The Northern Districts Education Centre (Sydney) Churchill Fellowship to explore best practice models of out of school hours care for Australia
The Childrens Day: A Child's Life
AWARDED BY THE WINSTON CHURCHILL MEMORIAL TRUST
The Northern Districts Education Centre (Sydney) Churchill Fellowship to explore best practice models of out of school hours care for Australia
Introduction
The Out of School Hours Care (OSHC) sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in Australia. It is disparate, has multiple risks and is operated separate to schools. I examined best-practice models which reflect changing social norms and where children are actively engaged; developing and thriving in the OSHC environment. I also explored how to reduce risk and balance the needs of children, community and parents/carers whilst partnering with schools for children’s outcomes.
I visited countries including Canada, the USA, UK, Germany, and Iceland, with a high utilisation of OSHC to understand their approach and policy strictures to consider how to translate learnings to enable innovation in the Australian operational and policy context.
This report is a synopsis of my Churchill Fellowship and includes an executive summary and report recommendations.
My full report can be found as a blog website here: Churchill Fellowship Out of School Hours Care | Centre Of Focus
Contact
This Fellow can be contacted directly via their page on the Churchill website here: https://www.churchilltrust.com.au/fellow/jennifer-hutchins-nsw-2022/
Executive Summary
I felt completely privileged to travel the well-worn path of other Fellows and traipse overseas to bring learnings back to Australia. There were many learnings – sometimes what to do and sometimes what not to do.
I firstly want to shout our accolades for our Australian system. I do believe our National Quality Framework and regulatory system is one of the best in the world. I also believe that Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority does a sterling job at oversight and managing the tension of national framework and jurisdictional regulation.
Do I think things could be better? Absolutely! There is always room for continuous improvement, for stopping to pause and reflect, to consider the next generation’s needs to assist society and its civilians to move through certain periods of time and adjust. To listen to the challenges of children and families and adjust in a relatable way. To innovate, take courage and consider alternatives and options.
We can improve through insight and introspection.
Internationally, I have concluded that staff in Out of School Hours Care (OSHC) are not highly valued. There is an interspersion of qualification-bias, language-use (are they pedagogues, play workers, educators, teachers?), pay and work-type. Generally, a discrimination based on lower qualifications, lower pay and poorer hours contribute to the bias. What isn’t considered in this dialogue is the strong, important, and valuable role these workers play in the life of children whilst parent is at work or study. I would actively recommend that we all lean in and discuss the valuable contributions these roles play and, with increased respect and recognition, the interwoven possibilities which can be created.
Further, the allocation of space to OSHC contributes to children’s sense of value and that of the educators’ too. Where children are regulated to unused or unappreciated spaces, or indeed set-up/pack-up spaces or shared spaces with inhibiting factors, the child’s experience is impacting, the joy of working is reduced, and the overall success of the program is reduced.
Finally, prior to documenting the findings what I appreciated in Germany in particular, was the enablement of children. Whilst in Australia, the desire to supervise strongly is ever-present, with the often-provided reasons of the ‘regulations and law’. In Germany and Iceland, I saw and heard the enablement and building the competent child dialogue and loved it. In these countries, they encouraged independence, they encouraged shared play, they had dedicated spaces which the children and educators owned.
OSHC Schooling Model
Following a trip to Sweden, I developed a model for a more integrated OSHC schooling model in partnership with colleagues, and this was continually refined. The basic premise was to address the weak points and risks at transition, addressing the split shift issues, the transient nature of staffing and improve professional identity and pathways for staff. The goal was to leverage the strengths of the Swedish model I had observed, including:
- leverage the skill sets of OSHC educators at breaks
- provide more consistency for children
- enable smoother transition points
- enable growth and development in the staff in the sector; and
- provide opportunities for teaching students.
Post the development of this model and after showcasing it to many people including theAustralian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority, the NSW Department of Education andTeachers and Directors of education, I read the Grattan Institute Report highlighting the challenges of teachers and the impact of their workload. Further, they recommended alternate staff provide supervision at breakfast and lunch. I contacted them immediately and held a meeting to walk through our new model and thinking. There are endless opportunities here to consider differences and explore alternate models.
Finally, one of the common complaints of children is their ‘boredom’. Notwithstanding the fact that boredom isn’t bad for children – in fact it can be beneficial to their imagination – what is also an opportunity is building an approach to their specialised interests through engaging staff with the same interests. There are examples of this in Scotland, the USA and Germany in providing tuition in areas of interest (one to one tuition costs), and providing experiences in football, dance, poetry, writing and more. In my previous role we called this our Guru Strategy. Imagine, if we could network OSHC services and develop specialized OSHC services for areas of interest for children? It could be for a fortnight, a month, a term or permanent. If networked close enough, the children could rotate through the services or the ‘gurus’ could come to them. Building skills, building interests and addressing out of school activity access. Wouldn’t that just be brilliant?
Professional Love
In Scotland, Professional Love was a concept I fell head over heels in love with where I saw this concept embraced and embedded into the thinking in OSHC and I carried this through the rest of my travels. Professional love (Agape) talks about the importance of an emotional connection and deep engagement with children. It provides permission to engage and connect at a deeper level. It is a recognition of a worker’s investment in children’s social and emotional development and provides for an opportunity for children to connected, cared for, known by name and loved.
Finally, a note of caution. In the USA I attended a tired OSHC service. I met with two dedicated workers who were very focused on their young people, worked with very minimal indoor and outdoor space and worked with high parent expectations on homework. On one occasion, they were teaching k-pop to the children. The children were developing their own k-pop songs, and one child’s song went something like this:
Oh my God, why is there so much work, OMG, why is there so much work OMG. What about the children?
The workers were emotional and poignantly speaking about the hours of the day the children are in OSHC and school and they could see this reflected in the children. They questioned whether we were contributing to challenges for children and families or assisting them. They noted that families had to work otherwise it would be subsidence living. The cautionary note here is how much time should children be in institutional care. Is there a right and wrong volume of time? What is the role of homework for children who do access OSHC for long hours and then need to tend to homework duties?
Above: The author at the Winston Churchill Statue in London
Recommendations
Community-based:
Based on Scotland’s approach to play, develop a whole-of-family play program for one day each school holidays (or on a weekend) to assist families in building their play skills and increase active positive engagement in families.
Link to your OSHC program
To aid family connections, programs which provide a mix of holiday (vacation care) and family time would enable families to enjoy the company of their children in a ‘holiday environment’, head to work during the day whilst educators cared for the children. At my previous organisation, there were a couple of out-of-school care directors who were quite innovative. Providing services on a holiday coast provided the opportunity to partner with a caravan park. They would book some cabins and ran the vacation care from there. When the parents returned, they would do group marshmallow cooking and sing songs around the fire even though the children were in the parents’ care and control in the evening. It was immensely popular, but required skilled staff who knew the children, the community, and parents.
Consider the barriers to engagement in OSHC and explore opportunities to reimagine and reinspire the OSHC scene by considering the needs of children with different needs and address barriers for access.
For communities, and particularly rural communities to survive, they need service delivery. Some service delivery is critical to the ongoing success and sustainability of the community at hand. In Scotland, there was an argument for communities, in particular councils, to consider OSHC, Aged Care and early learning as infrastructure as they are required for a community to work, survive and thrive.
Language:
5. The different titles of educators:
Pedagogues
Playworkers
Play Educators
Are the Educators, educators? Are they Playworkers with discrete skills who teach children through a social and emotional development lens? Does the language of Educators work within the Australian context, or should it be changed to reflect goals and outcomes of OSHC?
Continue to build a professional identity of OSHC, and establish a sector review of language used to describe it. Consider some of the language used overseas to describe Australian OSHC, such as extended care, educare or social pedagogy.
Design:
The competent child. Whilst not a new concept, it is a concept which needs constant review. In the community we have an ongoing dialogue about ‘helicopter parents’; however in OSHC services we replicate this. Children often reference the difference between school ‘rules’ and OSHC ‘rules’. I recommend we interrogate research, conversations, discussions and co-design opportunities of building programs and approaches based on the competent child. This may mean adjusting individual services risk appetites or indeed having services which target age groups. Children in Berlin and Iceland make their own way home on public transport or bikes. Whilst I am not recommending this, I believe we should test our thinking and consider how we build and enable the competent child through our approaches at OSHC.
Whilst not OSHC, adventure playground concepts are well honed internationally, but not so deeply defined or broadly available in Australia. Considering the playground’s role in a child and family’s development, it would be positive for the Australian context and would continue to pursue the ‘competent child’ concept. In doing so, the children could be engaged in design and decision-making.
It would be prudent, as children and families rely more and more on OSHC to consider design principles. Examples of strong design integration was demonstrated in Germany and good design principles for-standalone buildings. I would encourage a review of Iceland.
As part of designing areas in OSHC, and juxtaposed against the set-up pack-up concept, chill-out areas are critical to the successful environment of children with certain diagnoses who may be prone to becoming overwhelmed. The design in children’s spaces would be beneficial to children.
Gurus. Imagine if we could network OSHC services and develop specialized OSHC services for areas of interest for children? It could be for a fortnight, a month, a term or permanent. If networked close enough, the children could rotate through the services or the ‘gurus’ could rotate through the services. Building skills, building interests, addressing out of school activity access, and children could be bussed to the different centres. Ideas include STEM, sport or drama and would be an interests-based approach to OSHC. Engineering students could lead on STEM, dietician students could lead on food/cooking, and social work students could lead on social emotional development. The opportunities are endless.
Concepts:
Talk more about ‘professional love’ – develop a standard, consider a philosophy, engage around the philosophy, understand what it means. Use it to the benefit of children. As leaders in care and education sectors, leading with a mantra of professional love and a framework of humanitarian leadership encourages all educators to be ‘Professors of Humanity’ providing for a child-centered, focused approach to service delivery.
Iceland provide 3-6 months free OSHC for all new immigrants to enable the children to mix, socialize and improve their language skills. Play is a primary language, so socialization and acceptance can occur, reducing loneliness and isolation.
Play must be a supported and aided concept for all OSHC services. Whilst skills are important, developing skills through play is crucial to a child’s success.
Intergenerational Practices:
15. Consider the purchase and pilot of the anti-ageism training from Generations Working Together to roll out across New South Wales.
Set up an Intergenerational Working Group in the community to consider opportunities to connect across age groups. Engage council, Aged Care services, schools, pre-schools, and universities.
In England, there is a ‘wishing washing line’ at the local supermarket. Older people put up chores or interest areas which are taken down and addressed by a local community member. It is a lovely opportunity for purposeful engagement.
Undertake a program between older people in their homes and local OSHC services (similar to the pot plant idea in Culbokie, Scotland). In summary, there is a note from a child with the child's first name and age. An older person writes back to the child, and through this process a network afternoon tea is established with older people and children to reduce isolation for older people and build community.
In the early stages of Intergenerational Practice, it is important to incorporate soft skills and infrastructure opportunities – to start with success in mind.
The importance of curriculum attention cannot be underestimated. Choice in process and approach is critical. Neighborhoods are a way of healing, support and engagement.
Staffing
OSHC quality is built on the longevity of staff. Nurturing staff, their education, their engagement, leads to a higher quality program. Additionally, considering succession planning opportunities to retain high caliber staff.
Engage and develop focus groups to explore tenure in key roles. Build an active plan to increase tenure in the OSHC services.
Consider the introduction of a qualification for OSHC. In doing so, provide the registrant with five years to complete the qualification. It is noted in OSHC that reflective practice is so critical to the qualification and skills being embedded. This is a pathway to formalizing qualifications in Scotland.
Qualification in OSHC and ‘childcare’ give educators long term life skills for the future.
School:
Use play as a skill and concept around reducing behaviors in schools. Children’s demeanor and behaviour are often the first two indicators of something not being quite right. Unintentionally, children can be punished for expressing themselves through behaviour when words fail them – or indeed the world fails them. St Mirin’s in Scotland provided some rich data of using play-based approaches to minimise behavioural outburst and negative behaviours in school environments. These ‘play-out’ opportunities provide children with the opportunity to play-out their concerns, issues and worries and provide them with skills to regulate in the future. Their data highlighting their rich outcomes, indicates the positive impact purposeful play and deep, positive connections have on children. Work with, plan and integrate more with schools to provide.
Consider training Principals and School Executives on OSHC, its role, purpose, regulations, national law, curriculum, and National Quality Framework. Across all countries, principals were regarded as critical to the program’s success. Where this wasn’t apparent, it was harder for the OSHC to be successful.
Data
‘Boston Beyond’ developed measures to improve services - not comply with regulations. These cross-agency statistics help a continual improvement approach to quality and outcomes. Develop dashboards through organisations’ own data (compared with others) to build quality through measurements from students, families, and staff. Requires a data analyst and architect who can makes the reports readable and accessible and useful.
Funding:
In Canada, they are considering funding for not for profits (NFP) only, to encourage and sustain NFP service delivery in the provinces.
I noted all transit is free for children until they finish their qualification in university. Imagine the vastly improved usage of public transport if that were to be the case here in Australia. It also builds in public transport concepts early in young people.
Research split shifts in the Australian context and consider alternatives.
Develop and fund alternative models/pilots.
Read the full report here: https://www.centreoffocus.com.au/blog
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