Good morning everyone
To begin - I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of this land.
Recently, two New Zealand participants at an Australian forum, greeted forum delegates in Maori.
Later, when Karen Martin, a Noonuccal woman, addressed the forum she commented that she had never heard a white Australian speak in an Aboriginal language in the way the New Zealanders had spoken in Maori.
She said too that, for her, real steps would have been made in the process of reconciliation between Aboriginal people and white Australians when this happened.
She gave ECA her permission to address you with this word
Yura is a deep acknowledgement and greeting from my spirit to yours and to the place where we are meeting.
It is a word from the Janidai language of the Noonuccal people of Kwan da moo ka (North Stradbroke Island)
Thank you for the opportunity to be part of your conference in these challenging and changing times.
I have said many times that, as a society, we entrust the most significant responsibility to those who are responsible for the care and education of our youngest citizens. That is each of you and the rest of our profession.
Today I want to talk with you about why it is now uncontested that early relationships, such as those that are formed between you and the children you care for, matter so much for these children.
I want to talk about what matters in early childhood and in so doing affirm the significance and value of your work as early childhood professionals.
I want to raise with you some of the most pressing issues that we face in Australia today, with regard to care and education and Early Childhood Australia's perspective on these issues.
The early years are important and, because of this, young children merit a high priority, even though they cannot speak for themselves.
Because children are active participants in their own development and learning, the most sensitive care is that which is aligned with the child's interests and needs.
Because experience can elucidate, or diminish, inborn potential, early environments must be designed to ensure young children's health, safety, and well-being.
And because the early years are a period of considerable opportunity for growth and, vulnerability to harm, society wisely does not take for granted the well-being of young children.
The relationships that matter, in a young child's life, do not end with the immediate family. They also include the relationships that young children develop and depend upon in childcare - in your care, and in other early care and education environments.
It requires equipping care providers - you - with the knowledge and resources required to provide young children with the kind of focused, sensitive care that offers the essential catalysts for healthy growth.
It requires esteeming the relationships between children and caregivers sufficiently that there are incentives (in wages and benefits, the structure of child care work, and public support) for these relationships to provide stable, reliable support for young children.
Society's commitment to ensuring the healthy development of each child requires that all the relationships that young children rely upon are valued and supported.
The irreducible core of the environment during early development is people.
People, especially parents and other caregivers, including you, are the essence of the infant's and young child's environment.
The protection, nurturing, and stimulation provided by parents and other caregivers shape early development.
Because early relationships matter, society is wise to value those who relate to young children daily -that is all of you.
In a sense, just as children's developing brains intrinsically expect that eyes will see light and ears will hear sound because of their developmental self-organization, So also do children's developing minds and hearts expect that adults will talk in special ways to them and that caregivers will nurture them as they mature.
Normal human development draws upon these natural and unrehearsed features of everyday early experience far more than it requires special educational toys, Mozart CDs, or flashcards.
Children merit society's commitment to them.
A society that is concerned with problems of violence and self-control, school readiness, and social civility wisely takes note of the fact that the origins of these social, emotional, and intellectual qualities take shape early in the life course.
In committing itself to the well-being of the youngest of its citizens, society can promote the well-being of all.
I want to comment now on the notion of children as citizens. I do this so as to set your work and its importance in the broader picture of public policy development.
There is considerable argument now that a focus on children is necessary because they, today's children, will provide the human capital of the future and that, because of the reality of an aging population, each unit of human capital in the future will have to be more able etc than the adults of this generation.
These are important arguments and they provide the sort of economic leverage that is needed if we are to get the economists in Governments to take notice.
However, when we acknowledge that children are citizens we can also make the arguments that as citizens children have a value as human beings in the here and now, not simply for what they might become.As citizens, children have an entitlement, independent of their parent's capacity to pay and shared by all other citizens, to the resources that is policies, programs and funds necessary to ensure:
Their well being in the here and now experience of childhood,
Their increasing capacity to participate as full and responsible citizens in the social, economic and political life of the society and,
That they can and will exercise their responsibility as adults for future generations of children and the society and environment in which these children will live.
The justification for a focus on children that arises from their status as citizens also suggests a commitment to the value-based goal of social inclusion.
Citizenship like social inclusion means that all children and adults are able to participate as valued, respected and contributing members of society.
Social Inclusion provides a way of looking at the well-being of children and families that has the potential to frame a national dialogue around the creation of a just, healthy and inclusive society.
A commitment to social inclusion demands that the barriers to inclusion such as disability, low income and culture be addressed.
Social inclusion means that the gaps and distances between children in terms of present well-being and future life chances are minimised.
Social inclusion starts from the experience of the individual and challenges society to provide a meaningful place for everyone.
Under the aegis of social inclusion diversity and difference are not merely seen as challenges to be overcome; they possess their own worth as do the commonalities of people's lives.
We share responsibility as adults to guarantee for each child the opportunity to thrive in the early years of life.
This shared responsibility raises more questions than answers.
Society's commitment to ensuring the healthy development of every child requires far more, than hoping that market forces will make available high-quality, affordable care for young children.
We have new players in the early childhood arena. Some are increasing their presence in the sector at a very rapid pace.
We have to move on from saying all community based services are good and all private or corporate services are bad. To move on we must accept the situation and find new and different ways of seeing and doing.
No one says doctors cannot make a profit out of seeing sick and vulnerable people.
What we have to do is find ways to achieve:
- regulations, across the country, that reflect the research findings about what is necessary to ensure good outcomes for children,
- a rigorous quality assurance system that sits on top of solid regulations and
- a workforce that is stable, well trained, well paid, recognised for the significance of work it does and is well resourced.
We have to say it doesn't matter who owns the service. What really matters are guarantees for children and the staff who work with them that will ensure a high quality experience for children and those who work with and care for them.
Currently the regulations across the country and the quality assurance system many of us were instrumental in establishing do not provide the structural framework which is necessary to guaranteed good early childhood experiences for the children who use those services.
Accreditation cannot do its job in the absence of the solid foundations provided by strong regulations.
The net effect is that some (in my view many, many) children have very poor early experiences outside the home. I am sure you can all name services where this occurs.
We have loopholes in regulations that allow private schools to open prep classes where three year olds have no dedicated play space, no sandpit and have to wear a uniform with shoes and socks all day - for heavens sake what happened to childhood.
We have a workforce which has a very high turnover, good people driven out by sheer exhaustion, poor working conditions, low pay and little recognition of the significance of the role they play.
We also have colleagues and friends who under estimate themselves and what they do, who don't know the regulations and feel isolated and unsupported. Who, because of this, feel unable to let authority's know when breeches occur and things are not okay for kids.
Whilst acknowledging state regulations are zminimum requirements we need to come to have the discussion about what "minimum" means - what is the purpose of a minimum standard?
- Does it mean the minimum necessary to guarantee a quality experience for children;
- Does it mean the minimum requirements necessary to ensure that children's services across the country have the capacity to deliver high quality experiences for the children who use them;
We know that right now state regulations across this country are at odds with what research says matters for children.
For example the research tells us that to deliver high quality experiences for infants under 12 months we must have ratios of one to three. It does not matter how good individual staff are, how well trained and resourced they are, it is physically impossible to achieve this with a I -5 or 1 - 4 ratio.
How many babies can you hold, comfort; bottle feed, engage with, at once.?
This is not to say that we as staff are not doing the very best we can but we must begin to be honest with ourselves and parents if we want to bring about change.
Staff shortages have led to significant numbers of services having staff endorsed or deemed as qualified. What does this say about the significance of qualifications for those who work with young children?
How long are we prepared to just stand back and allow this to happen?
Our quality assurance system is not rigorous enough to distinguish between satisfactory care and high quality care. Whilst we know there are important health and safety areas that can be ticked off as occurring, it misses the very essence of what's important for young children and that is the quality of the relationship.
In my service we recently underwent accreditation.
Our validator failed to see how settled our children were - no one ran up to her with outstretched arms demanding her attention in the way that happens when children in care are starved of that very basic need.
She was much more interested in where we hang our certificates, whether our heavily landscaped yard was filled with poisonous plants and heaven forbid some of the children painted without aprons.
Our experience is not an isolated one. I could go on and on.
Quality assurance is supposed to be a quality improvement process built on over time, with rigorous discussion and debate around each principle and quality indicator, with individual, contextual ways to meet each indicator.
How can this happen when staff are given no paid release time to do this. Instead they have to snatch a few moments when children are asleep or they do this work after work tired - unpaid of course.
We as childcare workers must no longer be satisfied with a few slices of free pizza. It's not good enough.
We also must find a way to ensure our peer validators have significant understandings about young children and contemporary knowledge about best practise. This must mean high level qualifications buttressed by substantial experience on the ground. Neither of these are dispensable.
We have concerns around training - it's being watered down - tick and flick mentality - with very few specialist early childhood courses across this country.
I could not teach maths and science to high school students with my early childhood teaching degree - but it seems anyone can teach young children. We have to stop this and keep saying that early childhood pedagogy is a specialist area of learning, as we know it is.
We all know programs in schools where the curriculum from year one is watered down for the kindy class rather than a curriculum being built that begins with the child.
Recently in my service I advertised an untrained position. We interviewed 6 people who had all completed the Cert 111 in children's services. Only one could tell me anything about infant brain development and when I asked what might a typical day look like for a baby in childcare no one mentioned the significance of the interactions between the infant and themselves as a caregiver. Painting is not significant for an infant. I may have strong expectations but where is the framework for these workers to begin. It's not their fault.
So where does this leave us?
Nelson Mandela said:
"We all have a role to play - leaders and citizens, public and private organisations, children and young people. What we demand of our leaders, we also demand of ourselves. The Global Movement for Children calls on everyone, everywhere, to do as much as possible, in their own time and their own way, for and with children" - Nelson Mandela
That is a call to each and everyone of us to become advocates for children.
Advocacy for children comes in many guises.
We need to recognise, name and affirm it in all of its many forms.
Each day all of you is an advocate for children when you demonstrate in the way you work with them a respect for them as human beings;
Each day each of you is an advocate for children when you demonstrate in the unhurried, untroubled, sensitive encounters you have with the children in your care an understanding of the significance, for young children, of sensitive, responsive, trusting and caring relationships.
Each day all of you are advocates when you talk to parents and peers about children in an educated and informed way.
Each day each of you is an advocate for children when you talk with parents and support them in their important role of parenting.
Each day all of you are advocates when you talk to people about your work and its value.
Each day all of you are advocates when you speak to children in special ways - to nurture them as they mature.
Early Childhood Australia is an advocate for you and your work because we recognise the significance of what you do.
What we now call on you to be advocates for yourselves and your colleagues.
Embrace the pay increases that will be coming your way soon. We have to stop worrying about affordability for families - they will probably have to pay more but until they scream and protest at the ballot box no government will increase CCB.
Know your rights as a worker - join the union, read the regulations and use them to promote good practise for yourself and kids.
Stand up for yourself - if every childcare worker in Tasmania said I will not work overtime with no pay the system would grind to a halt.
Demand time to do your bookwork in work time. No one who earns as little as childcare workers should be taking work home - it doesn't matter how dedicated you are.
Children deserve books, equipment consumables to be purchased by management. Its part of licensing requirements. Stop providing this yourself.
Be brave and honest and prepared to not do very well in accreditation if you are not supported by management with time, resources etc.
Join organisations like Early Childhood Australia and I know you have a strong branch here, to feel supported and empowered to take a stand for children.
This is all really hard but until we stop doing things because we love kids nothing will change.
Until we are able to say publicly to ourselves, our colleagues, to parents, to politicians, to our unions and to the community at large " I cannot do a good job for children under current conditions and that what is happening is not as it should be for children there will be no improvements.
Your long term commitment to children must be a commitment to yourself first. Without that it just doesn't work.
We have opportunities like never before. We at the coalface have to grasp these opportunities. Childcare is an essential and in demand service. Make it work for us.
No other group as a profession has a greater responsibility.
Thank you - I am honoured to have been invited to address you.
The early part of this speech draws directly from two sources. A paper by a Canadian Ross A. Thompson. The article is called the Development in the First Years of Life and can be found at http://www.futureofchildren.org/information2826/information_show.htm?doc_id=79334 and the work of the Laidlaw Foundation on Social Inclusion. www.laidlawfdn.org
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