The Childcare Leadership Alliance is proud to host its first Professional Development Experience in May focused on Supporting Children’s Behaviour through building strong relationships.
This May, educators from Dysart and Moranbah will have the opportunity to participate in a professional learning event aimed at enhancing their knowledge and sector-specific skills. The session will be held on 23 May 2023 and is facilitated by experienced presenters from Astute Early Years Specialists – Kylie Dawson and Bec Donaldson.
The session, titled “Supporting Children’s Behaviour Through Strong Relationships,” aims to help educators build or strengthen their knowledge base and provide practical skills to enable them to better support children’s behaviour.
By the end of the session, participants will have a solid understanding of two evidence-informed strategies that work to build strong, supportive relationships between carers and children. They will also feel confident to immediately action these strategies in their day-to-day practice and have a documented action plan to continue exploring the concepts presented.
The Professional Development program by the Childcare Leadership Alliance
The childcare sector is experiencing a high turnover of early learning educators and teachers, which is exacerbated in regional areas: 35 percent of early childhood educators in metropolitan areas will quit the sector after 12 months; that number rises dramatically to 50 per cent for educators in remote locations.
The CLA has identified a key barrier to retaining regional educators is a lack of access to sector-specific professional development resources and leadership programs. Our goal is to foster professional, competent, passionate educators and leaders amongst rural childcare services. Improving staff retention as a by-product of a positive workplace culture, and evidence of a career pathway and ongoing development opportunities.
This strategy was officially launched at the recent Childcare Leadership Alliance events in Moranbah and Dysart. “I’m very much about supporting my educators to be able to have that career progression also helping them, to support them to learn and educate the children, in turn supporting families.” said Amanda Stephan, Director of local centre Simply Sunshine. Amanda added, “There is a lot of up-skilling (in this sector) and if they’re not getting the support that they need because of not having enough people to support rosters, it needs to be a broader approach to professional development and inspiring them to have that career progression. If that’s not there, then they usually become uninspired and move on.”
Project Manager of the CLA, Melissa Comerford also shared “Our people need to feel valued. Our people need the rest of the community. And this is not just in Moranbah and Dysart, but let’s just talk about the early childhood sector as a whole needs the support of the general population. We need to feel as though we’ve got a purpose and something to give, and we will keep coming every day. It is the best profession. It served me well for a long time and it will serve me well for a lot longer.”
Find out more about the Professional Development project here.
Amanda Stephan, Director of Moranbah Childcare Centre Simply Sunshine and Secretary of the CLA Board speaks during the panel discussion at the Moranbah Childcare Leadership Alliance Launch
