff would benefit.

Dr Marina Papic

Manager Kids’ Early Learning, Blacktown City Council (NSW)

My vision for high-quality EC education is based on several factors. First, I bring to this role as the Manager of Kids’ Early Learning at Blacktown City Council over 30 years of practical and leadership experience including researching and working with communities. I use this expertise for raising the quality and pedagogy of our EC services. I believe whatever we do must be evidence based, research informed and evident in all of our documentation about children’s learning. This is quite a different focus for the local government context and has required a rethinking about incorporating research evidence in our programs, and engaging with research is new for many staff. For example, the staff developing our ‘Ready for School and Ready for Life Programs’ are considering current research and are investigating innovative practices so that the program we deliver will be of the highest quality.

Second, I believe that engagement with the community—linking with, for example, allied health, education, other children and community services—is essential. I believe this is a more effective way for us as a council to operate. For instance, we are engaging with varied community and health services in a project that will see a speech pathologist employed to come into a number of services as a member of staff to work with the children, families and educators. Another example of working closely with the community has been a project funded by Family and Community Services (FACS) looking at how we can engage families from low socio-economic and diverse cultural backgrounds. By working with many stakeholder agencies including the NSW Department of Education, BOSTES, parenting support services, university representatives and other EC organisations and providers we can start to think about what is best for the children in this community and how we can make our services more accessible and appropriate for all children and families in our community. For instance, I know EC qualifications do matter in EC settings; my research background informs me of this. So I want the best and most qualified EC teachers working in our services. So it is about planning for this: what are our current levels of qualifications, who in the organisation wants to upskill and complete further studies and how can we attract high-quality EC teachers and educators into our services? This requires us to engage with universities and TAFEs for professional experience placements and traineeships. We want to support their work as well as give students a good experience while they are studying EC.

Third, staff need to be provided with opportunities to be in positions of leadership. This could be working on projects with the community, sitting on committees that engage with our community partners, and also having a voice and say about our organisation. By providing staff with professional development they can become the advocates and leaders for EC and our sector. For example, at the moment staff are involved in developing a practitioner inquiry project with some external academics with the plan for staff to present at a conference later this year. This means they can share what they are doing, what they learnt, and strive for best practice in their work with young children. Our commitment to research-informed practice and to leadership is evident in our successful educator conference ‘Leading the Way’, where 10 internationally renowned EC researchers and experts presented current research and approaches to innovative practice.

Family engagement is also linked to high-quality EC settings and the research again provides evidence for us on this. We are currently looking at what services families engage in within the community to see if we can tap into them that way. We found that some families take their children to library sessions such as the interactive, early literacy program Baby Rhyme Time for children from birth to two years of age. This program is designed to support parents and carers to enhance their child’s early literacy. We are working with library staff to look for opportunities for our EC staff to attend and support those sessions to build our connections with these harder to reach families so they can feel more comfortable coming into our services.

Engaging with families is a big goal and we are working with other services within the council and across the community to engage more effectively with our diverse families. So, in many different ways we are trying to engage with the community to ensure we have the best services for the children and families in our community. We are one organisation, one team, and we have a shared vision and mission. Our staff are reporting they do feel like they ‘belong’ and this is critical—it’s not just about children and families belonging, but the staff need this too. Rebranding to Kids’ Early Learning has been successful in supporting this sense of belonging. Working with many stakeholders and even ones traditionally viewed as competitors is making a difference for our community. We have relationships with health organisations, the Department of Early Childhood, FACS, other local children’s services, universities, TAFE and national organisations such as Goodstart. This ensures a united and integrated approach to meeting the needs of the children and families in our local government area.

Maria Pender

Retired as Director, Clovelly Child Care Centre, Sydney (NSW)

As a director of a long day program and having an Aboriginal family, being a single mother and being aware that parents needed support helped me to find resources that were out there to be used. In the 1980s we had many mothers going out to work and a number of new services opening up. I thought it was important to share my knowledge with other centres so I helped set up the Eastern Suburbs Early Childhood group. Meeting with like-minded people was inspiring and we all bounced things off one another so all felt supported in our roles. Over the years I documented a resource list of many agencies in the area and shared this with all of the services. Our network group was able to provide two full-day conferences for over 100 participants at a reasonable price. Both community-based and private centres were welcome at our meetings held regularly for many years. We now have a group that meets every term to have guest speakers and share information. For three years we have had a coordinator funded through Families New South Wales and employed by SDN Children’s Services to share masses of information and bring all of the agencies together.

The priority of access guidelines to long day programs was really important to me and I felt that those families must have a place in the centres. Being part of the Early Childhood Australia, Lady Gowrie and Community Child Care Cooperative NSW organisations was my way of gathering information to support my practice. I spoke at many conferences and lectured at TAFE on a variety of topics. I was especially concerned that children got the best from the program in any centre. Also working with the Independent Education Union I was able to speak at the Arbitration Court to support the issue of teachers in long day care programs having rostered days off as a compensation for the long hours worked each day. I worked closely with ECA when we did the pilot study in accreditation using the American model and working with the National Childcare Accreditation Council and Community Childcare I did lots of training with staff in the Quality Improvement and Accreditation System (QIAS). The Lady Gowrie organisation paid me to take the QIAS to Aboriginal Services (Multifunctional Aboriginal Children’s Services) all over New South Wales.

Making these connections was really important to me and I was enthused to keep improving practice, fine-tuning and balancing my work with children, staff, parents and the community. My program benefited with me being well informed and motivated to support all the staff and families. For instance, over the years I was able to make capital improvements with Minor Capital Grants from the Commonwealth government. I sought permission from the licensing body to increase the centre enrolments from 40 to 55 in a renovated scout hall with a new kitchen, air-conditioning and water tanks. Randwick Council gave us a new roof in the last year after many letters and my speaking to the right people. With strong parent support we received a grant for solar panels and they have been installed this year. Such community interest has ensured we have a large waiting list and full utilisation.

I have always wanted to keep up to date with current research. I also saw my staff as learners and used them (with their permission) as participants in my Degree. While giving them readings and asking for written responses we used the information to inform each other and improve our practice in the centre. I was also able to use this work in my university assignments. I would be saying you need a life balance—don’t be too obsessed about your work. I know I was. Attend management training, work with a strengths-based philosophy and look for the strengths in your staff. Be aware of current research, attend conferences and give staff lots of opportunities to study and attend workshops that they may be interested in. Spend time brainstorming with colleagues and mentors.

Angela Thompson

Senior Associate, Semann & Slattery

The Mining Minds Education Partnership is a program funded by BHP Billiton in partnership with education consultants Semann and Slattery, local education leaders and community members. It partners with communities in Roxby Downs, Woomera, Andamooka and Marree in remote South Australia. It aims to build an authentic collaboration to promote the development of the towns as the community of choice for education.

It was crucial to the project’s success that it built on existing community strengths and was driven by the community. Having a whole of community approach required the engagement of various stakeholders in the early stages of this project. As a local resident and educator for 12 years it was my role to identify the stakeholders and bring them together. I found it was the relationships and strengths-based approach that I had built over time that allowed us to develop trust. We met formally and informally, often over a cup of tea in the local café, with community members, schools, educators, children, students and families. We collated and analysed relevant local and international data, considered past initiatives and recommendations and liaised with BHP Billiton and a forum of local education leaders.

The information collected from these consultations was shared with the wider community via a number of avenues including posters with key ideas, sharing data at forums and dissemination through the projects newsletter. Three key ideas emerged in relation to families:

• It is critical to the success of children that teachers, parents and the community hold and convey high and positive expectations for children’s learning.
• Partnerships with parents that raise the awareness of their crucial role in their children’s education and provide them with the skills to do so would make a significant difference in outcomes for children.
• There is a recognised strength in our community and building on this strength by working in partnership with families, educators and children will improve outcomes for children and the community. Involvement in learning was seen as a whole of community role.

So, in partnership with parents, we set up a local learning community that built on local strengths and ideas. A group of local mothers is undertaking further study in education. Several educators have been supported to be involved in practitioner inquiry projects where they have developed successful partnerships with parents, particularly in the areas of transitions and sharing curriculum. Local parents who run businesses have contributed to curriculum delivery at a high school level by jointly teaching economics units.

As the project moves into its third year, we are seeing the establishment of a community hub, a child- friendly venue in a shop in the main street. Recently, BHP Billiton announced $4 million partnership with the state government to place an integrated children’s centre in Roxby Downs that has a dedicated parent engagement program. So, like local parents and educators, we have high expectations for the future of family engagement in our community.