Supporting One Another – Mental Health Week 2016

mental health of educators

With one in four adults experiencing mental health challenges at times in their lives, raising awareness of the mental health of educators is hugely important in early childhood education.

Held from October 9 – 15, 2016, Australia’s national Mental Health Week coincides with World Mental Health Day on October 10. The aim? To promote social and emotional wellbeing to communities.

Mental Health Impacts Care Quality

Mental health issues can affect people from all walks of life – including parents, educators and even children. In fact, recent research in the early childhood sector found that up to 38% of family day care providers met the criteria for depression. Alarmingly, the mental health of the early childhood educators was seen to have an impact on care quality and on the children in their care.

Educators, particularly educational leaders, need the support of families and their workplace to deliver the best outcomes for children’s wellbeing and learning.

Supporting Our Educators’ Mental Health

We recognise the importance of the mental health and wellbeing of educators, and it’s a focus in our professional development day: Wellness Works! The Complete Early Childhood Leaders Conference.

We have developed a range of effective strategies for educators and centres to employ to improve the wellbeing of educators, children in their care and even the families and community.

Our approach is a holistic one and a necessary one to tackle the issue of mental health in our society and to offer the best support to those who need it.

Through making wellness, music, yoga and meditation work for us, we have so many powerful and natural tools. These can assist in the development of resilience to protect against and deal with mental health issues, and the mental health of educators.

Support Mental Health Week, Support One Another

To give children the best start, we need to support the mental health of educators and educational leaders. Professional development that uses wellness and wellbeing as its focal point to enhance educators’ ability to educate, and children’s ability to learn effectively is just one option available.

Let’s use Mental Health Week to start making more effort to support those around us. Beyondblue has some fantastic resources, including some specifically for families, to guide you through how to offer support to others.

 

 

 

 

 

School photograph designed by Pressfoto – Freepik.com

Revealed: The Top 3 Challenges Faced by Early Childhood Educators

challenges in early childhood education

On July 12 the very first Wellness Works: The Complete Early Childhood Leaders Conference took place in Melbourne… And what a fantastic success it was!

In the lead up to the Melbourne event, we did some research to find out exactly what challenges in early childhood education were coming up for educators, leaders, managers and owners working in the field. The reason for this was to ensure that the conference addresses what you really want and need from your early childhood professional development. We asked many centres to share their top three challenges, and it’s safe to say there was a theme in the responses!

Top 3 Challenges in Centres

Here are the top 3 challenges in early childhood education that we identified after reviewing responses from a range of centres. These are challenges that are faced on a daily or regular basis by educators, room leaders, management and owners.

Motivation

Many centres find they have difficulties with motivating their teams – from getting them motivated initially, to keeping them motivated. This is a priority at Wellness Works and is addressed thoroughly. Our approach is through empowering and motivating the leaders in the centre as the basis of improving motivation levels across the team. Our tactics and tips are foolproof…

Transitions

If you’re like the vast majority of the educators we heard from, transitions continue to cause stress and are a great source of frustration in centres. We’ve been careful to focus on this area and deliver practical ways for your centre to tackle transitions. You will even find them enjoyable…!

Documentation

How do we document a child’s learning, how do we maintain adequate – even excellent – standards for our centre’s documentation without it being a job too big to handle? Documentation is a hot topic for early childhood and we set out to improve your understanding of documentation and make sure it is no longer a huge challenge for you and your centre.

Do these challenges sound all too familiar? Not to worry –Wellness Works: The Complete Early Childhood Leaders Conference  comes to Sydney on July 26 and Brisbane on July 28. Both Galina and Alina (or the Duolinas as they’ve been dubbed!) are really excited. If you’re coming along to Wellness Works, you should be excited too! (And if you haven’t got your seats organised yet, you’re in luck as there are still a couple of places available for Sydney and Brisbane – be quick and get them here!)

What Early Childhood Professionals are Saying

Here’s what just a few of the Melbourne Wellness Works attendees had to say about the event:

“Thank you today was very enjoyable. I have RSI I took so many notes!”
– Mandy, Joseph Avenue ELC

“Great opportunity. I feel empowered to take back to a team. Loved the songs and games”
– Rebecca

“This PD was fantastic, all the info was great, very engaging and fun”
– Jessica, Aberdeen Street ELC

Join us at Wellness Works: The Complete Early Childhood Leaders Conference and let’s break down your challenges in early childhood education and address them together.

Featuring the engaging and experienced early childhood experts, Galina and Alina, this just might be the best professional development session you attend this year!

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