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Be You offers online professional learning, complemented by a range of tools and resources that turn learning into action. Meaningful and sustained change will only happen when everyone in your learning community is engaged and committed. Promoting mental health can motivate and empower others to get on board. This session will build connections with current practice, offer strategies to strengthen the whole of service quality improvement processes linked to the NQS and explore collaborative approaches to wellbeing that build mentally healthy communities for all.

A representative from the Australian Government Department of Education and Training will speak about the Australian Government’s Child Care Subsidy and the landscape more than one year after the new child care package was implemented. Measures the department has in place to ensure the integrity of the child care subsidy payments will be further explained. This session will also touch upon how the department is working with the Family Day Care sector to support this sector to be compliant and implement best practice.

In the session Family Day Care educators who offer outstanding practice in language and literacy, STEM, arts and creativity and documentation of children’s programs will give short presentations with practical tips and positive solutions. This is a great opportunity to hear directly from Family Day Care educators about their Exceeding practice and take home ideas to implement in your own Family Day Care on your journey to Exceeding the National Quality Standard.

Have you ever had to have a difficult conversation with someone? Could it be, a conversation with a parent about their child’s development? A conversation with a colleague? Difficult conversations can be nerve wrecking especially when the emotional stakes are high. This workshop will help you understand what makes conversations ‘difficult’ and provide you strategies to have a conversation that helps reduce the anxiety and maintain the relationship with the other person. At the end of the session you will be able to describe the three conversations inherent in a difficult conversation, understand the importance of emotions at play and craft the initial approach and script of a difficult conversation to minimise a defensive response.

Has your Super been put in the ‘too hard to deal with’ basket? How can you make Super work for you when you are self-employed? Do you know about tax deductibility of Super payments, spouse contributions and tax rebates? Do you have a plan B for rainy days? Is your income protected if you’re unable to work due to illness? You work, you bring income to your family; how does that bring security as you grow older? Mike Cullen from MyLife MySuper will unveil the secrets and present you with inspiring, optimistic options to brighten up your day and see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Are you in a leadership position, keen to improve your Family Day Care service, but struggle to bring educators or the team along with you to make changes? ‘But this is the way we have always done it! If it’s not broke don’t fix it!’ Do these responses sound familiar? Do you find it challenging to motivate, inspire and bring out the best in your team? This workshop will give participants the skills, knowledge and confidence they need to be an effective leader. The presenter provide you with some excellent tools and strategies that will help you to succeed and undertake your role more confidently and effectively.

This workshop will cover key aspects of the theory of ‘loose parts play’. This session will explore how Family Day Care educators can apply sustainability principles through a creative reuse of loose parts and open-ended materials. The workshop will also include reflections on observations of real cases of children’s play and their relationship to the Early Years Learning Framework and My Time, Our Place

Let’s begin the conversation about risks in play, promoting ‘safe risks’ and ‘removing the bubble wrapping’ from children. Let’s arm ourselves with solid research that supports safe exploration of the environment vs keeping our children safe. Can we provide children with opportunities to build independence and resilience whilst experiencing a sense of freedom? This session is aimed at exploring our thinking around our role in providing children with opportunities to build independence and resilience whilst experiencing a sense of freedom. In this session we will begin the conversation about the risks in play, identify potential problems of removing risks versus possible benefits of supporting risks in play and look at how we can support risky play in Family Day Care environments.