Children’s safety, health and wellbeing is the key priority of Early Learning Victoria. We create welcoming, safe spaces for all children, educators, families and community members, and cultivate connections with impact through meaningful relationships. Our practices encourage genuine collaboration that is respectful, helpful and sensitive to each child and family’s unique needs.
Early Learning Victoria supports the relationships between Early Learning Victoria, families and the community by engaging in positive and regular communication in a variety of formats that meet the needs of all parties.
1. Scope
This policy applies to children, families, staff and management of Early Learning Victoria centres. This includes volunteers, students on placement and contractors or labour hire employees of Early Learning Victoria.
2. Policy Statement
This policy describes procedures to be implemented at Early Learning Victoria centres and Early Learning Victoria central office to ensure:
- Early Learning Victoria staff are supported in building collaborative partnerships with families through purposeful and regular communication
- families receive regular and meaningful updates about their child’s learning
- families are connected with the Early Learning Victoria community
- families and communities are informed about events at the centre
- communications roles and responsibilities of Early Learning Victoria staff are clearly defined.
2.1 Requirements
A guiding principle of the Education and Care Services National Law Act 2010 is that the role of parents and families is respected and supported. Regular and respectful communication between the service and families supports this principle. The Education and Care Services National Regulations 2011 require communication between the service and families on matters such as:
- the educational program
- promoting child safety and wellbeing, in accordance with Child Safe Standard 4
- the medical and health care needs of a child, including any incident, injury, illness or trauma or communicable infectious diseases
- staffing updates
- food served at the centre
- service operations including any changes to policies, fee increases
- personal information, including contact details, cultural background and authorisations for the child.
2.2 Background information
Early Learning Victoria understands and respects the role of families as their child’s first educators and the important part they play in their child’s education and well-being. Quality Area 6 of the National Quality Standard, Collaborative partnerships with families and communities, emphasises the importance of ‘active communication, consultation and collaboration’ in contributing to children’s learning and wellbeing.
Early Learning Victoria educators' partner with families to build on a foundation of learning through respectful relationships and open communication. It is important that Early Learning Victoria centres engage with families in a positive, respectful and professional manner. Regular and meaningful communication is one tool that can encourage meaningful connections that support the learning and development of all children.
The Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF) also recognises the important role that families play in their child’s learning and development. The VEYLDF’s Practice Principle of Partnerships with families recognises the family as the primary influence on children’s learning and development, and that families have unique perspectives and insights to their child’s abilities and needs. The principle requires educators and other professionals to establish relationships through which the service, educators, family and community work together to build links and create a consistent and nurturing environment for each child. The VEYLDF suggests that early childhood professionals use multiple ways of communicating with families to ensure that any barriers are mitigated as much as possible.
The Practice Principle of Respectful relationships and responsive engagement recognises the important role that relationships have in helping children feel safe and secure. It expects educators to ‘demonstrate sensitivity and initiate warm, trusting and reciprocal relationships with children and their families.’
Early Learning Victoria will communicate with families in a variety of ways according to the context and needs of the family, and with the community, via social media, newsletters and other media opportunities. This policy provides guidelines for how individual and mass communications, including social media (see Attachment 1: Social media use procedure), will be managed.
3. Actions and procedures
3.1 Responsibilities of families
Families are responsible for:
- providing all required information about their child upon enrolment, and keeping this information up to date
- communicating with educators about their child’s interests, needs and any care requirements
- working in partnership with educators
- reading and, where necessary, responding to communications from Early Learning Victoria
- not posting defamatory comments about Early Learning Victoria or the Victorian Department of Education on any online platforms, including social media
- respecting the privacy of other families and children and not posting photos or videos online that include other children (see the Electronic devices and photography policy and the Privacy policy).
3.2 Responsibilities of staff
4. Resources
Legislation and standards
- Child Information Sharing Scheme
- Child Safe Standards
- Education and Care Services National Law Act 2010
- Education and Care Services National Regulations 2011
- Education and Training Reform Act 2006
- Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme
- National Quality Standard, quality area 6: Collaborative partnerships with families and communities
- Privacy Act 1988
- Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework
Related policies
- Anti-bias approach policy
- Child and family violence information sharing policy
- Child safety and wellbeing policy
- Management of medical conditions policy and procedure
- Educational program policy
- Electronic devices and photography policy
- Handling complaints and feedback policy
- Privacy policy
- Staff code of conduct policy
Links
- Commission for Children and Young People: The 11 Child Safe Standards
- National Quality Standard
- Practice principles for teaching birth to 8 years
- Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework 2016
- Victorian Institute of Teaching: The Victorian teaching profession’s code of conduct
- Victorian Institute of Teaching: Codes of conduct and ethics
- Victorian Public Sector Commission: Code of conduct for Victorian public sector employees
- Victorian Public Sector values
Attachments
Definitions
Child Information Sharing Scheme (CISS): The CISS permits the requesting and disclosure of confidential information between prescribed information-sharing entities for the purpose of promoting the wellbeing or safety of a child or group of children.
Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme (FVISS): The FVISS authorises a select group of prescribed information-sharing entities to share information for family violence risk assessment and risk management.
Social media: A computer-based technology that facilitates the sharing of ideas, thoughts, information and photos through the building of virtual networks and communities. Examples can include, but are not limited to, Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, TikTok and Instagram.
Updated