Welcome

Welcome to the Spring edition of our Enhance Family Day Care Newsletter.

We are pleased to share with you a selection of wonderful highlights and examples of early learning journeys that the children have been exploring and enjoying with their family day care educators!

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October Focus: Child Protection

The aim of Quality Area 2 under the National Quality Standard is to safeguard and promote children’s health and safety, minimise risks and protect children from potential harm.

All children have the right to experience quality education and care in a safe and healthy environment, be it physical, emotional or social.

View our Child Protection Policy for more information.

Educational Program and Practice

The aim of Quality Area 1 of the National Quality Framework is to ensure that the educational program and practice is stimulating and engaging and enhances children’s learning and development.

The benefits of a child led program is that it nurtures the development of life skills, whilst complementing a child’s experiences, opportunities and relationships at home and in the community.  

All approved early childhood education and care services must ensure that a program is delivered to all children being educated and cared for that is based on an approved learning framework (Section 168 National Law).

Safe Sleep, Rest and Relaxation

Children, teens and even adults don’t always know how to rest and relax. Learning to recognise our body rhythms and the need for rest, is an important life skill to be learnt, just as we would learn how to read a book.

Effective sleep, rest and relaxation strategies are important factors in ensuring a child feels secure and safe with short and long term wellbeing as a priority. 

Enhance Educator Recruitment Incentive
Refer an educator and get $200!

Refer an educator, who starts with Enhance FDC and receive $200 for you and $50 for the new educator!

Enhance FDC have the capacity to provide more family day care opportunities to Queensland families - just like you!
We are asking you to help spread the word. In return, you will receive $200 for every new educator that you refer.

We are inviting you and all Enhance families and educators to promote the wonderful work that Enhance FDC does. Refer friends, family and neighbours to become a family day care educator and join the Enhance family

Illness in Care

We remind all families to continue to maintain healthy hygiene habits to ensure all children, educators and families stay safe and well.

To minimise sickness, we recommend that any child who is ill or experiencing cold or flu symptoms stays at home and does not attend their family day care setting.

We know this can be a difficult decision and at times, inconvenient. However, allowing an ill child to rest at home will shorten the length or severity of the sickness and also protect your educator, their family, the other children in care and the families who share the same FDC service.

When deciding whether or not to send your child to family day care, please consider the following questions: 

• Does your child have a contagious illness or infectious disease?
• Does your child have a temperature above 38°C when assessed prior to entry to the service?
• Is your child unwell and unable to participate in normal activities or do they require additional attention?
• Has your child had a temperature, or been vomiting in the last 24 hours?
• Has your child had diarrhea in the last 48 hours?
• Has your child started a course of antibiotics in the last 24 hours?
• Has your child been given medication for a temperature prior to arriving at the service (ie. Panadol)?
• Is your child generally unwell with a runny nose, cold like symptoms?
• Is your child run down and would they benefit from a day of rest home?

If your response to any of the above questions is yes, please keep your child/ren at home. 

View the Enhance Family Day Care Illness in Care Policy for further guidance.

Remember good hygiene practices can protect us all! Play your part by:

• Washing your hands frequently
• Not touching your eyes, nose or mouth
• Covering your mouth and nose when sneezing or coughing, using a paper tissue and throwing it away, before washing your hands
• Avoiding close contact with people who are sick.

Health and Hygiene Resources:

• Hand washing for hygiene
• Australian Government | Staying Healthy resource

Your educators work tirelessly to maintain a high standard of health and hygiene every day, by implementing practices to minimise cross contamination and the spread of infectious illnesses. We thank you in advance for helping to keep everyone safe and healthy. The health and wellbeing of our educators, families, children and the entire Enhance team is of upmost importance to us.

Play Idea
Five Points of Contact

A circle of friends helps children to recognise the different people in their life and understand what their relationship is with these people.

Creating a circle of friends:

• Start with a big piece of paper and ask your child to draw a picture of themselves in the middle with a circle around

Draw a larger circle around your child’s circle. In this circle add the people who are closest to your child. You could write their names, draw pictures or stick on photos

• Draw another circle around the others and add acquaintances, who your child knows but isn’t close friends with. They could be people in your child’s wider group of friends or family friends
• Draw another circle and add professionals and other people whose jobs are to help your child. They might be teachers, doctors or carers
• In the outside circle add strangers. These are people your child doesn’t know.

Once you have added people to each of the circles, speak with your child about how they should behave with people in each circle.

You could ask questions like these:

• How would you greet people in this circle?
• Which people would it be OK to kiss or hug?
• Who would you invite to your house for dinner?
• Who could you talk to if you’re worried about something?
• Can you sit in this person’s lap?

Excellence in Family Day Care Awards
Family Day Care Australia

We are thrilled to congratulate our very own Enhance FDC educators who have been recognised as Excellence in Family Day Care, 2022 Regional Educator Award winners:

• Alysha McNeill | Townsville
• Belinda Crosbie | Bundaberg
• Rebecca Dwyer | Rockhampton

Congratulations to Alysha, Belinda and Rebecca for leading the way in exceptional home based education and care. It is great to see you publicly acknowledged and rewarded for the remarkable work you do within our communities.

Educator Spotlight
Anne Murray | Programming and Planning

Enhance FDC Gladstone
Anne creates a weekly plan using extensions from previous learning, new interests, child goals/strengths, special events, and any intentional teaching that she has planned.

Anne uses observations to plan for learning with the children’s interests and development stages/ages in mind. She plans an activity/experience and uses this to guide learning and intentional teaching.

The learning goes into a portfolio and Anne and the children decide together, what to include. The content is compiled and includes artwork, photos and learning stories; a process which Anne has done for 25 years. The children and families love to sit and look through their books.

The Learning Story:

1. Anne lists the child’s name, date, and title, which is something catchy to grab the reader’s attention.
2. Anne adds the observation which provides some background on what led to this experience.
3. The experience is then linked to an Early Years Learning Framework Outcome.
4. Child/ren’s voices, the learning that occurred during the experience and the photos are added to the learning story, making it easy to see the detail of what occurred.

Anne encourages input from her families and opportunities for future planning.

Community Connections

Party in the Park
Enhance FDC Practice Mentor, Kelly Downes, recently attended Mackay's Party in the Park.

The event aims to better connect families with children under the age of five with local, low cost to no cost, and age specific services within the Mackay region. There were plenty of child-friendly activities, interactive stalls and information from more than 30 exhibitors, with over 1000 people attending on the day.

It was a wonderful networking opportunity within the Mackay community!

Sustainability Corner

Enhance FDC Brisbane Community
Enhance FDC Educator, Daysi Allacantra, incorporates sustainable play into her learning program. She does this by setting up a table with mixed resources, including playdough and greenery.

Take inspiration from Daysi's program by creating your own sustainable play table!

• Setup an outdoor play table
• Decorate with mixed resources, including; leaves, seeds, flowers, play dough and timber based resources

Encourage open-ended play with your child/ren

Interesting Reading

Reading with your child
Reading with your child is fun and parents can play an important role in helping children become lifelong readers. The following factsheets contain useful tips to help parents, guardians and carers gain confidence in reading aloud: 

• Talking and reading with babies
• Reading with toddlers
• Reading with preschoolers

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Kind regards

Cathy Cahill

General Manager, Children Services