MARCH 2025
The recent Four Corners episode, Betrayal of Trust: Australia’s Childcare Crisis, exposed serious failures within the childcare sector, including cases of abuse, inadequate regulation, and a lack of accountability. While Family Day Care wasn’t specifically mentioned, it’s a reminder of why high standards, transparency, and continuous learning are so important in our sector. You provide nurturing, small-group care in a home environment, ensuring children feel safe, supported, and valued every day. This newsletter includes key updates on compliance and best practices—not just as requirements, but as essential tools to uphold the quality and integrity of our work. We encourage you to take the time to read through, reflect on your practice, and reach out with any questions. Together, we continue to set the standard for what quality early childhood education should be.
FAREWELL & WELCOME
We are excited to welcome Talissa Meehan in Albany to the Nature Alliance family! We wish you many happy, exciting and fulfilling years in Family Day Care! We are also thrilled to inform you that Skye Hogan has returned from maternity leave and has reopened her doors in Broome! Welcome back Skye 😊.
SAVE THE DATE – BEHAVIOUR WORKSHOP WITH KELLY OLDFIELD
📅 Date: Monday, 14th April 2025
⏰ Time: 6:30 PM
📍 Location: Kalgoorlie (Sandlewood Community Centre) + Online Streaming
After the resounding success of Kelly’s first workshop, we’re sure you can’t wait for the next one! She said it will be even better than the first!!! The 2-hour workshop will focus on equipping you with essential skills to manage behaviour escalation effectively. It will highlight the critical role of Educators in identifying triggers and reducing their likelihood, introduce evidence-based proactive behaviour support strategies, and provide a clear understanding of behaviour escalation stages and preventative techniques. You will gain practical tools to minimize risk, implement de-escalation strategies, and communicate effectively during escalations. The workshop includes easy-to-follow resources such as escalation profiles, behaviour tracking, risk assessments, and management plans to support you in your daily practice.
PARENT PATHWAYS
Parent Pathways is a free service offering personalised coaching and financial support to eligible parents and carers of children up to the age of 6 years.
It is centred around the individual needs of parents, carers and their families.
Our mentors will help parents and carers to set and achieve personal, study and work goals through a tailored goal plan. If you feel a family in care would be interested in exploring this initiative they can explore this further at the following website: https://realfutures.net/parent-pathways/
EXCITING NEWS – WE’VE BEEN SELECTED FOR THE FDC CAPABILITY TRIAL!
We are thrilled to share that Nature Alliance Family Day Care has been selected to participate in the Family Day Care Australia Capability Trial! This was a highly competitive process, with extensive assessments and compliance checks, and we are so proud to be chosen.
This trial focuses on supporting the growth of Family Day Care while ensuring strong business and compliance practices. As part of the Recruitment Stream, we will have access to tailored support, recruitment resources, and funding opportunities to help new Educators join our service.
This is a fantastic opportunity for Nature Alliance, and we’re excited about what it means for our Educators and the future of Family Day Care. We are excited to share this journey with you!
POLICIES BEING UPDATED
The following Policies are in the process of being updated. This is your opportunity to have your say and suggest any changes or updates. Please forward any feedback to Info and it will be discussed during our staff meeting.
- Policy 5.2 – Excursions & Regular Outings
WHEN WILL A CHILD CEASE CARE
The only way of knowing when a child will cease care due to the “14 week rule” is by checking when their last timesheet was submitted and counting 14 weeks forward. This is the date they will actually cease so timesheets must be submitted and pushed all the way through to CCS approval at our end on the Friday before to remain enrolled.
I have found a Date Counter that may be useful when making these calculations. With school holidays fast approaching it may be worth checking out your child list. Remember when children’s enrolment ceases they are not automatically removed from the system. They just don’t have an active enrolment and are no longer connected to CCS either.
BOOKING HOURS AND RATIO CHECKS
Every week we conduct ratio checks on the previous finalized week. This is to ensure that we pick up any anomalies that can be adjusted within the correct timeframe. Ratio checks are conducted on Booked Hours not Actual Hours. This means that even though you may not be physically over numbers, you are electronically. Please keep this in mind when booking children into care or when making any casual booking changes.
HOLDING FEES
Wowee!! What a fun time we have had in the office the last few months with all the new enrolments and children finishing. I hope things have settled a bit for you all and you are finding your groove. We have made a change to issuing Holding fees and they are now issued 24 hrs after an enrolment is created and at the rate our system is showing at that time. Regardless of whether CCS is available or not. This amount is refundable at the end of care as usual. To assist families, it can help to reiterate that they need to have CCS in place and eligible before enrolling as we are unable to revise holding fees. Some parents also get confused and assume we set up CCS but please let them know we only submit time sheets to Centrelink’s CCS system and they apply CCS if a family is eligible, leaving us to bill families for the gap fee.
Parents MUST now provide their Educator with the Harmony issued Receipt (not invoice) to begin care. These can take 3-4 business days to collect and receipt through redPAY so please leave enough time for this process before they begin. Please call the office in the case of emergency enrolments.
ELEVATE – Early Education Online Conference
Shaping Practice Through Connection, Resilience, and Inclusion April 1st, 2025
Gain insights and actionable strategies from leading experts on creating inclusive and culturally responsive early education, environments, grounded in research. Explore topics such as neuroaffirming practices, cultural connections, anxiety management, and self-directed play to empower every child’s growth and wellbeing. With access to recordings. Click HERE for an overview of the program or to book.
RISK ASSESSMENTS (this seems to be a permanent segment in our newsletters 🫣)
And still on the subject of risk assessments, when sending them to your ESO for signing off please ensure you send them as a word document rather than a PDF. If there is something missing in your risk assessment that your ESO can guide you on or they want to add a question for you to consider and then apply your elimination measures to, it is not possible if it is a locked PDF. So to avoid any delays, always send risk assessments as a Word document.
PUBLIC LIABILITY INSURANCE
Did you know that it is vital you advise Family Day Care Australia if a child requires medical treatment after an accident whilst in your care? FDCA’s Member’s Zone allows you to log in quickly and lodge an incident report online – FDCA’s Member Zone.
This doesn’t replace sending your incident, accident, illness or trauma report to Nature Alliance as usual, this is for letting FDCA know what has occurred in case a parent decides to lodge legal action against you.
Below are some examples of the types of incidents and the time frames in which you are required to notify FDCA:
Category A
These are severe incidents where a claim is likely to occur. These types of incidents must be reported to FDCA within 48 hours of the incident. Some examples of a Category A incident are:
- Death / spinal injury / burns / loss of consciousness / fractures or breaks to major limbs
- Any incident that requires admission to hospital
- Where a parent threatens legal action or withdraws the child from care because of the incident
Category B
These incidents are less severe but a claim may still occur from the incident. These types of incidents must be reported to FDCA within 30 days of the incident. Some examples of a Category B incident are:
- Fractures or breaks to minor limbs (fingers and toes)
- Injuries to teeth
- Lacerations requiring first aid
- Convulsions / seizure / fit where medical assistance was required
These timeframes must be followed to ensure protection under your insurance policy, in the event that the incident leads to a claim in the future.
WORD OF THE DAY
Learning Dispositions – These are the habits of mind that shape how children engage with learning. These include persistence, where they keep trying even when things get tricky, and a positive attitude that helps them stay motivated and engaged. Flexibility allows children to see things from different perspectives and explore new ways of thinking. Problem-solving and questioning encourage them to ask “why” and “how,” helping them make connections between people, events, and situations. These dispositions build confidence and curiosity, setting the foundation for lifelong learning!
HI FROM ALBANY
This month, we shine a light on Caroline Boocock from Albany in the heart of the Great Southern! 
With years of experience in early childhood, Caroline has touched the lives of countless children and families. Caroline’s dedication goes above and beyond, offering wrap-around support, including overnight care, to meet the needs of her community. Thank you Caroline for your passion and commitment make a lasting impact, and we’re so lucky to have you in Family Day Care!
PLAYGROUPS IN THE SOUTH WEST
We have been absolutely delighted by the playgroups that Joy has put together, in our 2025 initiative of strengthening our sense of community! In a world where online meetings and workshops have become normal, the levels of social disconnection seem to be rising and we felt a strong call to bring you together physically! Our playgroups offer an opportunity for fun and connection. The playgroups have given children the opportunity to explore a range of opportunities including manipulation of loose parts – what can something that would have been landfill become each week?
We started with pipes and discovered they can be connected, we then added plastic cable reels, ropes, carabiners, and cloths. This is now giving the children opportunities to extend the initial learning, manipulating the tools, problem solving, sharing of ideas, teamwork, design and much more. Last week a cubby house was built after a few false starts, some reflection and then huge success. We are looking forward to collecting and adding more loose parts to offer even more possibilities to the children. Collecting loose parts is a wonderful opportunity to connect with families and the wider community as you go.
Reflection question – do you use loose parts? How are they presented? How varied are they for all ages to access? What else could you add to engage the children?
OFFICE HOURS
Our office hours are 8.30am to 4.30pm. If you have a query outside of these hours, please phone and leave a message. If you need to speak with someone in an emergency, please ring Jo Georgiou and if your call is not answered immediately, leave a message and your call will be returned.
PHONE NUMBERS
Sandra / Mandy: 0431 449 567 (Mon – Fri); Joy: 0429 030 362 (Mon, Tues, Wed & Fri); Jo C: 0477 029 531 (Mon – Fri); Jo G: 0477 029 132 (Mon – Thurs); Lea: 0477 029 228 (Mon, Tue, Thurs & Fri). To ensure that we respond to your emails promptly please send your queries to: info@naturealliancefdc.com.au
“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.”
Martin Luther King Jr.