The reopening of early childhood education and care services after a challenging lockdown period has brought about a sense of relief for many in the sector, including owners, directors and educators.

Families and children have experienced the upheaval too, and it’s safe to say that everyone is happy to be back to their routines supported by early childhood education services.

To open safely and protect the health of our communities (and continue to stay open), each early childhood education provider is required to have a COVIDSafe plan in place. Government health experts have continually found that transmission risk in childcare settings is low and are confident that staff and children are safe as long as heath advice is followed.

Prioritising health and safety

Children’s safety is always high priority in early childhood education and care settings, meaning that providers are well-positioned to action the COVIDSafe guidelines and create safe spaces. The health advice from the government and authorities has been carefully designed to keep staff, children and families safe and well.

Infection control and prevention measures, along with creating a supportive environment to take care of the wellbeing of your staff, families and children enable early childhood centres to return to care safely and confidently.

COVIDSafe ECEC services: A four step framework

Each service is different and the government information highlights that a one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate, but following the guidelines outlined in the framework will help you to minimise transmission risk and maintain the highest standard of care possible.

The framework centres around these four areas, which we have unpacked for you below:

Reinforce COVIDSafe behaviours

COVID-19 is well-known to spread predominantly through face-to-face interactions, as well as transmission being possible via contaminated surfaces. With this in mind, these six key elements must be implemented and reinforced in centres.

  1. Stay home when unwell: If a member of staff or a child is unwell, they should be advised to stay home until they are well. This can stop any potential spread through communities to keep everyone safe. Anyone who has symptoms of coronavirus should get tested and of course there are other steps to follow in the case of a positive result, which we cover later in the framework.
  2. Temperature testing: Temperature testing is not currently required but may be required in the future should community transmission in Victoria increase again.
  3. Actively support and practice good hygiene: Hand sanitiser stations upon entry are a useful to keep germs out of the centre. Make times for regular hand-washing during the day. Cover nose and mouth when coughing or sneezing, and wash hands afterwards. Drinking fountains are not advised — bring individual drink bottles that are named and can be refilled as needed, and food sharing should be avoided.
  4. Encourage physical distancing between adults: Physical distancing is challenging in certain spaces but aim for 1.5metres between adults where possible. Markers for safe distancing in reception and shared workspaces can be a useful visual reminder. Adults should avoid hand-shakes and hugs with one another. Use multiple entry and exit points or stagger start and finish times to reduce the number of people con
  5. Wear a face mask: In early childhood education settings staff can choose whether or not they wish to wear a mask while working with children. When staff are working in other areas of the centre, they are expected to wear masks, for example while working on reception, staff rooms and foyers. Parents and carers are also expected to wear face coverings when picking up and dropping off children.
  6. Avoid adults interacting within enclosed spaces: Limiting staff in rooms is necessary but can be tricky with the expectation to maintain staff ratios. Getting outside and even adapting indoor activities to become outdoor activities.

 

Create COVIDSafe spaces

COVIDSafe spaces are spaces that make taking the necessary precautions to avoid infection easier. There are many things early childhood education services can put in place to achieve this: Easy access to hand sanitiser, regular cleaning schedule for surfaces, door handles and toys, increased ventilation (open windows) and a tendency to move outdoors whenever it is possible.

Workforce bubbles where the same staff are rostered together as often as possible can reduce transmission spread too and contribute to COVIDSafe spaces.

Promote COVIDSafe activities

To minimise risk in services, some activities may need to be altered or avoided. As a general rule, reducing the intermingling of children across different groups/rooms will help to lessen interactions between large numbers of staff and children. Activities that involve singing and wind instruments should be avoided at this time, and only essential visitors should attend services.

Respond to COVID-19 risk

When it comes to a COVID-19 outbreak in your centre, a fast response is key. Knowing the symptoms and ensuring the families and staff at your service know them is vital. Symptoms include:

  • fever
  • chills or sweats
  • cough
  • sore throat
  • shortness of breath
  • runny nose
  • loss or change in sense of smell or taste

Contact tracing is essential in the case of an outbreak — keep records of anyone who spends time in your centre. If a positive result occurs, follow the protocol as outlined in this fact sheet.

Keeping ECEC safe

By staying up to date on the latest important guidance on what is appropriate, we can all ensure that early childhood education services and their staff and families can remain COVIDSafe.

Research, data and advice can change as more comes to light about the coronavirus, its transmission and its current movement or behaviour within each community.

Sticking to the COVIDSafe framework will ensure that ECEC services can continue to support communities and that educators can continue to do their incredible work nurturing children’s development in a safe environment.

When supporting children’s development and wellbeing in early childhood education and beyond, emotional intelligence is a vital element that should be nurtured.

More than a person’s ability to get high marks at school, solve complex mathematics problems or utilise a big vocabulary, emotional intelligence involves a variety of qualities and skills that help people to understand and manage feelings.

As early childhood educators, a firm understanding of how to teach emotional intelligence to children is essential. There are so many benefits that can be derived from well-developed emotional intelligence at all stages of life. It’s also important for educators to develop their own emotional intelligence too. The more we focus on soft skills and the power of emotional intelligence, the bigger positive impact we can have on the quality of education delivered across early childhood education settings.

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is centred around possessing the skills to understand, utilise and manage your individual feelings, as well as the capacity to understand and respond to the feelings of others. While an IQ (intelligence quotient) is widely known as an intelligence measure, emotional intelligence is often referred to as emotional quotient, or EQ.

Many researchers and theorists have explored broad views of intelligence, the first and perhaps most prominent was psychologist Howard Gardner in the 1980s. Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory proposes that there are just that — multiple intelligences, and that we are not born with them all developed or available but can develop them. Emotional intelligence harnesses a number of Gardner’s theorised types: intrapersonal intelligence (understanding the self) and interpersonal intelligence (understanding others).

Today, emotional intelligence is considered to be highly valuable, enabling people to use feelings to guide their patterns of thought and their behaviours. It can also be useful to identify, respond to and predict the feelings and actions of others, for effective communication and relationship-building.

Benefits of emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence can help people of all ages to develop skills that are valuable throughout education, relationships, employment and just about every aspect of life.

The benefits of emotional intelligence are far-reaching covering areas including the ability to:

  • Self-regulate emotions,
  • Communicate more effectively
  • Build strong relationships with others
  • Enhance empathy
  • Promote self-motivation
  • Improve the ability to listen and focus

With these powerful benefits in mind, it becomes clear just how impactful emotional intelligence can be for children.

Educators’ emotional intelligence

As well as being powerful for children, emotional intelligence is a crucial area of development for adults too. The opportunity to work on your emotional skillset is lifelong. For educators, focusing on your own emotional intelligence can help you to become the best educator possible.

Catalyst’s education approach is human-centred, enabling us to best support our learners’ emotional intelligence throughout the study journey. Role-modelling appropriate and positive behaviours is a huge part of supporting children’s development and wellbeing, and so we focus on growing emotional intelligence and soft skills for educators throughout their course.

All early childhood education learners are encouraged to engage with their learning in a meaningful way through self-reflection techniques facilitated in our Practical Placement Journals. This element of the coursework empowers learners to identify their own interpersonal and intrapersonal abilities and discover their full potential.

Strategies to teach emotional intelligence

Early childhood educators can play a crucial role in developing healthy emotional intelligence in children. They have the chance to develop in children the essential life skills associated with emotional intelligence, laying the lifelong foundation for children to flourish.

There are many ways to guide children to develop their emotional intelligence, such as:

Creating space for feelings

Feelings aren’t always convenient and you may not always understand why a child is feeling a certain way at a certain time. Despite this, when a child is experiencing emotions they should be validated. Connect with a child during these times and listen to what they are going through so that they too can gain insight into the experience.

Learning to identify emotions

Extending on the previous point, use the space created for feelings to encourage or support children to identify the emotion. Are they feeling sad or angry or embarrassed? Labelling emotions expands children’s emotional vocabulary. Further, identifying emotions is also useful for learning to read other people and what they might be feeling. Simple activities like showing children images of faces and helping them to identify the feelings the person might be having can be useful to build this skill.

Tools for handling feelings

Once a child can sit in their feelings and identify them, it’s easier for them to know what tools are available to handle the emotional experience. While all emotions are completely valid, not all behaviours and actions are acceptable so children (and adults) need to have strategies in mind to express their feelings in a safe and appropriate way. A simple one to utilise is deep breathing and mindfulness techniques.

Stories, songs, role play and role-modelling are all additional valuable educational endeavours to explore emotional intelligence. Through creating learning opportunities in early childhood education that lend themselves to the development of emotional intelligence in children, we can help to shape a more caring, kind and thoughtful future.

To learn more about our human-centred training, please contact us today.

 

With restrictions now making way for all Melbourne families to return to early learning, parents and carers will no longer need to be permitted workers or apply for permits for their children to attend early childhood education services.

Many children and families will be excited about heading back to centres, but there may also be some anxiety, concerns or adjustment difficulties during the transition.

Along with helping children and families to settle back in, ensuring centres are COVID Safe is a priority for all childcare services. The coronavirus pandemic has affected the way we live and work, and the mental health and wellbeing of many. As we move into a new normal, supporting one another has never been more important, so take the time to get yourself and your centre’s community in the best position to go forward with minimal stress.

Returning to early childhood education

Early childhood education services can now reopen for all families, and while this is exciting for many there is likely to be a transition period too. New routines, or getting used to previous routines can take some time, but with a few strategies in place the transition can be eased. As well as affecting children, transition challenges could also extend to parents and carers or educators and staff. This might be related to fear due to the pandemic or simply getting used to a change in routine.

Taking steps to reduce potential stress as your centre reopens is important, and the first step is to be aware of what your staff, children and their families might be experiencing.

Separation anxiety

For most children it’s likely that attending childcare services will be the first time they will be away from their primary carer in months. Needless to say, this could cause distress for parents or children, or both. Minimise separation anxiety with consistency at drop off and pick up as well as a comforter item if necessary such as a badge.

Social anxiety

With such heavy restrictions imposed throughout Melbourne for such a long time, many of us have not been around people outside of our immediate families. Being in social groups may be intimidating or anxiety-inducing, but exposure over time will help. Try working in smaller groups where possible and offer plenty of time for children to take some quiet time as needed and consider offering a quiet space with some books.

Tiredness

Sleep and wake times may have changed during lockdown, and it can take a while to get used to a new schedule. Creating extra rest times could be worthwhile for some as we get back into the swing of things.

Fear of the virus

Children or adults could be feeling fearful of catching COVID-19 which could make them reluctant to head out of the house much. Signage, hand sanitiser stations, distance markers and masks show those attending your centre that you take infection control seriously and are actively minimising their exposure risk.

How you can ease the transition back

The pandemic has put a lot of pressure on all of us and had a notable impact on mental health and wellbeing. Encourage those around you to access wellbeing resources and take care of themselves. There are plenty of mental health and wellbeing strategies that could help. Incorporating strategies such a yoga, meditation and mindfulness into the daily routines could be incredibly helpful in making the adjustment back to childcare smooth.

As well as being patient and supportive, these tips can help everyone transition comfortably:

  1. Be flexible: Shorter days, more rests, extra hugs — keep an eye on how everyone is traveling and try to be adapt where possible.
  2. Talk openly: Be open and honest about what’s been happening in the world and encourage children to ask questions.
  3. Visual reminders: At home and in centres, use a planner to show children what is coming up for each day so they know what to expect. This will help familiarise them with their routine and feel more secure.
  4. Renewing relationships: Reconnecting with one another is important and while it may be a quick process for some children, for others it will take longer. For a week or two consider incorporating activities that are specifically committed to helping everyone renew their relationships.
  5. Focus on patience: Just as heading into the pandemic was an adjustment that took time, so too is getting back to a new normal. Be patient with others and with yourself as we all navigate the return to early learning.

A safe return to early learning

To reduce risk and keep everyone safe and well, all centres are now required to have a COVIDSafe Plan in place to operate. High standards of hygiene and infection control are always a focus for early learning centres, and now more than ever before. According to the Victorian Government guidelines, it is essential that your plan demonstrates how you will meet all of the requirements set out by the Victorian Government. must outline:

  • Your actions to help prevent the introduction of coronavirus (COVID-19) in your workplace
  • The level of face-covering or personal protective equipment (PPE) required for your workforce
  • How you will prepare for, and respond to, a suspected or confirmed case of coronavirus (COVID-19) in your workplace

The Government has provided guidelines and a template to assist centres in putting this COVIDSafe Plan together.

Infection control for a safe return to early learning

COVIDSafe Plans should include physical distancing rules and requirements around good hygiene practices such as regular handwashing and hand sanitiser stations. ‘Workforce bubbles’ are recommended where possible, rostering the same people on together to decrease contact between different staff members.

While masks are required to be worn in most sectors, early childhood education settings are a little different. Staff can choose whether or not they wish to wear a mask while working with children, however when staff are working in other areas of the centre they are expected to wear masks. This could be working on reception or moving through staff rooms and foyers. Parents and carers should wear face masks for picking up and dropping off children.

The Department of Education website has a number of resources to support your infection control COVIDSafe strategies, including posters to display that remind those working in or visiting your centre to wear their face masks and maintain physical distancing.

Continuing to provide children with the best start

Early childhood education may have some changes in place, but the sector is in good hands with so many committed educators and centre owners and directors supporting families.

The team at our Registered Training Organisation Selmar, is adding some extra joy to the return to early learning with some exciting news being announced on Wednesday 7th of October, through the Selmar Facebook page. Make sure you check back in then, to find out what it is!

As early childhood education resumes and we transition to a new normal, the sector will work together to provide the best outcomes for all children, families and educators.

Take care as you return to doing what you do best — providing the best start in life to children throughout your community.