Being an Educator helps Kylie be a better Mum.

Kylie has been a family day care educator in Hobart for 13 years.

Starting off her career in retail, she always knew working with children was her true calling.

“It was always something that I wanted to do,” she says. 

As a mum of two herself, having the flexibility to parent her children while working has always been very important to Kylie. 

“It really helped me be a mum.

“You can choose your hours, the flexibility is great.

“I have a daughter with Autism, so that was a deciding factor in me becoming an Educator.

“I needed to be accessible to her when she needed me.”

Kylie says her daughter has thrived growing up in a family day care environment. 

“It really helped my daughter.

“She became so social.”

Caring for a maximum of seven children at a time has allowed Kylie to form close bonds with those in her care. 

“It actually is like a family.

“We drive down the driveway and they call it home.

“I want them to feel at home.”

Having worked for other early learning providers in the past, Kylie says the support at Uniting is unlike any other. 

“Uniting in general is more for the families.

“They go above and beyond, not just family day care wise, but they will help the families that need help in more ways than one.”

Kylie urges others to consider a career in family day care. 

“Actually, becoming an Educator is not as hard as people would think.

She says that “one phone call” was all it took to start the process. 

Kylie has felt lots of support, not just from Uniting but from other Educators and the families she cares for.

“You think that you’re on your own because you’re an Educator in your own home, but you’re not.

“You actually have a lot of support around you”.

Thirteen years on and Kylie hasn’t looked back. 

“I love it. I can’t see myself doing anything else now.”

Removal of Child Care Subsidy annual cap.

The Australian Government is removing the annual cap for all families who get Child Care Subsidy.

If you earn more than $190,015, you have an annual subsidy cap of $10,655 per child each financial year.

This cap will be removed permanently from 10 December 2021. You don’t need to do anything.

If you reach the cap before 10 December, Services Australia will reassess your CCS entitlement and back pay you.

Learn more at the Department of Education, Skills and Employment.

Early Learning staff making an invaluable difference in 2020.

Our Early Learning staff make an invaluable difference in the lives of the children and families they work alongside.

This year our teams across Victoria and Tasmania had to quickly adapt to ensure children and families maintained a strong connection and sense of belonging to their programs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thank you for the wonderful messages of support and gratitude. Our staff truly appreciate it.

Here’s one from Pilgrim Occasional Care in Launceston.

“Hi Janine,

I would like to pass on to you and all the staff in the centre my sincere gratitude and thanks for all the hard work and care you have given my children throughout this tough challenging year!

You provide exceptional service, with much love, dedication and compassion for our kids. I have watched Poppy in particular thrive throughout this year. She learns many little life skills from you all, and so I warmly thank you for helping me support my baby in growing and developing.

Thank you to all – please send this email on to the ladies, it would be greatly appreciated!

Kind regards

Emily.”

Uniting Celebrates Children’s Week.

Uniting Vic.Tas is celebrating Children’s Week in the Wellington Shire with a colouring competition and giveaway packs.

Children’s Week is a national celebration of children’s rights, talents and citizenship held in October every year. Around the country, local services, organisations and government unite to organise fun, free and educational opportunities for children and their families.

Di Fisher, Executive Officer for Gippsland said Children’s Week would look a little different this year.

“We are not able run our usual event but we still want to ensure this week is an opportunity for families to connect with our community.”

This year’s theme is ‘Children have the right to choose their own friends and safely connect with others’.

“We are inviting children to participate by creating a Friendship Flag. Children can be as creative as they like and can use any materials to represent their ideas including paint, chalk, textas, pencils, crayons, collage, Lego, Duplo or natural materials such as shells, sand, bark, flowers, leaves and feathers,” said Ms Fisher.

The Friendship Flag Entry form was available in last week’s Gippsland Times and is on the Uniting Gippsland Facebook page.

“We also have 300 Information and Activity Packs available for children and families during Children’s Week. The packs contains fun items for children and information for families. Packs will be available for collection on weekdays throughout Children’s Week from the Uniting Sale office,” said Ms Fisher.

Uniting has been looking at new ways to connect with local families during Covid-19.

“Uniting Gippsland’s Facebook page is regularly updated with information, tips, activities and opportunities for family engagement. In addition to this, ‘Let’s Play’, a series of online playgroup video sessions, has been developed.

“These sessions bring playgroup into families’ homes and include stories, songs and activities while also providing an opportunity for connection and belonging to the online community,” said Ms Fisher.

The Friendship Flag activity is a partnership with Wellington Shire and the Department of Education and Training to celebrate Children’s Week 2020.

Improving early childhood services for culturally and linguistically diverse families.

Uniting has welcomed a report to improve access to and connections with early childhood services for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) families across Victoria.

The Inquiry into Early Childhood Engagement of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities Report was presented to Parliament on 17 September 2020.

It highlights the importance of early learning opportunities in laying the foundations for children’s long-term development, and how this is particularly important for children from CALD backgrounds.

Uniting was one of the early learning service providers to make a submission to the inquiry.

Through our commitment to give a voice to the lived experience of consumers, our submission included input from parents and carers from a range of CALD backgrounds.

We also sought the feedback and advice of our educators working in areas with significant diversity within their communities.

The insights provided by our submission highlighted both the challenges and opportunities of engaging with CALD communities.

They demonstrated the need for stronger government investment in services that are welcoming, inclusive, respectful and culturally safe for CALD children, families and communities.

In December 2019, we gave evidence to the inquiry at a public hearing in Dandenong.

The final report references Uniting’s submission, with many direct quotes from the staff who gave evidence at the public hearing, and quotes from the parents and carers who participated in focus groups for our submission.

Many of Uniting’s recommendations feature in the report’s final recommendations to Parliament.

Key recommendations of the report include:

  • Continued funding of community hubs as well-established and evidence-based models for engaging with CALD communities.
  • Mandated training in cultural competency and trauma-informed care for state funded services.
  • Strategies and actions to increase the number of bicultural and bilingual workers in early childhood services.
  • Identifying children of refugee background as a priority group for mental health services.
  • Culturally diverse speech therapy workers to ensure speech and language delay assessments can be conducted in a child’s first language.
  • Funding for playgroups that specifically target culturally diverse communities.
  • Targeted funding to assist people from CALD backgrounds to engage in training and development, such as Free TAFE in the early childhood sector.
  • Expanding Early Start Kindergarten to ensure children of refugee background are immediately eligible for free 3-year-old kinder.
  • Adopting a state-wide approach to kindergarten enrolment, with a single, easily accessible and central enrolment process across Victoria.

Read the full Early Childhood Engagement of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities Report.

Read Uniting’s full submission to the inquiry.

Buninyong collaborative art project.

The Winter Garden Art initiative, Friends of Buninyong Botanic Gardens created a concept designed to bring people together in the natural environment to educate all to be creatively curious about the environment and how natural elements like water, wind and sun have an impact on it. 

The artworks began at the preschool, with all 120 children decorating their own fabric bunting flag that was then hung in the newly refurbished rotunda at the Buninyong Botanic Gardens. Buninyong News visited the Preschool during an art session where children used oil pastels on primed canvas flags

Ballarat City Council Mayor, Ben Taylor, opened the Winter Garden Art project, along with Friends of Buninyong Botanic Gardens president, Roger Permezel and two local families. An opening complete with a wide red ribbon. oversized scissors and a loud hurrah!

With over 500 art cards contributed to the shared art display over the five week duration, the project succeeded in its achievement of engaging the community in an artistic manner within the stunning gardens. This accomplishment completed mid-winter and mid-Covid-19 demonstrates the high level of community spirit.

The project comprised of many phone calls, emails, meetings, and a timetable of who would set up and pack up the table with index cards, pencils, crayons and paints, and hand sanitiser for the public to use safely to contribute their own artworks to the display.

Buninyong Preschool, in continued collaboration with Friends of Buninyong Botanic Gardens, anticipate Winter Garden Art will become an annual event. To further the strong relationship between the two, they are in talks for Friends of Buninyong Botanic Gardens to contribute and support the kindergarten children in creating a ‘bush tucker’ and/or edible garden with regular gardening and cooking sessions, also for the preschool to explore the gardens with the Friends of Buninyong Botanic Gardens as guides.

Buninyong Preschool is a Uniting service offers kindergarten programs to 3 and 4 year olds. Buninyong is a small community 11km south of Ballarat, Victoria.

St Andrews Sunbury Kindergarten and Community Tree Warmer Project.

The St Andrews Sunbury Kindergarten Tree Warmer project launched in April to realise our mission and commitment to encouraging children, families and other community members to come together and integrate with their community.

The initiative was born from a discussion with the children about a large pine tree and how to keep it warm during the winter.

Inspired by the ‘Street Life’ community event, the children and staff were spurred to create a colourful blanket for the tree using a large donation of wool they had received.

Excited to get the community involved, they extended the idea to the children’s families, the Uniting Church congregation, Sunbury Library’s Monday knitting club and our local drop-in centre.

“Our intention is to teach children how to interact with the wider community, observe and enjoy the combined efforts of a community working towards a project and feel a sense of pride and ownership in their kindergarten environment,” Educational Leader at St Andrews Sunbury Kindergarten, Angela Dance said.

“This is also a wonderful opportunity to enhance the involvement of our families.”

Jeanette, who volunteers at the local drop-in centre, was a proud participant in the project.

“Seeing the squares sewn together and put on the trees was just wonderful,” Jeanette said.

“It was a great visual representation of what can be achieved when a community comes together.”

Message to all our consumers.

Our absolute priority is the health, safety and wellbeing of our consumers, volunteers and employees.

I want to reassure you that at Uniting we are taking every effort to limit the spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus) while continuing to support people that need us at this time.

We provide many essential services and are taking all steps to deliver these services safely, while continuing to support people that use those services.

We have a pandemic plan in place, which includes guidance for all our workforce. This guidance makes clear that they must follow government instructions at all times, specifically:

  • Following all hygiene instructions, regarding hand washing and using hand sanitiser
  • Not visiting anyone if the consumer or worker has any flu-like symptoms
  • Asking screening questions before going into anyone’s home
  • Maintaining physical distance of at least 1.5m to the extent possible to deliver the service
  • Finding ways to support that are not face-to-face unless absolutely necessary.

Where possible, we have moved to deliver services by phone or screen-to-screen.

Where we engage third party providers to deliver services (such as in-home care), we have taken steps to ensure their compliance with these instructions.

In our residential services, staff are undertaking daily deep cleaning and we also have 24/7 access to a professional cleaning service that can be used at any Uniting location that requests it.

As of today, we have no confirmed cases of COVID-19 among any of our workforce or consumers. We continue to track possible cases and exposures across our services. Wherever there has been a possible case or exposure, we have immediately enacted self-isolation procedures and taken steps to ensure that everyone who could have been in touch with that person has been informed directly, both of the potential exposure and of the negative test results.

We are closely monitoring all government announcements at state and federal level and adjusting our guidance to changing circumstances.

Many thanks for your support and understanding as we navigate through this difficult time.

Bronwyn Pike
Uniting Vic.Tas Chief Executive Officer.

Victorian Government commits to early learning funding for all 3 year olds.

All children deserve access to quality education that gives them the best start to life.

That’s why Uniting Vic. Tas has been advocating for political parties to commit to 15-hours a week of fully funded, high-quality early learning for every three-year-old.

Early learning is an essential stepping stone to a better future, especially for children experiencing disadvantage.

Children who attend two years of early learning before starting school are more likely to complete secondary education, have better results in exams, and attend post-secondary education.

Our recent research in Victoria found that 93 per cent of people believe early learning is either important or very important to a child’s development.

But over a third (37%) of the families currently sending their child to early learning before the age of four reported a major impact on their ability to cover essential costs such as housing, food and utilities.

We were pleased when the recently re-elected Victorian government committed to early learning funding for all three year olds.

We look forward to this being rolled out across Victoria.

Read our full our Early Learning Report.

Children and families flip for Pancake Day 2020.

Many of our Early Learning Centres are getting ready to flip for a cause this Pancake Day.

Staff, children and families will come together to have some fun and make a difference in their local community.

Since 2002, over $2 million has been raised to support some of our community’s most vulnerable and marginalised people across Victoria and Tasmania.

This year Pancake Day falls on Tuesday 25 February, but centres will hold events during February and March.

For further information, visit Pancake Day.