One year ago...

Rose, a Certificate III qualified educator, was passionate about her career but troubled by the poor workplace culture at her service. Workforce shortages and stressful working conditions created tension between colleagues. Despite raising her concerns with management, no action was taken, leaving Rose worried things wouldn’t improve.

Rose believed it was management’s responsibility to address psychosocial hazards as they emerged and felt they needed to be informed about this. When Rose confided in her room leader, she mentioned discovering Be You resources for educators and suggested they explore these together.

Today...

Today, the service has been registered as a Be You Learning Community, with the Assistant Director leading efforts to improve workplace culture. Using the Be You Educator Wellbeing Guide they have started open discussions about staff wellbeing.

The Assistant Director also accessed the SafeWork NSW Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work to understand the organisation’s responsibility to create a psychologically safe workplace. Adhering to this legislation ensures a safe process for staff to raise workplace health and safety concerns and provides clear guidelines for management to address them effectively.

Rose and her colleagues now have access to online professional learning, which has added to their knowledge and created a shared understanding of workplace responsibility for wellbeing. Rose is enjoying her job again and feels hopeful about her future at the service.

• Commit to a whole learning community approach to mental health and wellbeing by becoming a Be You Learning Community.
• Learn how to create environments where educators can thrive with the Be You Educator Wellbeing Guide.
• For guidance on managing psychosocial hazards at work, read the Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work.
• Build your mental health literacy with free online professional learning from Be You.

2 months ago…

Angela’s preschool is a vital part of the small rural community, and she faces challenges unique to regional services. Replacing educators with casual staff when they are sick or on leave is extremely difficult, sometimes even impossible. The shortage of essential services in rural areas makes it hard to attract people to live and work there.

Angela has noticed a troubling increase in the number of reports her service makes to Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ), reflecting the complexity of family situations in the area. This puts the staff at risk of vicarious trauma. Angela is aware of this because she is increasingly acting as an ‘accidental counsellor’ to her 12 staff members.

Angela and the staff often support parents and carers who cannot access family support workers and counsellors due to long waiting lists in the area. The staff find this time-consuming and sometimes feel out of their depth supporting families with the complex issues they face.

Angela feels overwhelmed and exhausted by these challenges, which seem impossible to solve. She feels burnt-out and plans to leave the sector in the next few years but worries about who could take her place.

Today...

As a Director and Team Leader, Angela plays an essential role in creating a mentally healthy workplace. Angela sought support from SafeWork NSW to help make her preschool a psychologically safe environment for all staff, children and families.

As a start, SafeWork NSW provided her with free coaching. This included expert advice and practical solutions to address the service's urgent issues. The coaching sessions were scheduled at 8 am before the families arrived, which helped Angela start her day with a more positive mindset.

Despite her staff being short on time, Angela knew it was essential to build their confidence in working with children affected by trauma. She found excellent online courses from the Australian Childhood Foundation (ACF), which provided a great starting point.

Next year, she plans to enroll her staff in ACF training that combines virtual and in-person learning, and she will work with ACF to develop training tailored to her service.

To address difficulties recruiting staff to the area, Angela is working with local high schools to promote school-based apprenticeships and traineeships (SBATs) and traineeships for school leavers. She still plans to leave the sector in a few years, so she is preparing her only early childhood teacher (ECT) to step into her role. This includes holding 30-minute one-on-one meetings every fortnight.

Angela is much happier and credits this to the free, confidential counselling she received through the Australian Childcare Alliance’s employee assistance program (EAP). The phone counsellor was very supportive, and the sessions gave her a safe place to speak openly about her experiences. She shared this with her colleagues, and several took up the idea.

• Access guidance on managing workplace risks with the SafeWork NSW Code of Practice for Managing Psychosocial Hazards.
• Support workplace mental health with free coaching from the NSW Government.
• Learn how to help children heal from trauma with the Australian Childhood Foundation’s Trauma Responsive Practice Training.
• Discover a high-quality and affordable Employee Assistance Program (EAP) from the Australian Childcare Alliance, available to members and non-members.

4 months ago...

Jenny, a proud Gamilaraay woman and Early Childhood Teacher, is deeply connected to her community and culture. She is currently working on Wiradjuri country and chose her service because of its genuine commitment to embedding Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander perspectives into the curriculum.

With the retirement of 2 Aunties, Jenny is now the only Aboriginal educator at the service. She is often asked about the language and cultural practices of other mobs and explains that she can only speak about her own Gamilaraay culture. She feels an unspoken expectation to lead cultural initiatives without additional pay and act as the spokesperson for the Aboriginal community. This added cultural load has become a significant source of stress for her.

Jenny would also like to participate in more professional development, but she feels her options are limited because most training doesn’t incorporate Aboriginal perspectives or learning styles. She hopes that more culturally safe resources will become available in the future.

Today…

To address the cultural load she was facing, Jenny took a proactive approach by sharing the Aboriginal Cultural Safety Framework from the NSW Department of Education website with her colleagues. This framework outlines clear expectations, standards and guidance for the ECEC sector. Jenny encouraged her service to become an ‘early adopter’ of the framework. Together, they subscribed to the newsletter and joined the Facebook group to connect with other services embracing the framework.

The service acknowledged the need to improve their cultural competency and enrolled the non-Aboriginal staff in SNAICC’s foundational course, A Place for Culture. They also started developing a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) using resources from the Reconciliation Australia website. These steps have fostered a genuine understanding of culturally inclusive practices, easing the burden on a single individual to ensure cultural safety at the service. Her employers also took a proactive approach to clarify roles and expectations for all staff regarding Aboriginal culture.

To connect with other Aboriginal educators, Jenny reached out to local Aboriginal staff networks and explored the Aboriginal Education & Communities page on the department’s website. She also signed up for the NSW Aboriginal Education Consultative Group’s (AECG) Connecting to Country program, where she participated in ceremonies, connected with Wiradjuri people and strengthened her sense of belonging in the community.

For ongoing community connection, Jenny asked the AECG to connect her with the Elders Group in her area and the local Aboriginal Interagency Networks. These connections have boosted her confidence, enabling her to maintain professional, realistic expectations in the workplace.

• Ensure your service is culturally safe and welcoming with the Aboriginal Cultural Safety Framework.
• Explore foundational concepts of cultural safety with A Place for Culture, a hybrid online and face-to-face course.
• Build relationships, respect, and trust through Reconciliation Australia’s programs.
• Enhance your knowledge of Aboriginal culture with resources from the department’s Aboriginal Education and Communities web page.
• Connect with Aboriginal communities through the Connecting to Country cultural awareness program.