Acting Executive Director Quality Assurance and Regulatory Services, Shane Snibson, said the sector’s response and recovery from a range of challenges in 2022, including floods, severe weather events and the ongoing impacts of COVID-19, was remarkable.

“I firstly want to thank everyone across our early childhood education and out of school hours care sector and acknowledge your dedication and resilience,” Shane shared.

“Despite challenges throughout the year, services have remained committed to supporting children and their families. This includes a number of services that were directly impacted by flooding but worked to quickly reopen to support their community.”

Shane shared that a key focus for the NSW Regulatory Authority has been to continue working in step with the sector to provide responsive support to ensure the best outcomes for children and their families.

“This has included standing up targeted support following the serve weather events, and also delivering RAHTs, face masks and just last month the provision of mosquito repellents to services across NSW.”

“The Regulatory Authority has also delivered more resources including the Quality Support Program and the May and September Roadshows which addressed high-risk areas such as safe sleep and rest, transport, and allergy management, to ensure that services are supported to deliver high quality education and care.”

This year has also seen an improvement in the delivery of quality early childhood education, with an increase in services rated Meeting the National Quality Standards or above, now at 87.6%.

“This quality uplift has been led by service directors and educators committed to investing their time and effort.”

Shane also shared his excitement about the increasing proactive support for the sector.

“A key piece of collaborative work was the commencement of the Cultural Safety Framework, following consultation in July and August 2022, the co-design and co-development will commence next year with the sector, key stakeholders and advisory groups.”

“When completed this will have a positive impact by supporting services across the state to provide culturally safe and responsive environments for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, their families and ECEC staff,” Shane shared.

In addition to resuming the regular face-to-face regulatory activities following periods of COVID-19 disruptions, the last twelve months have also seen increased collaboration and engagement between the Regulatory Authority, the sector and the wider community.

“We value your ongoing engagement and feedback, so it was exciting working with ACECQA to deliver for the first time a Sector Feedback Survey in September - we look forward to providing feedback on this shortly,” Shane shared.

“In 2023, I look forward to increasing the Regulatory Authority’s engagement and collaboration with the sector."