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Did you know that you can purchase your FDCA 2025 National Conference ticket today and not worry about having it paid for until September?
Our exclusive members-only payment plan not only helps you manage your cash flow by paying for your ticket with 8 easy instalments, but it also means that you can secure your conference ticket now and not worry about missing out.
You’ll need to be quick though, the last day to access our 8-month payment plan is this Friday!
To purchase your ticket via the 8-month payment plan, click here.
Conference schedule available
We’re pleased to share the schedule for the FDCA 2025 National Conference. The conference schedule outlines a mix of keynote addresses and over 20 workshops to choose from!
To view the schedule, click here.
Edition 107 of JiGSAW magazine will be sent out to all our members shortly and is now available online.
JiGSAW is Australia's only nationally printed magazine dedicated to the family day care sector and includes articles on professional development, early years development and behaviour and family day care issues at the national level. JiGSAW also includes educator and service highlights and member competitions.
This edition includes features on:
To access the digital edition of JiGSAW, visit the FDCA Member Zone.
The Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) has recently released a resource titled ‘Nature play and child wellbeing’ that is now available on the AIFS website.
The resource summarises the evidence for what nature play is, how it is defined, its key features and how it is beneficial for young children. Research suggests that nature play supports social and emotional wellbeing in children, is an activity that children enjoy, and an effective method for learning. Moreover, nature play can teach children how to assess and cope with risks, and so can be beneficial in developing confidence and resilience for facing future challenges.
The resource includes considerations for practice and suggests a focus on three key factors that may influence the wellbeing benefits:
For more information visit the AIFS website.
This year Ramadan will commence on Saturday 1 March in Australia.
Ramadan Mubarak to all the wonderful educators, service staff, children, families and all those in the family day care sector who are observing.
We wish our Muslim friends and community Ramadan Mubarak!
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting (sawm), prayer (salah), reflection, and community.
All educators and education providers in Australia have obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Disability Standards for Education 2005 (the Standards) to support children and students with disability. These obligations include preventing discrimination against children, their families or others because of disability, making reasonable adjustments for children with disability and consulting regularly with children and parents to address concerns as they arise.
The 2020 Review of the Standards recommended changing the Standards to explicitly include approved early childhood education and care (ECEC) providers in the Standards so that it will make it clearer and easier for these services to understand and meet their obligations under the DDA.
Consultation on the draft Amendment Standards - closing 28th February
The Amendment Standards has been drafted and are open for consultation until 28th February 2025. The proposed changes address the recommendation to include early childhood education and care (ECEC) providers in the Standards and other minor changes. The ECEC services identified as most suited to be covered by the Standards are the ECEC services that by law must deliver an education program based on an approved learning framework.
Before these changes are finalised, the Australian Government Department of Education would like to hear from state and territory education stakeholders, early childhood education stakeholders, disability stakeholders and parents and carers.
Visit the Department of Education website to access further information on the consultation and to access the consultation documents.
Submit your feedback on the proposed changes by Friday 28th February 2025, by taking the Department’s short survey here.
Resources being developed by ACECQA to assist service providers
The Department has also engaged ACECQA to deliver and trial an Inclusive Practice Framework to help approved services to better understand their current level of capability to embed inclusive practices and to plan strategies to make any necessary improvements. Inclusion experts will assist ACECQA in this work. ACECQA will also provide a suite of free and practical resources for services, building on their existing suite of DDA resources.
In recent weeks, the Australian Government Department of Education has declared several local government areas (LGAs) in parts of NSW, WA and VIC as a Child Care Subsidy (CCS) period of emergency due to the impact of storm activity, fires and flooding.
If services, families or educators have been affected by a natural disaster recently, please visit the Department of Education website to view the most up to date list of declared regions and timeframes.
Providers, services, and families in affected areas can access emergency support for the specified dates. The department will continue to monitor emergency situations and update the list as needed.
For further information about the support that is available in affected regions, click the links below:
Be You is the national mental health and wellbeing initiative for learning communities in Australia and provides free, evidence-informed tools and resources that can be used in your everyday practice. They are designed to fit within your early learning service’s existing framework.
Be You recognises the mental health impacts that natural disasters and other traumatic events have on communities, and the role of learning communities in supporting resilience and recovery. They have a range of resources on their Natural Disaster Response website page that aim to empower learning communities to build resilience for the future.
These include wellbeing tools for educators and leaders, children and young people, resources and information, events and professional learning. To access these free resources click here.
Did you know that FDCA has an Incident Reporting protocol for when incidents occur in your family day care business? Did you also know that FDCA's Member Zone allows you to lodge an incident report online with the click of a button?
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:
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:
Category C
These incidents are not severe and can be managed and dealt with straight away. There is no need to report a Category C incident to FDCA. Some examples of a Category C incident are:
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.
How to report an incident?
You can either complete FDCA’s incident report form which is available here OR you can complete an online incident report from which is located in the Insurance section of your FDCA Member Zone. Hard copy incident report forms, once completed, can be emailed to memberservices@fdca.com.au.
For more information on incident reporting, please click here.
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