Wellbeing in the Approved Learning Frameworks

Sara Richardson

Welcome everyone to our In Focus Be You webinar, Wellbeing in the updated Approved Learning Frameworks. I am really, really excited about this conversation we're going to have today, but just before we get started I'd like to invite you to stay online with us after the webinar to continue the conversation about wellbeing in the updated frameworks, and perhaps have some of your questions, we can have a bit more of a conversation with some of your questions asked.

Some background information about Be You, some of you may already know, but Be You is a national initiative led by Beyond Blue in partnership with Early Childhood Australia and headspace, and funded by the Australian Government.

Be You's vision is to transform Australia's approach to supporting children and young people's mental health in early learning services and schools. The Be You vision is that all learning communities are positive, inclusive, and responsive, a place where every child, every young person, every educator, and their families can achieve their best possible mental health and wellbeing.

Being part of the Be You community means that your Early Learning Service, school or school age care service has access to Be You consultants, which is part of a resource that Be You offers, and they can really assist you to engage with Be You, including thinking about your planning and actions, and I think this conversation today is also going to support some of that as well.

So before we get started, I'd like to acknowledge that I'm joining you today from Kaurna country. I'd like to pay respects to Kaurna elders past and present, and acknowledge that we are meeting across the country, from wherever you are, and I'd like encourage you to join in the chat.Just before we kick off and get sorted, let's move on to getting ourselves familiar with the space. So we're in this Zoom meeting, which now we can all see which is great, and I will introduce you to our two guests in a moment, but we'll just do this housekeeping stuff first.

So this is a Zoom Webinar and on the screen you'll see a whole range of ways to make sure that you're set up and organised. We really encourage you to use the chat function to talk with each other. There is also a Q&A option where you can ask your questions as well. So we have some of our team in the background helping support that, and I'd like to acknowledge Dino, Nathan, Maria, Karina, and Maree who are helping in the background, and you'll see some of them in the chat today. If you've got any IT questions you can ask them in the chat as well.

As we talk about mental health and wellbeing in today's conversation, it's really important to acknowledge that sometimes some feelings can come up, and we really want to make sure that this is a safe space for everybody. So I really encourage everybody to take care of yourselves and each other, and on the screen you'll see some support services. So if you do feel like you need some extra help, use the chat, find a friend, access the supports you usually use, or you can access one of these external chat supports as well.

So let's get into the session itself. I am super, super excited to be introducing Jennifer and Fay to have our conversation about how wellbeing is positioned and represented and expressed in the updated Approved Learning Frameworks. So I think I'll hand over to you first, Fay to introduce yourself. I know Jennifer and Fay have been overseas recently, on some exciting adventures, but I'm sure they've got lots of other things they'd like to share about, who they are and why they're here today.

Associate Professor Fay Hadley

Thanks, Sara. Alright. Hi everybody, great to see so many people joining us today. So my name is Associate Professor Fay Hadley, and I'm joined with my amazing colleague Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel, to share with you today in the webinar. We were a part of the consortia that led the updates of the learning framework. So there were six of us in the key writing group. So that was also Professor Linda Harrison from Macquarie University, like myself. Professor Susan Irvine, who's from QUT, as well as her colleague Dr Francis Bobongie-Harris, and Francis is a South Sea Islander and Torres Strait Islander person, so it was fantastic to have her as a part of our key writing team. And also Professor Lennie Barblett, who was on the other side of Australia for those of you and I saw there's a few people on the West Coast so hello to all the West Coast, and I'm sure you know Lennie, she's very famous on that side of the world of Australia.

So the six of us worked with six key writing buddies. Just so, for those of you who don't know, to do the updates of the learning framework. So everything that you see in the new framework, so the version 2 frameworks, were passed by our six writing buddies who are practitioners and work directly in early childhood or outside school hours care services. So Jenny, did you want to add anything to that?

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

No, hello everybody, I'm Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel. I was very fortunate, like Dr Linda Harrison, to be part of the version 1 of the frameworks. And so it was really exciting for me to have the opportunity to work on the updates, and to work on both updates this time, to particularly contribute to the My Time, Our Place framework that I had invested in previously, and also look at the Early Years Learning Framework. And I think that's one of the really key things that we really looked at when we were updating both frameworks at the same time, I think wellbeing was a really important thread that threaded through the Early Years Learning Framework into My Time, Our Place, and wellbeing encompassed not only what we put into the framework, but how we looked after ourselves as a writing team, as a consortium, as we engaged with the pilot.

So it was something that was always foremost in our minds as we undertook this task. So we're really pleased to share bits and pieces of it today.

Sara Richardson

That's fantastic, Jennifer, and thank you Fay, as well. And I think that's really the message we try and talk about here at Be You. You can learn about this health, mental health and wellbeing, but it's also making sure you do it and take care of yourselves. And so educator wellbeing is as important, and sits alongside of the work, you know, when we're considering the wellbeing of children as well. And one of our, one of our aims for Be You is that people increase their mental health literacy. So we become more aware of what we're talking about. What does it mean? And I'm going to be really interested today to have a bit of a conversation about, because in Be You, we talk about mental health, and what are the similarities and differences between mental health and wellbeing. But I'm jumping ahead.

Looking forward to that conversation today to talk about all things wellbeing in the, now let's just get this language clear, the updated Approved Learning Frameworks, and we are going to talk about both Early Years Learning Framework and the Framework for School Age Care. And that's been a really important consideration for us in these conversations. We're going to talk about both of them. So we're going to call them the updated, they're not new, that's one of the important messages, right, it's not new, it's the next version.

We're going to start with a poll though, and ask people in the chat or joining us today live if they already consider and plan intentionally for mental health and wellbeing in their practice or in their pedagogy or at their service. And while we're doing that, cause people can do two things at once, I also will want to let you know that there's a downloadable resource handout that's going to be posted in the chat that you can take away with your team, and there'll be some important information for you to think about there.

Also, post-webinar, you'll receive the recording and the handout. And on Wednesday the 11th of October, we're going to host a Be You Spotlight, which is something we offer as a regular part of Be You. But this is a follow-up opportunity, much more interactive than this webinar where we're kind of more going to be talking at you, but this is an opportunity to talk together with people who've attended this webinar to really talk about some of the issues, cause I think this is an ongoing conversation. It's not just a one conversation, we need to keep talking about this. And what does it look like? And what does this mean? And how do we do this in practice? And what does that mean for us? And what does it mean for children and family, so that Spotlight will be an opportunity to do that. So you get that in the chat as well. The opportunity to register for that, too. So how are we going with this poll? Looks like we can't vote, Maria. I was going to put mine in.

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

So was I, Sara I was thinking that I, wellbeing is something that I always, I'm so conscious of thinking about all of the time.

Sara Richardson

And it's interesting because we've been really talking about the difference between self-care, you know, having a bubble bath. And looking after, maybe going for walk after work, and those kind of things which are important, too. But what are those more structural things? What are the things we can put in place. What does workplace self-care look like? And how do we do things differently and think about things differently? And it's everybody's responsibility right Jennifer, like, you know, it's my job, but it's our job together as well. And I think that's really important message too.Are we done, Maria? Can we have a look at the results? Excellent, right. So this is interesting. So most people do something, there's a big group that do often and sometimes, but not always. That's interesting, which is different from what you said, Jennifer.

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

Well, that's me that always that, but I was going to say that's one of the reasons which, if we start to look at the update in the Approved Learning Frameworks, and look at the outcomes there, it was Outcome 3. That was the one that really we worked hard on to make sure that we increase the information around wellbeing in that outcome.So I'm hoping that after people have got into using the updated framework, that when we ask this question in 12 months’ time, Fay and I are really hoping that people are nearly, on the always is looking so much stronger, because we're hoping that the emphasis that's placed in Outcome 3 around that strong sense of wellbeing and that extra focus on physical and mental wellbeing that people will really start to embrace and think about it more often.

Sara Richardson

And that's a good segue to the first question, so we might close the poll. Thanks everybody for contributing and keep talking in the chat. If you've got other thoughts or questions about that, but I guess that is probably the first question to ask, and because Outcome 3, we already had wellbeing in it, well Outcome 3 already talked about wellbeing. But I guess what we, to start off, why is there an increased emphasis about wellbeing in Outcome 3, but also throughout the frameworks. So what was the influences of that in terms of the writing group.

Associate Professor Fay Hadley

Do you want me to go first?So for those who don't know, the background of the whole update was led by all the Education Ministers, the State, Territory and Commonwealth Education Ministers, and ACECQA were the people that held the money, and then looked for somebody to lead that project. But we were already given a very strict timeline, a strict outline of what would need to be done. But also one of the key things was the terms of reference that guided what we could look at and what we couldn't look at.

And what one of the terms of reference specifically asked us to look at the findings and recommendations from the relevant Productivity Commission reports, but also inquiries, plus the Royal Commission into sexual assault and abuse. So that was a really key term of reference that then required us to look at mental wellbeing and health and development, and how we support children and young people, and how we keep them safe, and what do our two frameworks, the EYLF and My Time, Our Place need to be thinking about.The other thing, in stage one, which was also set out, we were asked to do a literature review, and I know that literature review's going to be shared with you. That's on the ACECQA website, and you can read it.

And that goes into, we had to look at that particular area and look at what it is around mental physical health and social confidence. And what is the contemporary literature and research and evidence telling us that has happened in the last twelve years since the version ones of these two frameworks, and what are those other things that we needed to consider.

So then I don't think this is surprising if for most of us who worked in early childhood and outside school hours care for many years. They were around trauma informed practice. We're already doing a lot of that. And there's been a lot of training around that. So some of the things were actually catching up also with the current practices that are already happening.

It was around healthy lifestyles and teaching protective behaviours. So we know that it's really, that we need to teach children how to feel safe, how to communicate when they're not feeling safe, and how to be able to be heard and also listened to by their educators, so that we believe the children and young people when they are disclosing things around their personal safety.

And then obviously stuff around executive functioning. Again, the brain development, since the understanding of brain development since the first two versions were written has come a long way. So around executive functioning. How do we regulate, emotional regulation and social emotional regulation, and that we know that these are skills that need to be taught. They're not things that we just know how to do when we're a young person, when we're experiencing these big emotions that we experience.

And then around how to support and inform that practice. So I would encourage everybody listening in to go and have a look at the literature review and look at that particular aspect of the literature review, which is pages 22, 23 and 24, so that gives you a really clear understanding of what was informing what we were doing.

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

And Fay, what about the fact that we were living COVID I think that that was an added emphasis that not only were we reading about this literature and gathering all this empirical evidence that it was really important. It was further compounded by the fact that, as a country we were experiencing a really strong sense of, or heightened awareness of our wellbeing. And so I think as we tried to connect with services to get feedback about what should be in the approved update, that if that very hands-on experience of caring for our wellbeing really prompted us to be really strong in what we said and how we shaped and included wellbeing in the frameworks.

Wellbeing was always part, and first and foremost part of the My Time, Our Place framework. Because if you look at the two frameworks, Learning Development and Wellbeing is the thread that's used in the Early Years Learning Framework and then Wellbeing, Learning, and Development is in the My Time, Our Place framework. And so we know that children as they are approaching school, or they're leaving school in the afternoon, the outside school hours care services play a very significant role in their wellbeing. And so you'll notice that in the wording there is a much stronger emphasis, because it's the first word in that thread. But it's in some ways of no lesser importance between the two frameworks.

Sara Richardson

It's interesting, isn't it? That broader context that you were talking about too Fay, and the immediate context that you were talking about Jennifer cause that is something that we've found in Be You too, Be You's been going for about 5 years now, building on from KidsMatter. But the increasing demand for educator wellbeing and understanding that goes along with us knowing more and understanding about children's wellbeing. And it was really interesting Fay, you talked about the intentional teaching of some of those skills, and social wellbeing and emotional wellbeing. I mean in Be You we use the term mental health, but we'll have a conversation about that in a minute, I think. But you know both of those things require skills to help us be able to learn how to look after our wellbeing and know what it looks like.

And in Be You, like I said before we talk about mental health literacy, and that's about educators understanding what those things are, and what they look like, and feeling confident when you're literate, you confidently apply and use knowledge that you have.

Associate Professor Fay Hadley

Absolutely. And I think also, sorry Jennifer, I think as educators it's really important that we know when to tap out when we're not regulated, when we're feeling dysregulated and being able to have to articulate that to our colleagues. And that's the beauty of working in early childhood or outside school hours care. We're not alone in the classroom. We have other educators and adults that can help us manage and support us when we're feeling heightened.

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

Now, skills of observation are so important in that area. We often talk about observing with all our senses, and I think, wellbeing sometimes can be hidden. It doesn't, it's not always obvious. Sometimes it is obvious, because of the words that we use.

But it's around our skin tone, our nonverbal language that's really, really important. And having educators that understand children's development and other educators' development is really important. So those observation skills that we have in this space are really, really important. And you need to know what you're looking for and recognise those skills, those characteristics. Those signs that people are doing really well and looking after themselves, or that they need some additional support.

Sara Richardson

And just to plug for the Be You BETLS or BETLS tool. So we have an observational tool that will help people think about that. And BETLS is an acronym stands for behaviour, this is going to test me, someone put it in the chat, you know our thinking, our emotions, our relationships and our learning.

So all of those elements we're already observing those. But those things are really key to our mental health and wellbeing, and being able to confidently observe, notice, record, discuss with each other about those things, helps us really tap into what's helpful for children. And how we might be able to support good mental health, because that's the important part of this conversation, too, for us, is that this is a continuum. And you sometimes often have good mental health, and sometimes there are things that caused, create challenges, and sometimes you need some more support.

And actually, that's one of the questions we were going to ask you was thinking about the terminology. Obviously, wellbeing is the term that's used most readily in the frameworks. We tend, like I said before, we tend to use the term mental health, but there's also language of mental wellbeing. Would you be able to talk to that at all? Fay do you want to start with that?

Associate Professor Fay Hadley

So I suppose it goes back to originally what we were asked to do, which was, look at the contemporary literature and research, and in, when the literature that we reviewed really talked about that mental wellbeing. And so that's where it was originally drawn from. Because you'll remember from version one. We just talk about wellbeing, but the term mental has been added to that.

And so that whole mental wellbeing, health, and wellbeing strategy was also looked at. There was a whole framework that we were looking at around there, and we also talked to, we had an incredible consortia. So we had about, there was about 35 of us across Australia, and then we had what we would call our expert experts, our really incredibly wise council, and one of those wise council, that was their research area. And that was so we would draw on that expertise from the consortia in helping to guide us and think about what was the language we should be using? And how should we be describing these terms in the updated learning frameworks?

And also we talked to a lot of organisations. So for example, we talked, we consulted with SNAICC and Reconciliation Australia. So there were multiple organisations across Australia, and there's no one term that's going to capture it. And so in the end. It's about trying to capture what we think the majority told us. So we did have to be driven by the data. It was a project that was designed around collecting people's feedback. And I know Be You were amazing, and sent us one of the 65 submissions that we got in the discussion paper, and that helped inform some more thinking around the update. So that really was around how we came to that terminology. Jennifer, did you want to add anything?

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

I was just going to say, one of the thicker parts of the update is the glossary, and I think that's been a really important part. And no doubt next time, when we update again, that glossary will expand a little further. But that was one of the key feedback that we got from people was to make sure that people understood the terms that there was a common language that we could use and had common meaning.

And so when we were actually embedding the notion of wellbeing into the framework, one of the ways of doing that was and actually, in looking at the glossary, and how we explained what we meant about wellbeing, what we meant about trauma, and what we meant about neuroscience, so that was helping to give that common language that we could have.

Sara Richardson

That's exciting, isn't. It? Feels like a sophistication in our profession almost, to kind of be much more nuanced in our language, but also have that shared language as well. And one of the things I really found as an early childhood educator coming into Be You, Be You is funded by the Department of Health. So then mental health is a health language, wellbeing tends to be more of an education language, and it's about reconciling that, and because I also went, oh, it's social emotional skill, development, that's all similar things. And so it's reconciling that in your mind and not saying, well, that's not this. And how to bring that together.

Just, you started talking about there, Jennifer, about embedding wellbeing in the updated Learning Frameworks. That was one of our questions. It's clearly embedded and not just in Outcome 3, although that's been expanded a bit more. Do you want to talk a little, would you like to talk a little bit more about that?

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

I was going to say it's actually, one of the practices that we, with that we tweaked was the holistic practice, and I think that we tweaked it enough to reflect the fact that wellbeing is embedded across whatever you do. And when you start to look at the individual practices that are listed in the framework, and we've done some tweaking on those, that notion of holistic is really key, because when we start to speak about one of the practices or principles, we can't help but speak about the other. And so that's where wellbeing seems to be threaded, really holistically, through all those practices and principles.

When we start to look at sustainability, including social sustainability, you can't help but think about wellbeing there. When you start to think about inclusive, integrated, collaborative, all those things are terms that stretch out and engage with wellbeing.

Associate Professor Fay Hadley

And I would add the partnerships one, Jennifer. So we've actually made that more specific around working with our colleagues from Allied Health, for example. And we believe that the vision kind of drives everything now, the revised provision. And so, if you read the first words, the first sentence of the vision is around promoting confident and creative individuals and successful lifelong learners. Again, you have to be in, to learn we have to be mentally well and open and have a growth mindset and be willing to be challenged, be willing to make mistakes.

So all of those things that we know are really important around our development of our mental wellbeing and sense of wellbeing embedded right from the beginning. And that was something that we really tried hard to do in the updated versions, because that was some feedback about how some bits were a little bit disjointed. So we really tried to think about the vision, and then how that drove the principles, and then how that drove the practices, and then that led to the learning outcome. So we hope that people actually go to the beginning of the updated versions and not just go to the back of the booklet.

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

And the other thing there, is too, the addition of physical wellbeing and acknowledging that when we talk about mental health and wellbeing or mental wellbeing, that our physical and social wellbeing are so caught up into that, and so the addition of information about physical health and wellbeing was really important too.

Associate Professor Fay Hadley

And another one Jennifer, within that like. So the literature, the research, is really evident that we know that children are less active, that they're less likely to be eating well, we know that screen time and things like that are impacting on their physical wellbeing. So, that was something that was really important. But also we talked a lot about technology. So that is also in all of the learning outcomes, and more than 3, but in particular Learning Outcome 3. About how to use that safely, so that ties into the safe organisations and thinking about children's personal safety. So there's lots of little nuances. I suppose, that wellbeing learning outcome was, as most people remember, the smallest one like, if you looked in terms of the thickness, it's now got three elements, not two elements. And we've expanded a lot of those descriptions of what it looks like for children and what it looks like for the educators.

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

It's cause Fay there's a flip side to the use of digital technology and children's energy levels, because sometimes children are exhausted from the school day, and so that particularly in Outside School Hours Care if we're looking at children's wellbeing, we actually want downtime. We don't want them, you know, we do want them to slow down. We do want them to re-energise. And so I think that's really important in the updates of the framework that you're going to notice that there's some, you know, the continuum that we, is there around wellbeing. Sometimes you're busy, sometimes you're not. And those things balance out for different reasons. And so it is really important that people dive in there and have really critical conversations about what mental wellbeing really means for them and for their service, and for their cohort of children, where they're positioned geographically, where they're located. All those kinds of things need to come into the conversation.

And I think that's where it's really interesting in the outcomes section where we say, put your own examples of your practice. We're hoping that people will really populate the Outcome 3 with their own examples of how they support children's mental health, and wellbeing from that, from the opportunities that they provide, but also with the lens of being a child safe organisation, and also with the lens of an understanding about children's life outside of the settings that they're involved, in. Perhaps it's their home environment. How all those things come together.

And in the outcome this time we, in our pilot program, we had those sixteen sites and those key writing buddies all give us really rich examples of practice, and I think that people are going to find that when they read those examples in the outcome section, they'll find that they're much broader, particularly in the My Time, Our Place framework. There's much more diversity in the examples that are provided there. And there's going to be even more diversity when people add their own examples of practice.

Sara Richardson

And that's what the continued conversation is we need to keep talking about those things. How does, what does this mean to you? And how do you do it? And what does it look like for you in your context, with your cohort of children.You did segue beautifully to that discussing about the pilot. And I guess the question we had about with how those pilot groups took the concept of wellbeing in their practice, and you talked about them providing some really great and perhaps more diverse examples. But was there anything from the pilot that influenced how wellbeing was presented?

Associate Professor Fay Hadley

So we, as Jennifer said, we had sixteen sites, and they had six weeks to pilot the updated learning frameworks, and they did an amazing job under COVID, bushfires, floods at the beginning of the year. Whoever tries something new in February and March in an early childhood outside school hours care centre. Crazy, but they did it because that was the timelines we were given.

But it really was so interesting to see how they took this Learning Outcome 3 and focus on wellbeing and think differently about it. And notice children, and notice what was happening in their setting. And this also linked nicely to the intention, the Play-based learning and intentionality outcome as well as the Assessment and evaluation recommendation practice that all sixteen sites had to trial cause they were kind of seen as the two big changes by the steering committee.

But we've got this incredible documentation. For example, a little child who's very upset because they're in an infant's room, in a baby's room, very upset, cause they've just been dropped off, and are crying, and the little toddy, tod’s over, you know, all of maybe 15 months, and just sits next to this baby, puts their hand on the shoulder of that baby, and just sat there and just was present with that young baby, and just said, Mummy, come back, Mummy, come back, mummy, come back, and just that there until that child, that young baby, that 6 month old, was calmed down and started to self-regulate.

So there were really powerful examples of how not only how we do it, as in educators doing this, but how other children are so attuned to their peers, and they want to help their peers feel safe, and so that was a really great example of how that child was able to be empathetic and look after their peer, and they were all about 14-15 months themselves.

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

And in the outside school hours care sector, Sara, there was a service that had a very busy day. The school day was really busy, and the outside school hours care was quite chaotic, and they took upon themselves to actually look at passive leisure and wellbeing. And so what they found was they, and people have probably seen some photos of those gorgeous green and blue bean bag chairs, and so what they did was they actually looked at their outdoor environment, and provided more opportunities where children could sit and chat, where they could play games quietly outside. So outside wasn't just a space for running around. And the hall that they had wasn't just a space for running around. And so their focus on passive leisure really changed, and the programming and the planning, very careful planning of the environment really changed the tone of that outside school hours care. Where parents were really noticing that their children were much calmer. In the afternoon, when they collected them. Where, when I was there, a grandma had come to pick up her daughter, a granddaughter, and the grandma ended up in the cushions chatting to the children, both her granddaughter and her granddaughter's friends while they were putting on their shoes.

So they actually stayed longer in the space, engaging and taking in the moment which I think is really, really important for children to have that feeling of slowing down and know what that you know being present feels like. So, as Fay said, we had some really rich examples from the pilot sites of how they actually plan their interactions, change their observations. And perhaps make modifications to their environments.

Associate Professor Fay Hadley

Can I tell one more story just from an early childhood perspective. Because I think this might resonate with the early childhood people listening in today. This is around, your risk assessment of your environment. We all have to do it these days. We have to show our compliance around how we're using spaces.

So this particular early childhood in the trial they actually did a brainstorm with the children and talked about these spaces outside which were set up for risky play, and talked and brainstormed with the children about how, what would be the rules, and how would they engage in this space, and how would they make it safe, by playing in it, and how would they be managing those risks. And that was all documented, and it was popped up for the families to see, and that then informed the way that the staff ran those particular parts of that outdoor area. So that speaks to the agency, which is a really strong part of the updated both frameworks and another nice way of just really rethinking how you develop that thinking and give children those opportunities to guide and to lead the learning, and to lead the thinking around what should be happening.

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

Fay, another aspect of that where it's embedded, and from the pilot in the outside school hours care, and in the early years settings, the practice of assessment and evaluation. So assessment and evaluation wasn't actually new in the early years learning framework. But it was new to that assessment, to the My Time, Our Place framework. And that was a real, that's been a really good space to think about self-assessment, educator self-assessment, and so embedded in the description under the that practice is that sense of how are you as an educator? What is your wellbeing as you then go to observe or to engage in interactions with children, and saying, first and foremost, if you're going to engage in assessment. It should be about yourself first or about how you've, set up the environment before you then roll out to look at how the children are interacting. And I think that's another important part of helping educators, administrators, management committees think about wellbeing in a more holistic way. Because we're not just focusing on the children. We're actually focusing on the adults in that space. And the interactions between the two.

Sara Richardson

Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it? So many things you were talking about I was like, I want to add something there, but otherwise we'll go down rabbit holes we won't have time for. But that intentionality is really making me think about the intentionality and making sure that part of that is, who am I in this? What's my role? And then adding the wellbeing to that, cause we often think about some other things, our values and our beliefs that might influence our thinking, or how we do things. But then, if we add, if we could add wellbeing to part of our intentionality. How am I, what am I aware of with my own wellbeing? And it might be in the moment, and we talk about mindful moments, or did you know I remember one of the things someone told me I was.

I was working in a toddler room, just started working, and someone said, just before, after you had your break, just before you walk back in the room before you open the door, you have that big, deep breath, that whole body scan, and then you're ready to go back into the total room to meet the chaos that, the beautiful chaos that's in there. But those mindful moments we can build in that we can take responsibility for. But it's also really important that we do that together, and that we, it's not just each person's responsibility to take care of their own wellbeing.

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

And Sara, I think people will notice, particularly in the Early Years Learning Framework, intentionality was in the My Time, Our Place framework, and the words intentional teaching were in the Early Years Learning Framework. And that's, in this discussion around wellbeing, that's when we went, maybe it's more intentionality. Intentional teaching is a very narrow term, and often it's just applied to the adult, to the child, whereas working with intentionality recognises that it's not only adult to child, but it's child to adult and child to child. And so we were excited when we, in reading the literature that we could, take that up and go, okay, let's actually embrace the agency of everybody in this space. And we know that that agency is really important to wellbeing by using terminology that really reflects good practice. Fay I don't know whether you want to say anything about that, but it was a really important shift in thinking there.

Associate Professor Fay Hadley

Absolutely. And I totally agree everything you said, Jennifer, around that, and that it that even though it was a little bit of a shift, and it wasn't a huge shift, it did change in the pilot sites. We saw quite significant changes in the ways that the educators were noticing things, what they were planning for and how they were reflecting as a team about what it should look like, could look like.

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

Just going to say, in the pilot sites we and actually in the whole project, from whoa to go, in the way in which we collected information, in the way in which we shared, we actually saw this shift in thinking about the work of the Approved Learning Frameworks as being something that adults do to children, to become something that adults and children do together. And there was actually a really huge shift in thinking about how are children situated.

And when we started to have conversations when we began meetings, it was children first, and then we started to talk about the adults' work in that circumstance, and not detracting from the fact that we need to consider educators’ wellbeing. But just really putting children first really helped people to think a little bit differently about who's going to benefit from this experience. And how are they going to benefit? So that was a really exciting shift to see people really, as Fay said, notice children a whole lot more.

Associate Professor Fay Hadley

And I still love Nate's quote. So, as most people know, we talked to children and young people at every stage of the project and fed back to them what we've learned from them. But Nate said, he was four, I know stuff. I wish my teacher would ask me stuff because I could tell them lots of stuff.

So it's, that was a particular summing up of - just listen to us, ask us. We'll tell you what we think and what we value. And they're not things that are unsurprising to a lot of people. It's around relationships. It's about around their peer groups. It's around them having choices and being able to go outside when they want to go outside, and all of these things that are linked to their agency and their drive.

But yes, it just reminded us that we and our educators in the pilot sites, you know. That was one part that they did in week six was talk to the children, and it really did allow them to start to think differently about their programs.

Sara Richardson

It makes me think about what kind of amazing conversations you could have about wellbeing with children. And you know the knowledge that they would have already about regulating. And we were talking before, and you both gave really fantastic examples of co-regulation, like that's so critical for help seeking behaviour. If to be mentally healthy, you need to be able to seek and ask for help, and that means helping each other together, not just going off and doing it by myself. And so that whole notion of being together and doing things together and co-regulating, but also, children know how to do that. That 18 month old child knew how to do that, without any words. And I think if we if we could apply that thinking and that intentionality around wellbeing, and then start having conversations with children about wellbeing, they're going to teach us very much about what's possible and what they care about.

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

And I think it also helps educators' Observing ourselves and our own wellbeing because even though, I said, there's usually somebody else in the room that it still is a fairly, it can be a very lonely journey, or that sense of responsibility. Here I'm responsible for four, I'm responsible for ten, I'm responsible for fifteen children, and I think, knowing if educators can see themselves as working in partnership with children, I think it really helps them to think about how they can support children's mental health and wellbeing, because you're actually giving them the confidence to be intentional with each other, and you're giving them the confidence to be open and transparent with educators, which then makes the educators role so much easier. Because you've got this open, transparent, deep conversation happening with all players in the space. But for educators sometimes it's to have the confidence that that's what you can do.

Sara Richardson

Yes, the permission giving almost. And I guess that's what having an increased presence of wellbeing in the learning frameworks now, might help people to feel like, it's okay to do that. We had a really interesting webinar, the last one we did with Tamara Cummings from the wellbeing, workplace wellbeing, and the pressures that people feel that are around. But I think grounding ourselves in our work with children is in the ways that you were just describing there, Jennifer. Really helps to balance out some of those things that are the reality of, and COVID's added to that, I think, and you know that we can't deny what life is like, what this work is like.

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

And so I always head people to page 18, which is the critical reflection and ongoing learning. Fay knows that I say, if you're going to start to read the framework, don't start at page 1. Fay likes the vision, I like the ongoing learning and reflection, maybe read the vision and then read the ongoing learning and reflection. There's a series of questions there that are really helpful for people to have conversations with each other, and the questions there that are on page 18 are asking people to like, describe how they're feeling, what they're challenged by, what they're curious about and how it links to contemporary theories and practice. And that's where the literature review comes in, and then it says. How're we going to practice and who's going to benefit, and how will they benefit? And I think that final question, who's silenced, who's advantaged, that kind of final question gives people permission to think differently, and to actually take on board what sometimes they might be feeling inside but don't have the confidence to do.

So those questions and the critical reflection and ongoing learning, and notice we flipped that wording, it used to be ongoing learning and critical reflection, and we flipped it to be, if you're going to engage in critical reflection, then you can engage in ongoing learning. And so that's a great place to use to have a discussion about wellbeing.

Sara Richardson

Did you want to add anything Fay?

Associate Professor Fay Hadley

No, we all have our favourite bits.

Sara Richardson

It's so interesting you said that Jennifer, because that's my favourite bit. And it was my favourite, cause that still in, that was in who's advantaged, who's disadvantaged. That's always been my favourite bit. And it's interesting, isn't it? Because we can get a bit overwhelmed with all of the things, and it's being, it really, and this is where that intentionality comes back.

I guess you have to make a decision sometimes, and you and some people will benefit from that decision, and some people won't benefit in the same kind of way, or that might disadvantage some children, or others. It's about being aware of that and knowing that that's what's happening. And being mindful of that in the bigger picture as well. So it is what happens. But yes, that's my favourite bit, too so I'm so excited hearing it.

Associate Professor Fay Hadley

And it links really nicely to the collaborative leadership and teamwork. That is a new principle, and it really does allow educators to, well it gives permission for the team to be working together to be collaborating. It is also beyond just educators. It is about working and collaborating with the children, collaborating with the families and collaborating with your community. So making it context specific. That's one of my favourites as well in terms of allowing us to really think about this work and not think it's one person's job, because when, that's when we can get really overwhelmed and our mental health can be impacted because we feel like we're carrying the weight or the responsibility of all of this work. Whereas that's one of the reasons I love working in early childhood was because I was surrounded by an amazing group and a team that I could bounce ideas off and tap out if I needed to, or tap in, if they needed to tap out.

Sara Richardson

Yes, Jennifer, would you? I was going to segue to that before, and then we went down something, we talked about something else. So Jennifer did you want to add anything about the principle, collaborative leadership and teamwork in particular, in relation to this conversation about wellbeing?

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

So it was, that kind of that knowledge was already in the My Time, Our Place Framework previously because we were so conscious that children aged 5-12 deserve to have that kind of connection, but I think we've strengthened it at looking at those broader partnerships, too, and opening it up a little bit more to the community. I think that's one of the other interesting aspects. If we look at the exceeding things in the National Quality Framework, and that's, and marrying that up to the fact that these frameworks belong in the National Quality Standard, in the National Quality Framework, that sense of our settings being part of communities. And I think that that was a really rich component of the pilot sites as they demonstrated how they approach some of the principles and practices and the outcomes that they were trialling.

They didn't just see it as an individual thing or just a class group thing. They saw themselves as part of that wider community and being, and how that community impacted on them. And I think that really demonstrated how we saw wellbeing not just in a little tight group, but cutting across our whole community. And while we, while we really need to reach out and make sure that we're looking outside as well as looking in.

Sara Richardson

Fay did you want to add any more to that? You segued us beautifully into that.

Associate Professor Fay Hadley

I would give an example of what Jennifer was saying that it was in the pilot side, but it was. It was an educator talking to a father, and it was in the infants room again. And the father was really concerned that the baby wasn't getting enough water over the day, cause the cup was above the baby's, as we know, cause they all like to drink out of each other's cups. So we make these decisions about keeping some of that a bit higher for them.

But this educator documented and had a really beautiful documentation around how they had a conversation with the father about how they were attuned to that infants signs; the different squeals that that child made when they wanted their cup, the gestures that they made so, even though that they were pre-verbal in terms of language, they were able to read the cues, and that child was getting plenty of liquid over the day.

That conversation actually allowed that father to rethink how they were reading the cues of their child at home. And they went away and said, and it wasn't a criticism of their parenting or anything like that. It was a really genuine, beautiful parent partnership kind of connection. And they went away and said, okay, I need to, I'll have a think about this, and I'm going to look out for those signs at home, because I think maybe I was missing those.

So again, just a really nice example of those ways that we can collaborate and communicate and have conversations with our families.

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

And Fay, what about the collection of the fruit? From the neighbour’s farm in the Family Day Care home where the children engaged with an older neighbour and collected fruit from the fruit tree in the neighbour’s yard, and then they the children, in the Family Day Care setting, prepared the fruit to make jam, and then passed it back to that neighbour and to other members of their community as jam for them to use. And I think that's a, the breadth of examples in that collaborative leadership area is really important, because that's demonstrating that care, that sense of responsibility for other people in the community. At that younger level, is really important as role models for, and opportunities to practice collaborative leadership no matter what your age.

Associate Professor Fay Hadley

And it speaks really nicely to the social sustainability principle as well, and you know we had another early childhood centre who was cut off by the floods. And so some of their children were unable to come over the bridge and go to their centre. And they knew that some of the community had lost their homes or lost a lot of their belongings from the flood. So the children initiated a food bank with conversations with the educators.

So again, another example of a broader understanding of our community, the trauma that they might be going through. And what can we do as a collective to support those children and families who have lost things in the flood. So there was some really nice synergies. And that's why I like I love the updated version, not just because we were part of it. But I just think they, the principles and the practices all fit really nicely into those learning outcomes as well.

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

Sara, if people haven't got an idea yet, we had a really good time updating the frameworks, and being able to collectively share some of the really rich practices that people were using based on other principles across sites, and we really enjoyed gathering them up from the sixteen sites. We shared them with each other. We shared them with the sixteen sites, and then to embed them into the frameworks themselves, but also knowing that we were passing on frameworks that had space for people to put their own examples into there as well. I think that's a really, you know. It was exciting for us.

Sara Richardson

And it really feels like it's built on the intent of the frameworks in the first place. I mean, that was the intent. And how, again reinforcing, and this was, this has always being the case too, but how those principles and practices need to go together with the outcomes, and you can't just focus on the outcomes and jump straight to the back of the book. But you need to really think about the vision and the principles and practices. You know what are the underlying principles, and what are the pedagogical practices, that's what they are, that's what they're called, and they are the things that drive and guide our work, and understanding what they look like too is really important.

So we've got only a few minutes left, five minutes left. This is almost a little bit of a question without notice, but I'm going to ask you anyway. We've had a really great conversation about how wellbeing's kind of been integrated and raised up a bit more in the learning frameworks. I'm thinking about what, as this, as people become familiar and the changes, the frameworks get rolled out and people start practicing, because I think that's really important, too, that this is an ongoing, continuous improvement process. We can't be perfect and right first go because that's not how things work. What will the changes in terms of wellbeing having a higher presence, what would it look like, sound like, and feel like, perhaps in individual learning communities, or more generally in the early childhood sector themselves. Have you got any thoughts about how it might be if we look into the future? You're nodding, Fay. Do you want to go first?

Associate Professor Fay Hadley

So Jennifer and I did talk about this a little bit before the webinar. So it's going to look different in different communities. Because and that's the beauty of our 2 frameworks. They're not, they're not syllabus documents, they’re frameworks. They guide our practice, and our practice needs to be guided by the children, the families, the colleagues that we have and the community context that we're living in. So it will look different. So context does matter.

But it will be if you're embedding the principles and the practices and thinking about educator wellbeing as well as children, young children, and young people's wellbeing. You're going to have calmer classrooms. You're going to have safe spaces where children feel that they can come to you and talk to you. You're going to have educators who may feel a bit overwhelmed, be able to indicate that, and have conversations with their leader or their room leader. So they're going to feel comfortable and safe, and in a trusting space.

It'll be fun. It'll be joyous. You know we use the words like love and awe and wonder in the learning outcomes and in those descriptions of what it could look like. It will. It will look like that example that I told before about the young child, the 15 month old, help self-soothing the, not self-soothing, helping that baby start to co-regulate and think about them.

It'll be like Jennifer said, the passive play, like, I think that's just amazing. And I think there's an article, Jennifer, We should put the link in, because I think it's actually published now. And I'm sure the Outside School Hours Care people would love to read that article.

It'll look like it is a part of your program. So there will be intentional teaching that is happening. Intentionality. So you know, spaces in your room may be set up where children can go, and if they're feeling angry or upset, able to express themselves. Whether that's finding some pictures to be able to show or to find, you know, crawl into that quiet space and just be by themselves because they're feeling overwhelmed. So it'll be in your environment as well. But, Jennifer, I've probably talked enough. You go.

Associate Professor Jennifer Cartmel

No, no, I was just going to say Fay and I also discussed some people have been a little concerned, perhaps, that there hasn't been some professional learning around these, the update to the frameworks, but they're only an update. And we already had Be You in existence that could provide support. And so I think that the resources, the support that Be You can offer, particularly for the whole framework, but particularly around Outcome 3 is really important. And it's only a matter of people reaching out to access the wonderful resources that Be You has. That can really help people to change, shift, feel more confident. So when you ask me, what will it look like? I think it will be people using the resources of Be You more than they have been in the past.

Sara Richardson

That's fantastic. Thank you so much. I'm not sure I can add any more to that. I think, maybe a takeaway for me is that, and I knew this, but this has reinforced this, this is an update. We already have a fantastic foundation that we're working on. I think you know that notion of intentionality and well, and permission-giving around wellbeing so that people can really add that to the, yes, this is something I really need to pay attention to, not just like we know we need to. But I and I'd like to, but actually, now, it says, I can. That's really exciting. And we are really, really keen for people to come to us at Be You. And we've got the resources. It's free, you can have access to a consultant. We have ongoing spaces, webinars like this, but also like online spaces where you can have chats and conversations like we're going into in a minute to ask you questions and continue the learning. And do that critical reflection to that you were talking about Jennifer.

So I'd like to thank you both so very, very, very much for coming and having this conversation, sharing your knowledge of the process, but also your passion for the work. We really appreciate that for both of you. Thank you so very much, and we'll finish off. Thank you all everybody else for coming and stay online if you'd like to, answer some of the bit more juicier questions, maybe. So, thanks everybody.

End of transcript.