Promoting collaboration in early education to support children’s mental health

JACQUIE LEE: Hello everyone and welcome to today's webinar in promoting collaboration in early education to support child mental health. My name is Jacqui, I would like to start today by acknowledging and thanking the Kaurna people, the Traditional Custodians of the Adelaide Plains, where I join you from today. I pay my respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people, their ancestors, Elders, past present and emerging, from the many First Nations across this beautiful country.

I am really grateful to be connecting and learning with you all today on what always was, and always will be Aboriginal land. Please, feel free to share in the chat now, which lands you will be joining us from today. Just a quick piece of housekeeping before we get into today's session. Live captions are available for this webinar, if you would like to turn them on, please follow the link in the chat box. There will be a live Q&A at the end of the session, and you can submit your questions via the questions box in the GoTo Webinar dashboard. This webinar is being recorded and the recording will be available in around two weeks. You should receive an email with a link, but you will always be able to find it on the AIFS website.

You can find related readings and resources in the handout section of your GoTo Webinar control panel, including biographies for today's panellists. And there will be a short survey at the end of the session. We would like you to tell us how you found today's session, and how we can improve. The Emerging Minds workforce survey for child, parents, and family mental health is now open. We would love you to share your experiences, strengths, and support needs, to help inform future workforce training and policy. The more people we hear from, the more complete picture we can build.

Finally, I also want to recognise the children, young people and adults within families and diverse communities who have generously shared their lived experience and wisdom with us, including our lovely panellist Wei who joins us today. Those experiences helped shape the case scenario we will look at today. We recognise their experiences of pain, trauma, and heartache, including that which comes at the hands of harmful systemic practices. We also recognise the strengths, skills, and know how they have drawn on to navigate difficult times. We commit to listening with integrity to their voices and expertise.

Early childhood educators and staff are well-positioned to spot the changes in a child's behaviour, emotions, learning and relationships, that suggest they could use extra support. Limited trauma informed training, unclear roles, competing responsibilities, and a lack of organisational support can also leave educators feeling unsure about how best to respond and how to most effectively collaborate with mental health professionals and families.

We will be exploring this practice of collaboration more, in today's session, but it is now my pleasure to introduce our panellists. Michelle Hamilton and Wei, and (inaudible). You can find their biographies in the dashboard, so let us start off with a quick introductory question. Yihan, congratulations on recently completing your PhD on advancing trauma informed practice in the early childhood educational process. What were you to this area of research?

YIHAN SUN: Thank you Jacqui. I was actually an early childhood teacher before, moving into research, and my interest in this area really came from my own experience of supporting children affected by trauma. At that time I realised I was not as prepared as I wanted to be and some of the how behaviours were really challenging and I did not always know what the child needed from me, or what I could do to support. I started to do a lot of self learning and trying out trauma-informed approaches in my practice. And I was amazed, and how things shifted. It could have a real impact on relationships, engagement and learning. But also it made me realise how much of these I had to figure out on my own. There was a real gap of trauma-informed resources designed for early childhood educators. That experience was the catalyst to move from teaching into research because I wanted to understand what educators actually need to be confident and capable of supporting children affected by trauma, and how we can build trauma informed practice into early childhood settings in a way that is practical but also sustainable. And also importantly, how we could support educators own well-being when doing this really important but very emotional work. Thank you.

JACQUIE LEE: Absolutely. Thank you. I am so grateful you are doing this very important work. I am excited to hear more. Wei, thank you for joining us today and for sharing your experiences as an educator and parent. What do you think are the key ingredients for collaboration in early childhood education?

WEI: For me, I think the biggest things our trust, respect, listening and relationships. As an educator and parent, I know families and educators see children from different perspectives. Parents know their child really deeply, but educators, bring their professional knowledge and experiences. I think would collaboration happens when we respect both the things and don't assume one person has all the answers.

I also think how we communicate is a really important thing. If a family is already experiencing stress, or has difficult experiences with services already, they might be very sensible, the way we communicate to each other. And it will be-- they will be easily put off or disengaged. Asked, creating a space where we can honestly say, look, I am struggling at the moment, without feeling I'm going to be judge, that is very important.

And also, from a lived experience perspective, I think connection have to come before trying to fix any kind of concerns. Sometimes we look for finding a solution, but we forget to stop, and asked them what is really happening for the child and family. And I know, all educators, need to understand the behaviour of little people.

For me, communication with parents is quite crucial. Even though, just like not every member of the family, just the primary carer. And families, working with them, not telling them what to do. Families need to be respected, heard, and they need to feel safe to be in the environment. Then they are much more likely to engage and share what is really going on in their home. And ultimately, I think that is what we are really trying to achieve. Creating a safe and supportive environment where the child feels safe, and the adults around them, and connecting together to work for them.

JACQUIE LEE: Absolutely. Oh my gosh, so much incredible wisdom within just that one shot answer. I am really looking forward to unpacking some more of that with you today throughout the session. And Michelle, so lovely to have you here today. How is your background as an educator informed your work at Emerging Minds.

MICHELLE HAMILTON: Yes, my background is as an educator as well. I want to say, with this particular topic and audience, that my experience as an educator has been with schooling, so primary and secondary schools, in particular. So I would never lay claim to having any extensive knowledge around early childhood. But it does shape the way I approach my work in the education team at Emerging Minds. It keeps my feet on the ground. I will never lose the perspective of whether we are working on policy, or workforce design, I am constantly thinking, how will you say, how will I do that tomorrow? And how will it feel for the children and young, and their families that I'm working with?

So I'm constantly putting things through that filter about how it would work in practice? What does it look like in reality? I think that is often missing from some of the bigger picture thinking and conversations. And the other thing I think it always brings then, for me, is that I really value the experience of collaborating with other professionals in my day-to-day work.

I bring an education lens and an education background to the work I do but I work with a variety of people who all have incredibly different training. And it is through that collaboration that I am learning so much. So I think, for me, it is a really big part of the way I approach our work at Emerging Minds.

JACQUIE LEE: Fantastic, so valuable to have that practical perspective. Thank you everyone. I'm so looking forward to hearing more from you all. Today we will be looking at the case scenario of Elias who lives with his younger sister Zoe, his mother Alexis, and his father Christian in a regional town. Elias and Zoe have been attending the same early learning centre for the past 15 months. The family has had little ongoing contact with staff beyond brief interactions that drop-off and pickup. In the past month the staff have noticed a shift in his behaviour.

He has been displaying more bigger emotional responses, refusing to follow staff requests, he has been having increased disagreements with other children, and appears more easily distressed and agitated. Sometimes reacting physically when the situations don't go his way. They have also noticed he has been arriving late most mornings and Alexis often seems flustered when dropping the kids off. Staff are aware that Elias has been seeing a speech pathologist in town for around five months to address some communication delays.

There is an initial report regarding his speech assessment on file at the ELC but not everyone is aware of it and no one has had a chance to read it. The centre has not had any further contact with the speech pathologist.

Yihan, I am wondering how educators might make sense of the changes they have notice in Elias's behaviour, while remaining curious about the factors that may be contributing to it?

YIHAN SUN: Thank you Jacqui, I think the way you ask the question is quite trauma-informed. I actually think, the first really important thing here is staff have noticed a change. Elias has been attending the centre for 15 months, so educators should have a good understanding of what is typical for him. And over the past month they are noticing more agitation, emotional distress, difficulty responding to request, conflict with peers, and sometimes physical responses when things don't go his way. There is a clear change in his presentation that they are paying attention to.

The next step is really important. Notice but don't jump to an explanation yet. We all know children communicate a lot through their behaviours, emotions and interactions. So rather than asking what is wrong, or labelling as him-- labelling him as aggressive, we might ask what might he be experiencing, and communicating through through this change in behaviour. An observation gives us something we can actually work with. It helps us stay curious rather than prematurely interpreting or diagnosing what is happening, which is not really within our educator toolbox.

I encourage educators to look for patterns. What is happening? Who was Elias with? What happened immediately before and after? Is it during transitions or particular activities? Noisy environments or interactions with particular peers or adults? Also think about the sensory and environmental factors, the relationships, routines and expectations. And we need to think about the broader context. In this case there are a few things that stood out.

We know he has communication difficulties and has been seeing a speech pathologist for five months. But not all educators have read the report. So I really hope the team could make sure they understand what is already known about his communication, and consider whether the sum of the situations we observe and interpret as refusal or frustration might actually involve difficulty understanding, and expressing himself or communicating what he needs.

Also, I think it is important to gently check in with a family rather than making assumptions about what might be happening at home. We know Alexis arrives flustered, the children have been coming late, but those observations don't tell us why. There could be many explanations, and I know Michelle will talk more about family patterns more. Importantly we went look at the broader context, we need to know how Zoe is doing. It also would be helpful for educators to bring observations to their colleagues, and leaders and supervisors, because sometimes another educator will notice a pattern that we have missed, and this collaboration and reflection helps prevent one person's interpretation from becoming the whole story.

This is where I think trauma informed practice is really helpful. Being trauma informed does not mean assuming Elias has experienced trauma, not like that, it means creating an environment where we respond safely, relationally, sensitively, while remaining open to the possibility that behaviour may be communicating stress, and unmet need, or an experience we do not understand. At this point I wouldn't be trying to determine whether he has trauma, I would be asking what has changed for him. What might he be communicating, and what can we do to better understand and support him.

This is really the heart of trauma informed practice, curiosity before judgement. Observation before interpretation, and relationship before everything else. If we later identified he has experienced trauma or significant adversity, then having that understanding can help us respond more sensitively. But we do not need a trauma label in order to provide a safe predictable response.

To conclude my response, to briefly unpack what we mean by trauma. I think they can be a lot of misunderstanding around the term. In my research many educators use the term, they find it quite frightening. Trauma can arise from a single event, such as accidents, natural disasters. Repeated or ongoing experiences, including maltreatment or neglect. Or circumstances that overwhelm a person's capacity to cope. Unmet early needs, or intergenerational trauma. It can be directly experienced or simply witnessed and it can take many forms. For young children this matters, because the capacity to understand, regulate and communicate their experiences is still developing. Sometimes what we see externally as distress, withdrawal, aggression, or problem engaging, maybe a way the child is communicating and eternal experience that they do not yet have the words to explain.

Again, those behaviours are not evidence of trauma. They are simply signs that invite us to slow down, observe, and become curious about what the child might actually need.

JACQUIE LEE: Thank you. You mentioned there, signs that something has changed for the child. We are not sure what. What could educators do within their role to support Elias now, in this moment, and what might indicate that import from a mental health or allied health professional might be helpful for cube

YIHAN SUN: Great question. I think this is something the sector has been exploring for quite a while, particularly around the roles and boundaries of educators and other professionals. While we think about this, through my own research, that is they develop and of a multitiered model. Thank you for bringing that slide out. It is quite a complex model, the key idea for these cases is quite simple. Educators have an important role in supporting children but should not be expected to do everything themselves. For Elias, there are things educators can do right now, within that role. Let's look at the types of support, at the universal level, they can continue to provide a safe, predictable and relational environment, strengthening his relationships with trusted educators, making routines and transitions more predictable, giving clear and supportive communication and helping a Elias regulate before expecting him to problem solve or respond to requests.

Given what we know about his communication difficulties, I think educators should think carefully about whether some of his frustration might be related to his difficulty expressing himself. They could draw on speech pathology information available, and consider how communication supports could be embedded into his everyday experiences. They could also continue to observe and document what they are seeing, look for patterns and reflect as a team about what seems to help. And importantly, they can work with the family, Alexis, to understand what she is noticing and what is realistic and helpful for the family.

Then we need to ask, what we can provide, within the early learning centre, is it enough? I would not say there is one particular behaviour that automatically means a referral is needed. I would be looking at the persistence, severity, and impact of the concerns. For example, if his distress is continuing, or escalating, despite supports being put in place, or if it is significantly affecting his participation, relationships or well-being, or if educators are finding the behaviours increasingly difficult to understand or respond to, or if there are broader concerns about his developmental or emotional well-being, it may be appropriate to seek additional professional input.

That professional input does not necessarily mean a mental health professional, in this case, his speech pathologist may be an important starting point. Given his existing communication needs. Depending what the team is observing, other professionals might include a psychologist, OT, social worker, paediatrician or other relevant specialists.

This is where I think knowing our boundaries is part of trauma informed practice. Educators don't need to diagnose trauma or mental health conditions, and they should not be expected to provide specialist intervention. They need to create supportive, physical and relational environments, collaboratively with colleagues and family. And recognise when a child's needs would benefit from additional expertise. In this model, that is where the tiers could hopefully be helpful.

When a child's needs become more insisting, or more shared with families a multi-disciplinary practitioners, with educators continuing to provide continuity within the early learning environment. I think there is a parallel piece here, that we sometimes overlook. Educators themselves need support. Supporting children with complex needs can be really emotionally demanding, I have been there. As educators, they experience increased stress, or field they do not have the capacity to manage the situation, then they also need things like reflective supervision, coaching, mentoring, workload adjustments. For me the message is not that educators… No more about mental health and trauma. They need to be confident in what is within their role, clear about what is actually not, and supported to connect children and families with the right expertise when additional support is needed.

Ultimately, it takes a village around the child.

JACQUIE LEE: It sure does, thank you. You mention there that educators themselves need support. I know Michelle will be going and speaking a bit about what leadership's role is in all of this, later on.

Wei, what would you encourage the ELC staff to consider or be curious about?

WEI: As a parent educator, and a person with lived experiences of trauma, and navigating multiple services, and also you can tell I am from a CaLD family, honestly, it is a very hard process. It is not easy. In this case, with Elias, I would definitely encourage the staff to focus on building a relationship with the family before even trying to solve any behaviour or concerns.

For me, relationship is the key, without relationship nothing happens. Because often families experiencing trauma, financial hardship, displacement, cultural marginalisation, they have already had many situations where people feel judged, blamed, et cetera. And sometimes the hint is really subtle. People's small way of looking at me, I can pick it up.

I am not blaming anyone, educators, families, will need to be cautious on that. If we want to have a conversation focusing on the behaviour changes, I would actually try not labelling at all. Because families can easily get into a defence mode. And when people are in a defence mode, nothing happens. Instead of asking, how do we manage the behaviour? I would act encourage people to say, "What has life been like for him recently? What can the family teach us about him?"

If people ask me a question, how do we develop a positive relationship with families? I think there are simple things we can do. Greeting parents warmly, every day when they drop off or pick up kids. Because I have experienced both good and bad when I am warmly greeted. That's when I feel that I recognise. But some people are busy, they did not do it deliberately, but they ignored me. I was standing there for 10 or 15 minutes, but I felt like air. It does not help me to feel part of a team.

Also, people's names, in Australia, can be pronounced so differently. So learning the correct pronunciation of family's names, that is very important. People are generally generous and kind. Do your best. But I feel, as an educator, try my best, I can improve as time goes. I won't get it correct straight away, but I promise to practice.

Another thing is, showing genuine interest of the family story. I have students from all over the world. Some of them from the place I have never even heard of. So I ask what does life look like there? How do teachers teach you there? So you show a genuine interest. I am not judging them, I am just trying to learn their life.

Another one is, share positive observations of Elias, rather than start to say, "He has changed." While we can share, "He helped us pick up a toy", it is really heart warming to hear something like that, as a parent.

And also recognise the strength and effort of the family. Every family has different strengths. And as an educator, I would like to have a little bit of time to acknowledge their strengths, and create opportunities for some informal conversations.

When families hear from educators only about something wrong, trust can quickly erode. However, when educators consistently talk about strengths, families are more likely to feel safe to you discuss challenges. One more quick point. I have noticed, one could say, I have noticed a Elias help pick up toys, or he was very engaged with play today. We would love to hear what activities he enjoys at home.

These sorts of conversations is an avenue for partnership for difficult conversations can occur.

JACQUIE LEE: Thank you, I love those examples you have just given. How could the staff invite the family's knowledge about a Elias, before making assumptions or positioning his behaviour is the problem.

WEI: Can we go to the next slide. We have a visual clue. To acknowledge, all my pictures are generated by AI. I acknowledge AI's creations. As we all know this.

The angle I want to tackle this question is, I would like to be curious about the story behind the behaviour. I would like to know, for Elias, are there significant disruptions happening in his life? With a trauma informed perspective, behaviour is a communication for us and for parents as well. Rather than viewing a Elias having a behaviour problem, I would wonder, here there are several questions. What might Elias be feeling? What is he experienced, from his perspective? What is helping him to feel safe? What does he seem most settled with, and when does it happen?

What strength has developed through these experiences? A child who appears angry, withdrawn, or dysregulated, maybe expressing grief, uncertainty, fear. I feel these questions are good to share with parents and carers. Because they are the expert of the child.

Also, as I just mentioned, really try our best to invite family expertise. One of the most powerful questions I have ever heard from a professional, you know your child better than anyone else. What would you like us to understand about a Elias? And I heard that I thought, that is great. Actually, I am not the one being told what to do, I am actually playing in a partnership to help my child.

So this communicative respect, it positions the family as a valuable partner. Some other helpful questions I am thinking… What makes Elias happy at home? What helps him feel safe and calm? What do you do to calm him down at home? What is his strength? What has helped him cope with difficult situations before? What changes have you noticed at home? Is there anything about your family experiences that will help us understand Elias better? So all of these questions, they are not from me, I am just genuinely open to learn what happens behind the scenes, from what I can see.

From a family perspective, one of the professional encounters never started a meeting with a concern. I never start a conversation now with a parent by highlighting the concerns. It doesn't set a good tone. I will ask them to tell me something wonderful about their child this week. What actually surprised you this week? What made you guys laughed as we? That simple question reminds everyone in the room that we are talking about a whole child, not a problem to fix.

As a parent, particularly from a culturally and linguistically's background, feeling listened to, and appreciated, and an expert on my own child, determined the way I engaged with services, whether or not. Because I don't want to feel judged. I am not as smart as every other cultured person. Alright, but I want to be part of this.

Before discussing strategies or interventions, I would encourage everyone to focus on a relationship based on trust, curiosity, cultural, humility, and shared decision-making. Only then can meaningful partnerships be formed, allowing everyone to work together to support our children, or child's well-being, living, and learning. Rather than focusing on behaviour itself, we can also be curious about what has changed recently?

In our case, that is a huge change. It may be also something we don't know.

JACQUIE LEE: Thank you. It is funny you mention that, if we go to the next slide we can learn a bit more about the context that Elias's community has been experiencing. There was a flood 10 months ago that damaged a lot of homes and businesses in the area, including the ELC which was closed for a few weeks. And so we imagine Elias - his educator asked us to meet with us. She sighs, and apologises for his behaviour. Michelle, can you perhaps give us a brief overview of the Emerging Minds leadership model and how it could guide progress with this child.

MICHELLE HAMILTON: We develop this model after researching and consulting with educators and families with lived experience. I just wanted to note, before we start, that the children themselves are really important part of this partnership and we might not delve too much today into Elias's part of the partnership, but I want to call that out and say, from our perspective, children are key participants. We heard educators understood the importance of working with families in partnership, but it could be really challenging in practice.

So we set about trying to zoom in on what educators and the whole centre around them could do to try to take family partnerships from being an idea, theory or concept, and bring it into being just a regular set of practices and activities that everyone knew and understood and could implement without feeling like some educators did it well, but that was just a bit of a luck of the draw, whether you felt comfortable with it. Something that could be really helpful training, and the could be support around it.

We have built a free online family partnerships toolkit on how to have respectful conversations with families. The evidence suggested relationships. You have heard all of us already say relationships. But it is good to know as well this is really clear, focusing on building relationships is important. Those relationships needed to be equal, two-way exchanges of information. I cannot begin to sum that up as well as Wei has talked about. But it encouraged us to rethink some of those ideas about whether information really does flow both ways, and how it feels for families to be part of these partnerships.

If we could jump to the next slide please. We have a simple, four step practice model for educators. Hopefully later we will come back and look at how this fits in the bigger picture of a whole service, and leadership, but to answer the question about conversation, I want to look at the simple four step process. The first step is about connecting with the families of every child in your care. This happens slowly over time, lots of interactions. It is partly about how a service feels, the culture, the atmosphere. I often like to think of it as the vibe, it is very much something that builds slowly over time. Universal, we want those relationships for all families in every setting.

Then we move into steps two, three, and four, that a more targeted. As an educator you engage in that when you see something that you are going to be curious about and you think might need exploration or a response. So you follow those steps through, having this conversation we are talking about now. Following that up with a series of actions, whether bringing in other people, asking other questions, maybe simple things you can do either in the early learning service, or at home to add support. And our fourth step is about checking in and reviewing. The idea of a circle as we go around and around and around as many times as we need to keep these relationships going and to provide educators with clear steps of what we can do.

If we jump to the next slide please… Thank you. In answer to Jacquie's question about how could this help Elias's educators have a conversation with Alexis, we heard from educators this could be really daunting. Some educators don't feel trained, confident or equipped to have these conversations. What we have done is break down the skills and approaches for every step. In each of these steps, the one we look at now is step two, you will see there are four different approaches or skills or ideas listed there for an educator to take into this conversation.

We suggest starting by thinking and learning about how to frame the conversation. Framing the conversation helps approach the conversation without Alexis or Christian feeling like they are in trouble or being framed as a problem. It helps all position the adults involved as a team around Elias who are working together to support current needs without any blame, shame or judgement.

The next approach is using the best language to frame the concerns. To avoid language that looks like it might be heading towards trying to identify or label issues that a child might be facing, but are best explored by other professionals. So making sure we are doing that in a way that is not leaping to using particular language. An encouraging families to share any concerns they have as well.

The third of our ideas here is about exploring both contexts. This again is about taking turns to talk about what you have been observing in Elias at home and at child care. This needs to focus on strength and positive things, as well as what concerns might be. The strength will be the building blocks of how we can work together to respond to things.

The final one we have is about developing a shared understanding. This is really about summing up what educators and family members are feeling curious about, or would like to know more about at the end of this conversation, in a way that again is blame, and shame free. It captures the challenges and suggest, there are some things we could do, in the learning setting or the home setting immediately, whilst exploring these things further. What could we both start doing in these different contexts? Because really, what we are trying to help here in this conversation is a genuine coming together of two very important parts of a child's ecology. And seeing that family as the absolute experts on their own child, in the ecology of their whole life, and their home, but also giving an educator a voice.

They spend so much time with Elias, they really do have useful insights and information from the other part of the child's ecology in their learning setting. So hopefully the idea of these conversations is genuinely exchanging, on an equal footing, between those two parts of a child's ecology.

And in our toolkit we have a lot of video scenarios. So you can watch and work with educators as they go through trying to demonstrate each of these approaches, and they also talk about what happens when it doesn't go as you might have hoped. That is OK. It will happen quite regularly. But it really is about working through those things and developing them as skills we can learn as part of our workforce development. The other thing we have got is a really practical tool in the toolkit, that gives educators a template for having the conversation. It gives them lots of ideas around building the questions they can include, and also draws on other great areas such as the whole child approach.

There are a lot of things in there. What we ultimately want, the short answer to this question is, if you have some training, and you have explored and developed it, you want to make sure you are breaking down the skills and approaches rather than throwing an educator in there and hoping for the best. You want it to be something they have practised before, and something they have really understood. What are the techniques and approaches they can use to listen, to learn, and to share their ideas in a way that everybody can be genuinely involved in a respectful conversation.

JACQUIE LEE: Thank you Michelle. Wei, I feel like you gave a lot of great examples in your previous answer about what supports effective partnerships. I wonder if we might jump to the next question around what professionals have done before, during, and after conversations like this, to help your family feel heard, respected, and included in decisions.

WEI: I probably would combine these two answers, if that is OK. If you don't mind, can I go to the previous slide. I will quickly share, again, the images generated by AI, not by research. It places your beautiful child in the middle, we are all together. Effective partnership attributes our mutual respect. mutual belief, conversations, mutual play, and each party feels listened to. And each party feels culturally safe. And each party is included in decision-making as well.

There is one thing I really want to bring up, because I came here, to Australia, from overseas, it was a different language I was used to, and a different culture. I came across a lot with, doesn't matter another parent, or other professionals, they all believe they have been culturally responsive. But from my perspective, really, they skew views of the family, and other people through a western lens, and reflect assumptions based on Anglo-Australian experiences.

I feel cultural responsiveness begins with humility, not expertise. There is no degree that says I am culturally responsive. I feel we always have to acknowledge, if there is something we are not sure, we don't know, but we are open to learn. We may not fully understand your family experience, but we would like to learn from you. Something like that. So you can develop trust, and leave it open, not leaving people they are not being heard. There are so many times I have been treated that way, which destroys the relationship.

There is also hidden bias we can see through the process. The simple questions, we can reflect or ask, am I interpreting this behaviour through my own cultural lenses? Could there be another explanation? Have I asked the family how they view the situation? Am I assuming all families communicate, parent, and engage in the same way? And also, if you share the power. For example, if this plan doesn't work, I am very happy to sit together to work out a different plan to support the student, child, children…

In this way families are more likely to engage when we have genuine input in the decision making process. So,

please.

To talk about the before, during, and after, I think always be prepared. I should have mentioned a lot of support around systematic perspective, and tools, please use them as well. Of course, before the conversation, we need to be prepared, collect information without making assumptions. We review the family strengths, with less, as well as making sure we are in a comfortable place to meet, giving people transparency and privacy.

One positive experience I had, was the professional shared the notes, so I knew what was written down. I know what has been submitted to other professionals, and always allocate enough time. And bring an interpreter if needed. And be aware, some families, not like Australian core family, main carer, they may have extended family, grandparents, elders, they all have the big say in a child's upbringing.

Focus on the strength to start off with, and really validate family experiences as well, and listen carefully. Always question whether you have understood this correctly. Always checking. After the conversation, whatever decision-making we would like to follow through, and provide practical support information if needed. And always revisit regularly. If the plan is not working for your family, we can change it together.

So I think all of this demonstrates a partnership a genuine commitment to partnership, and leaves us in a good form to move on together.

JACQUIE LEE: Thank you. Very quickly, we can imagine during this conversation the educator learns about the difficulties the family has been going through, damage to their home, significant financial strain, disruptions to Elias's speech pathology sessions, and we can think about what that means for his context. Yihan how could the ELC staff and speech pathologists work together to understand his needs and develop a consistent approach across settings? And what could each professional contribute to a shared plan?

YIHAN SUN: Thank you Jacqui. I think the first thing I would like to acknowledge that effective collaboration sounds much easier than it often is in practice. There can be real barriers like limited time, staff turnover, especially in early childhood sector. Also funding constraints, and uncertainty about roles. We need structures that make collaboration possible. If we bring it back to Elias, I think the starting point is establishing a shared understanding of his needs rather than making assumptions about. With parental consent involvement, ELC and speech pathologist could bring together their shared knowledge about Elias.

Educators see Elias day in and day out in his natural environment. They explain how he interacts with adults and peers when he becomes frustrated or stressed. What tends to happen beforehand, how he responds during transitions. The speech pathologist brings a different expertise. That can help the team understand his communication strengths and difficulties, consider how these might be contributing to frustration and misunderstanding, and some practical communication strategies that can be used across his day. Family brings another perspective, they know him across different contexts and can tell us what they see at home. What works for him and what is realistic.

The family's involvement should not mean giving them another list of things they have to coordinate or implement. It should help make the support more responsive to their needs and reduce the burden on them. From there, I think the team could develop a small number of strategies and goals. They might develop a shared approach to how to respond when he becomes frustrated, and how to support enduring routines and transitions. The plan should be simple enough to use, because we don't want a beautiful plan, sitting in a folder, that no educator has time to read. And we want to feel that we have practical strategies that can be embedded into his everyday routines, that everyone understands.

Educators can observe and document what they see in the ELC, speech pathologists can review the information and adjust strategies, and the family can share what they notice at home. The team can come back together and ask what is working, what is not. What do we need to change. I see it as a cycle of sharing information, agreeing on priorities, trying out strategies, observing what happens, and reviewing together. And underlying the cycle we also really need the enabling condition that makes collaboration possible. That includes collective ownership, where everyone sees themselves contributing. Rather than one professional handing a recommendation to another. It also includes leadership support. Opportunities for shared learning and communication, and adequate time and resources.

I know we have many leaders in the audience today and I think organisational layers are important. Good collaboration cannot depend on individual educators or professionals going above and beyond. We really need systems and services that create the time, structures and expectations for people to work together. Some of these enabling factors are explored in more detail in my article, which will include in the resource list. Hoping people may be interested to explore that.

Ultimately, the goal is to have a holistic, shared approach that makes sense to Elias, his family and the professional supporting him, that can actually be sustained across different environments in which he lives and learns.

JACQUIE LEE: Thank you. What a fantastic way to lead into the final question before we wrap up. Thank you to those who have submitted questions for the Q&A, please continue to do so and we will try to get to them in the recording after this. Michelle, following on from what was just shared, what role can ELC service leaders play in creating these conditions for effective collaboration.

MICHELLE HAMILTON: Thank you. I will echo a lot of what has just been said. If we could jump to the next slide. Thank you, as a concept here, we really want, if there's one thing people take away today, it is the idea that educators really should not be doing this work alone. Service leaders, centre managers and directors are the key in this work and can give you the right environment in which to be doing the work. As an educator, you always have that really important role because you have that relationship with the child. But it is leaders who can enable the culture, spaces, the policies, and the processes that support your work to be sustainable for everybody involved. I also want to throw when, leaders require that to be in a safe environment for them as well. There are layers. Educators require support of leaders and organisations, but leaders also require support of their organisations and management to make sure they are being given adequate time to do this work well.

We have framed our family partnerships model is something that should be done across a whole early learning service. It is not something we want individual educators to try to implement on their own. That is not sustainable or safe. We wanted to be a slow and deliberate process across a whole early learning service that is very much supported by leaders. We have lots of other ideas about how leaders can engage. But I think in terms of brevity for now I think focusing on this idea of culture and how it feels to be in the experience of your centre, and that is the biggest thing leaders could impact to make sure we have an environment that will be welcoming, respectful, and will allow those equal two-way partnerships to flourish. That is the biggest impact we could have there. Thank you.

JACQUIE LEE: Thank you Michelle. Thank you so much everyone for joining us today. Thank you to our wonderful presenters, again. Thank you to all of you for joining us. Please subscribe to the Emerging Minds newsletters to be advised about the recording when it becomes available. Please don't forget to fill out the short survey at the end of this webinar. Always helps us to improve and guide our future webinar offering. A reminder that our on demand webinar series is running until November this year and features some of the most popular webinars from the past two years, including some other Emerging Minds collabourations. And Emerging Minds will be back on your screen in November.

Until then, please take care of yourselves, and each other. Goodbye for now.

JACQUIE LEE: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the extended Q&A for our webinar promoting collaboration in early education to support children's wellbeing. I'm joined by our lovely panelists Yihan Sun, Michelle Hamilton and Wei, to start this portion of the webinar, why I'm thinking back to the case study of Elias and to sort of where we left off in the webinar, where we had a deeper understanding of the family circumstances. Now that ELC staff know more about the family, what's been going on for them, how could they respond in a way that acknowledges the family's strengths and pressures, perhaps checks what support Alexis wants and agrees on some shared priorities for Elias?

WEI: I think this is really crucial because, Elias and the family actually being treated in the core part of the whole, whole thing and everyone, including me, like a little pat on my back. I'm doing well in something and actually building first building trust as well. So I would like encourage the staff to respond with empathy, partnership and practical support, and especially I would like to encourage everyone, including me when I am talking or trying to acknowledge people with their strengths, from these aspects, because sometimes to ask for support or disclose our circumstances need a lot of courage. So even just seeking support is a big strength from families, and another thing is life has been so busy and sometimes can be so challenging. Continuously engaging with different services and going to different appointments, are not as easy as it sounds like. So another strength to really acknowledge, is continued engagements with different services or commitment for our child or children's well-being. And also sometimes families manage not only one child, but multiple children with different age group with different needs. So sibling relationships can be tricky sometimes.

So that's another strength families can show, but sometimes it's underestimated. Or people just think, oh yeah, they can deal with it. This is their job. But no one had the degree of being a parent handling challenging situations. So if from other person from a client, genuine perspective is very encouraging. And also I would like to acknowledge the strengths of resilience, especially following trauma; it has mentioned different type of, events that happened in life. So even just one off, incident that's due a family showing resilience. That's good strength. And another, the last one to share about the strength is like willingness to disclose, the situation inside my family, the willingness to communicate with different professionals because sometimes it can, I feel fearful, I feel insecure, I feel I don't know where it leads to. So if you. At the beginning, if people initiated the communication. That's a. That's a strength need to be recognised. I got an example response. Here, thank you for sharing with what's been happening. It looks, it sounds like your family has been through an incredibly difficult period. And we appreciate how much effort you were made to keep supporting the children through all these changes, despite everything that has happened.

We can see many strengths in your family. Elias clearly has strong connections with his parents, and both children continue to attend and engage with us rather than making assumptions about what support you need. We'd like to hear from you. What are your biggest priorities for Elias right now? What would be most helpful from us. Perhaps we can identify 1 or 2 shared goals that feel manageable for everyone. We can then review them together and just as circumstances change. And just one last key message I really would like to share. A few families do not need rescuing. They need professionals who are curious, respectful, culturally humble, and willing to work alongside them. This shift from managing children to partnering with families creates lasting positive outcomes.

JACQUIE LEE: Thank you Wei. That's such an important message to be shared. And thank you. A reminder as well for anyone watching that you, can find a link to download all of the slides, alongside where You are watching this webinar. Yihan, I know that there are probably a lot of mental health professionals watching this webinar as well as early childhood educators and, staff. What can mental health professionals do to understand and value educators knowledge of the children that they're working with and build genuinely collaborative relationships with ELC staff?

Yes. And I think this is where we need to turn the question around a little bit. We often talk about what educators need to do to collaborate with mental health professionals, but collaboration really is a two way relationship, and mental health professionals also have a responsibility to understand value and work with expertise that educators bring. And I think the first step is actually to recognise the work educators are already doing. Educators spend a sustained amount of time with children, often many hours a day across weeks, months, and years. And for educators who are supporting trauma impacted children, often while supporting a whole group of other children at the same time, that can be particularly challenging, and mental health professionals may have access to formal clinical supervision and specialised professional support around this type of work. But educators not, and they don't have the same level of access, even though they can be spending far more time in the child's everyday environment. So I think there is a real responsibility for mental health professionals to recognise that expertise, and that labour educators are not simply the people who implement recommendations.

They are professionals who hold important knowledge about the child and are doing significant relational work every day. And an educator, my, I like spent hundreds of hours with Elias; they know what he's like when he first arrives in the morning. What happens when he's tied with children he connects with which transitions are difficult. What helps him settle and what strategies have or haven't worked. But a mental health professional on the other side might have the specialist knowledge about trauma, mental health or child development, but that doesn't automatically mean they have the same contextual knowledge of Elias. So I think the starting point is the professional humility. So coming into this collaborative relationship with the assumption that everyone has something valuable to contribute, rather than arriving with a predetermined formulation or a list of recommendations. And I think we also need to be really careful about language. If we're talking about trauma, for example, a mental health professional might have a particular clinical framework for understanding a child's behaviour. But we need to communicate that in a language that is meaningful and useful to educators, rather than relying on clinical terminology or making educators feel that they need to become more trained or more professional like themselves.

YIHAN SUN: And the goal is not to transfer a clinical model into the early learning centre, but more so to translate specialist knowledge into practical strategies that make sense in the child's everyday environment. And importantly, that communication needs to go both ways. A mental health professional might share something about stress can affect a child's brain regulation or behaviour, but the educators can then say, actually, he regulates really well when he's doing construction play with this particular educator, and that contextual information might change how the professional understands the child. So I think genuinely collaborative practice involves shared learning rather than one professional teaching the other. It can also be really helpful to understand the early learning context, because a recommendation that might sound very reasonable and effective in a clinical room, but if it requires an educator to spend 20 minutes one on one time with the child during the busiest part of the day, it's not actually feasible. And finally, I think the relationships matter enormously, like Michelle and we have mentioned multiple times in today's webinar. Trust is not created through one case conference.

It's built over time through being responsive, following through listening to each other. Encouraging different perspectives and treating each professional's contribution with respect. And for me, the ultimate goal is that educators doesn't leave the conversation thinking, okay, the specialist has told me what to do. Instead, they leave thinking, okay, we've got a shared understanding of this child. We've got a plan. I understand why we are trying these strategies, and I know I can come back to this person when something changes. And I think that's what genuinely collaborative practice looks like. Not professionals simply working alongside each other, but professionals learning joint planning with each other around the child and family and collective ownership.

JACQUIE LEE: Yeah. Thank you Yihan. I think it comes back to what you said towards the start about that village approach to supporting children. Michelle, Just to round out today's Q&A. I'm wondering how might an established, trusting partnership with Elias's family have changed? What staff noticed, how they raised their concerns, and also the support that the family might have felt able to ask for in this situation? Absolutely. Thank you.

MICHELLE HAMILTON: I think this could have helped everyone in the story. So I really do think Elias in particular, but also Elias as educators and family, none of whom we should note would have been finding this situation easy, and so really, I think if we were to freeze the case study where we first met it, when they're about to have this conversation, I think for me, I want to think way further back in time about the things that maybe could have been in place to help that conversation happening in the years and months prior to it reaching that particular spot. And so building that trusting relationship, if that had have been able to happen, prior to any kind of pointy need for a conversation, I think there's a chance that might have taken the pressure off in a moment. Like we saw in our case scenario today, and any chance, to take pressure off for families or to take pressure off for educators, I think is really, really important. So if we could kind of have gone back in time and retrospectively put in place this established trusting partnership, I think some of the things we might have seen was potentially much earlier support, so if educators had, have had more of an understanding of the family context, especially the impact of the floods, they might have been able to respond to the knowledge, with supports and practices that address those practical and emotional needs before they had, have reached that stage.

Elias's parents, Alexis and Christian, may have felt more able to engage with the service to set up supports while they were experiencing so many other challenges in their living situation, their commute and everything else. If they felt like they could engage without being blamed or like they might be in trouble for his behaviour, maybe proactive support might have been possible as a result of everyone having this awareness of Elias's needs. And if I think of it from Elias's perspective, I think having, his needs seen across home and early learning, rather than sort of having that experience of being in two different worlds that didn't talk to each other, that might have provided a very different experience and understanding of the behaviour, that we, his family and educators were seeing. And so if we're collaborating across these parts of the child's ecology, we can respond to the whole child in both settings, and ultimately, I think everyone might have had an easier time by seeing the whole story, not just snippets from their own individual contexts; that's not to say there's not still a lot of potentially hard work that has to go into, supporting communities who've experienced these kinds of, traumas or, or children.

It still is something that can be difficult. But if you can see the whole story, where you're at, you're part of a team, and it just provides a really different starting point.

JACQUIE LEE: Absolutely, what you just touched on there at the end is what I was sort of thinking about as you were talking when you said, a pre-existing partnership can relieve pressure. We know that in community trauma circumstances like a flood or a bushfire or any kind of event like that, often the educators, the mental health professionals, everyone is impacted. And so yeah, if that partnership was already there, it probably would have taken a lot of pressure off of everyone involved. Absolutely. And yes, we can see on the screen, Michelle, I don't know if you want to just briefly touch on what we're seeing here on screen now, the family partnerships toolkit.

MICHELLE HAMILTON: Is just sharing Emerging Minds family partnerships toolkit. It's a free online resource that you can find on our website. And there are two different sections within the family partnerships toolkit, one that is tailored for early learning service contexts and another one for primary schools. There are training courses, for educators within this. And there's also a family partnerships guide that is an implementation guide for service leaders and educators and a series of practical tools. So if you are interested in some of this work, it might be good to, jump online and have a look at this toolkit and see if it can be useful in your day to day practice.

JACQUIE LEE: Fantastic. Thanks, Michelle. Thank you as well to Yihan and to Wei for taking the time to share your, your wisdom and your yes, your insights with us. Everyone, please tune in for the next Emerging Minds webinar, whatever that may be when you're watching this recording, and until then, please take care and we look forward to seeing you soon.