Relationships are key: Engaging with Family Day Care

Empowered Family Day Care on the Sunshine Coast regularly engages in critical reflection with their Inclusion Professional. This Family Day Care service has 23 educators located across Sunshine Coast, Logan, Redlands, Brisbane, Gympie and Toowoomba. They value the collaborative process of engaging in critical reflection and planning with their Inclusion Professional around inclusive practices through the development of a Strategic Inclusion Plan (SIP).

Support has been tailored to the specific needs of this FDC service and includes Coordinators meeting with their Inclusion Professional to review both the overall Strategic Inclusion Plan and its progress every six months. Following this, Coordinators work collaboratively with each FDC educator to reflect on their individual environments and practices, supporting them in the development of their own SIPs.

The Inclusion Professional has developed a highly collaborative relationship with the Coordinators, working alongside them to enhance inclusive practices within the FDC services and address barriers to inclusion. This has included supporting the Coordinators to connect with community supports and external networks to assist a FDC educator and the children and families she supports who are from a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse background. This support has included accessing interpreter services, migrant and refugee resettlement services, and developing supporting documents in the educator’s and families’ home language.

The Inclusion Professional has visited FDC educators’ homes with the Coordinator to identify barriers to inclusion and collaboratively develop strategies and actions to address them. Together they have used the ISQ posters to support educators to reflect on their physical environments, routines and transitions, expectations around child development and communicating with families. Following these visits, the Coordinator shares relevant reflections, resources and links more widely on the platforms they use to communicate with all their educators and families.

Despite having never applied for FDC Top Up funding, Empowered Family Day Care continue to reach out for support from Inclusion Support Queensland as they truly value the collaborative relationship with their Inclusion Professional and the opportunity to engage in critical reflection to support the inclusion of all children.

“Donna is great, and I enjoy working with her as she supports our service to develop our practices, procedures and policies around inclusion. She is very knowledgeable and approachable, and it is evident that she is passionate about her work” Empowered Family Day Care.

As Empowered Family Day Care has illustrated, relationships are key. If your Family Day Care service would like to engage with the Inclusion Program please contact us.

Photos: The Empowered Family Day Care Coordinator and Inclusion Professionals engage in critical reflection and Strategic Inclusion Planning with a Family Day Care educator on a collaborative visit to the educator’s home.