Applying a wellbeing lens to quality improvement planning

Maria Heenan

Okay, welcome everyone to today's session on wellbeing and quality improvement planning. My name's Maria, and with me today is Emma, and we're both Be You Consultants, and our role is to support learning communities and organisations implement changes to support mental health and wellbeing in your services.

So, for those who are new to Be You, Be You is Australia's national mental health and wellbeing and education initiative. Funded by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, it supports schools and early learning services to create inclusive, connected, and mentally healthy learning environments.

Be You is led by Beyond Blue and delivered in partnership with Early Childhood Australia and Headspace. This collaboration brings together trusted, sector-leading expertise across education, early childhood, and youth mental health.

If you're already registered and participating in Be You, we suggest you contact your Be You consultant following watching this event and share your thoughts or ideas about the session. If you're not currently participating, you can simply head to the webinar to the website, and register your service, and we'll get in touch with you to help you get started.

So today we're going to share some information about the importance of applying a wellbeing lens to the National Quality Standards and provide some practical examples of how to move from the what to the how to support the wellbeing of children, families, and educators.

Just before we begin, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land that I'm meeting on today, the Whadjuk Noongar people, and I'd like to extend that acknowledgement to the First Nations owners of land throughout Australia.

I pay my respects to their elders, laws, customs, and creation spirits. I recognise that these lands have been places of teaching and learning, and I acknowledge the important and continuing role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people play within education and care and the early learning community.

And I invite you to take a moment, maybe take a breath, to acknowledge the country that you're on today.

Your own mental health and safety is important today, as we're talking about mental health. Please plan for what you'll do if anything we discuss raises uncomfortable feelings, thoughts, or reminders of difficult experiences. There's always someone you can talk to.

 

Mental health services and support lines are on the screen now, and this is also a resource that you can download from our website and share with your team. You might also like to find out if you have access to an employee assistance program through your organization.

So, today we're going to start by considering why it's important to apply a wellbeing lens to your own quality improvement planning. We'll share some ideas about turning the national quality standards into wellbeing goals and think about how to align wellbeing implementation with your quality improvement plan.

And we'll also share some ideas about how your Be You consultant can support you with this process.

Emma Woods

And so, I'm going to share some things of what you could, be focusing on, during the session today. So, while we'll work through this information, you might like to consider your own services context, priorities and challenges. It's recommended that you reflect on the strategies shared today with consideration as to what will work for you and your team.

The final piece of advice as you join us today is to have some paper with you to jot down your curiosities and next steps identified throughout the session, as you can then follow up with your Be You Consultant.

So now, before we discuss how to translate quality standards into wellbeing goals, let's first explore what we mean by wellbeing, and why including it in your services quality improvement planning matters.

The definition of wellbeing shown on the slide, which is enjoyment in life and ability to cope with stress and sadness, work productively, the fulfillment of goals, and a sense of connectedness with others.

There are many definitions around wellbeing. This one from Rupert in 2020 is a bit of a collection around ways of being. It refers, oh, sorry, it reflects a holistic view of wellbeing.

Now let's consider this for children. How do you see this definition being represented for children? UNICEF Australia defines children's wellbeing as encompassing all aspects of the child's life that enables them to thrive and reach their full potential.

Once again, a holistic view of wellbeing. So, wellbeing, then, is not just about physical health, but about having all basic needs met, being valued and safe, and having the opportunity to grow and learn and participate in community. It also relates to a sense of identity and inclusion.

All these parts are interdependent.

Now, don't these remind you of our national quality standard? Is this not what we're trying to achieve in our services, and is this then measured to establish quality?

Wellbeing is more than the absence of a condition or problem. It is a positive state of physical, emotional, and mental well-being.

Now, a common misconception about wellbeing is that it means a person feels good all the time, but in fact, that is not true. Everyone experiences painful emotions, and this is a normal part of life. Being able to manage these negative or painful emotions is important for a person's wellbeing.

 

So, let's connect to this more to our sector's governing documents, our national quality standard and frameworks.

Wellbeing is at the heart of high-quality early learning, and is deeply embedded across all seven quality areas, even if it's not named explicitly. A wellbeing lens can be applied to the quality areas.

This includes highlighting wellbeing within your strengths and areas of improvement.

In doing so, you are directly supporting the intent of the National Quality Standard.

Which is to promote positive outcomes for children, families, and educators.

Now let's connect this to the Early Years Learning Framework version 2.0. Outcome 3, which is children have a sense of belonging, explicitly calls out wellbeing.

This is a great enabler for ensuring you're applying a wellbeing lens to your improvement planning and goal setting. However, like the National Quality Standard, a wellbeing lens can be most definitely applied to all five outcomes, and we will discuss the development and use of that wellbeing lens further. But before I go there, I wish to connect how your improvement planning and goal setting can and should also include educator wellbeing.

So, while the National Quality Standard focuses on children's learning and wellbeing, there is no explicit element relating to educator wellbeing. But we are not going to let that stop us.

 

Let's take the national quality areas of staffing arrangements, relationships with children, and governance and leadership. These can be translated and support the development of educator wellbeing goals.

So why would we want to do this? Well, educator mental health is related to the quality of care they provide.

Research by CORE in 2017 states that at the most fundamental level, to meet the quality area relationships with children, it cannot be achieved without attending to educators' mental wellbeing.

It's that whole notion of, if I'm not well, how can I support others to be well?

Now, applying a wellbeing lens to planning and embedding wellbeing goals will be easier to do for quality areas than others. It may require more intentional thought to translate the wording into wellbeing goals for your service for both children and educators.

So now, how can this be done?  How do we approach the quality areas first. At first, that don't have you thinking and reflecting about wellbeing. This is where your wellbeing lens comes into play. Your wellbeing lens is intentionally viewing goals, decisions, and approaches with wellbeing outcomes and impacts at the heart of your planning and actions.

This may require reframing perspectives, Now, this might be your own and or your team's. But the reframing which could take place is reminding yourself to focus on thriving and flourishing, to view wellbeing as fulfilment, connection, and resilience, and to lead with a strength-based and holistic approach.

So, Maria, how might our audience out there adopt a wellbeing lens or approach reframing? I think that you might have an example to share.

 

Maria Heenan

I do have an example, and it's something that, I think a lot of services will be able to connect with. So, throughout this year, obviously, a lot of services have been thinking and focusing about on the changes that have come with the new child safety requirements.

So, for one service, though, this actually led them to taking a wellbeing approach to thinking about child safety. So, they started thinking about how their everyday practices support children's rights, and how they really listen to the children's voices. So, they're coming at this from an empowerment perspective. And we know that empowering children is actually a key for their mental health and wellbeing.

When children feel empowered, they're better able to develop a sense of agency, autonomy, and ability, and responsibility. And this helps them to build a really strong sense of self, to feel like they've, they have a place in the world, and to cope with life's everyday ups and downs.

Emma Woods

Yeah, what a great example. That really connects to, our the sector and many services at this time. So now, let's think about our wellbeing lens a little bit further and especially working through how to connect a wellbeing goal to a quality area when it is not obvious. So, it's not stating the word wellbeing or connecting straight away.

We're going to spend a bit of time here on this particular slide as we work through what and how to apply a wellbeing lens.

I'll work through this, with the three topics on your screen. How the National Quality Standard refers to wellbeing, and how it might seem as if it is in disguise. The role mental health literacy has in supporting the establishment and actioning of goals, and how your lens is an enabler for you to identify these connections. And how the lens can be used.

So, looking at the first topic in the pink box, which is how the National Quality Standard prefers to wellbeing. So, we know that the National Quality Standard has minimal use of the word wellbeing, and even when it does, it can be disguised. So, not presenting as or represented as well-being focused at first glance.

This is where taking a holistic approach and applying a wellbeing lens is needed.

However, it can be tricky, as the National Quality Standard also is not clear around the holistic concept of wellbeing, and they do not specifically refer to mental health at all. Talk about in disguise.

So, for example, there is a standard about regulation, but it refers only to behaviour, not emotional regulation. And it also does not explicitly mention the connection and role that mental health plays.

As we've previously noted, there is no specific standard for educator mental health and wellbeing. So, as you can see, connecting wellbeing goals to the National Quality Standard is not a shine-in-your-face obvious. And I suspect that this might be why some of you may have joined us today.

Not all hope is lost, because revealing those disguised well-being connections is a great enabler in creating and sustaining a mentally healthy service, so keep on going.

 

I acknowledge that it's not always easy, and I hope this next section in blue will provide you with a way through that somewhat hidden puzzle to the point where all you can see are those connections to wellbeing.

So, the blue topic is exploring the role that mental health literacy plays, and how it's an enabler to support you in applying wellbeing lens.

So, by building your service's mental health literacy, this becomes key when applying a wellbeing lens. It's a bit like, if you don't know about it, so mental health concepts, then you don't know, and applying a lens of something you don't know about is near impossible.

But Maria is here, and I have a question for you. So, what might a learning community do here when they are faced with this not knowing what, what they don't know?

Maria Heenan

It is a real problem to get started. So a first step towards mental health literacy for some services might simply be starting by gathering some information, or even just having a conversation about how we currently talk and think about mental health in our community and then starting by building on that knowledge.

So, for some of you, mental health information conversations might really already be embedded in your practice, while for others it might not be something you've really discussed before. And that's absolutely fine. Everyone starts from a different place. What's important, though, is that the whole team starts to develop a shared understanding of what mental health means, and how it applies in your setting. So one way to do this is starting by sharing some information and resources to build some mental health literacy, beginning with where your team’s what your team's current understanding is, and then growing from there.

Emma Woods

Yeah, some great advice, Maria, thanks. If you're thinking this is your next step, jot it down now, so you can connect with your Be You consultant who can support you with this step.

Strong mental health literacy means your team will have a better understanding of how to determine where wellbeing fits within the National Quality Standard, and what the desired state looks like from a wellbeing perspective, so that meaningful goals can be planned and implemented.

As an example, let's look at where wellbeing is mentioned within Quality Area 2, Standard 2.1, Wellbeing and Comfort. It states that each child's wellbeing and comfort is provided for, including appropriate opportunities to meet each child's need for sleep, rest, and relaxation.

To embed these practices, a shared understanding of wellbeing, like Maria has just said, in your learning community is needed. And you might need to plan for this shared understanding, once again, as Maria has suggested.

But how do I use this lens?

In the last green box, it provides the how. How do we use the wellbeing lens? Using a wellbeing lens involves identifying the things that can be improved in your service from a wellbeing perspective.

 

These include, within programs, practices, policies, procedures, physical spaces, culture, and the environment. It also means looking at your current quality and improvement planning and documentation to align wellbeing goals with that work.

Applying the wellbeing lens can be approached in several ways. And it's best to consider what will work best for you, your team, your contacts and whole service. I'll highlight two core ones now.

One way is to take your existing quality improvement plan and apply a wellbeing lens to your already identified goals. This is not just about strengthening documentation, but also about ensuring that the things that are implemented include planning and consideration around wellbeing outcomes and impacts.

The second way is to identify wellbeing needs and goals and then connect and translate them to be included in your quality improvement planning.

You should also consider what professional development and supports might be needed for successful implementation of your wellbeing goals, including change management. As the whole taking an idea and running with it is not as effective as identifying the change you'd like to see, translating that into a goal, and then planning how that goal is achieved.

Now, no matter the approach, the important next step after identifying needs and goals is documenting them in your quality improvement plan.

So, Maria, what's next? Now that we have unpuzzled a bit of the why, and a little bit of the what, and part of how, to apply a wellbeing lens, what's next?

Maria Heenan

Good question. So, regardless of the approach you take, whether it's applying the wellbeing lens to your existing goals, as Emma's just outlined, or starting with your wellbeing goals and weaving them into your quality improvement plan, the important next step is to start planning for implementation. And part of that planning will involve identifying any barriers that might come up, or your enablers.

This is a really crucial early step, because it helps you anticipate any challenges, and also to recognise the supports that will help you to be successful with your goals.

There's always going to be barriers and enablers when it comes to making any kind of change. So, barriers are those things that help make that can make the change process slower or more difficult.

Well, enablers are factors that can help make the change easier and increase the chance of successful outcomes.

So, let's just take a moment to think specifically about those barriers that might come up when you're trying to apply a wellbeing lens to your quality improvement planning.

So mental health is not explicitly mentioned in the National Quality Standards, like Emma has outlined. While there is a focus on children's health and safety, and wellbeing is referenced several times across the standards, there's a lack of clarity around what wellbeing means, and no specific standard for mental health.

Turning standards into goals can seem really challenging, and it does require an investment of some time.

 

And also, different perspectives and practices are important to consider. Every team brings different understandings and their own experiences. These differences might come from cultural backgrounds or previous professional or personal experience, and they can influence how wellbeing is understood and the priority it's given by the members in your team.

And wellbeing is a long-term change piece, so change does take time, and implementing a wellbeing focus is often a slow process, and it can take some time before you start to see outcomes. So, maintaining momentum is really important, but it can be challenging.

Another important thing is achieving buy-in. It can be hard to get everyone on board with changes, so it's important to identify strategies that encourage engagement and support across the team.

And you might also experience changes to leadership or staffing, and this is really common across the early childhood education and care sector, and can sometimes stall the change process, making it harder to maintain that consistency. On the flip side, though, we have our enablers. So one key enabler is building that mental health literacy across your servers, something that we've been talking about already. Having your team understand the importance of a focus on mental health and wellbeing.

And recognizing the really important role they each play in supporting children, families, and each other is important for gaining buy-in and making successful changes.

You can also draw on your existing work. You'll already have information about what's happening in your service, and strong well-being practices that you can build on.

Identifying priorities for future focus through your quality improvement plan helps set the direction and shape your wellbeing goals. Including wellbeing in your quality improvement plan increases your accountability and ensures that it continues to be prioritised.

And finally, connecting with your Be You consultant can be really helpful. We can support you to identify your priorities and develop that practical plan for your service.

So, let's focus on that key enabler of building mental health literacy and consider how it actually does enable change. We know that risk and protective factors are important influences on mental health and wellbeing throughout our life.

Risk factors increase the likelihood of stress or mental health issues, both in childhood and later on.

Risk factors might include things like an individual's biological or psychological state, family or environmental circumstances, or negative experiences and events that put pressure on their wellbeing.

Protective factors, on the other hand, reduce the likelihood of mental health issues and help build resilience, even when those risk factors might be present.

So, for example, a child might come from a vulnerable family situation, which increases their risk of experiencing mental health issues or stress, but if they attend a quality early learning service where they feel a strong sense of belonging and inclusion, and where their families also supported, that can become a really important protective factor.

 

So, let's think about how this connects to your quality improvement plan. Including mental health in your plan can actually strengthen these protective factors for children's wellbeing. When we understand that things like belonging and inclusion, or children's agency and empowerment, are protective factors.

We can use this understanding to shape wellbeing goals through the National Quality Standard.

So, for example, you might look at ways to include goals around belonging and inclusion into Quality Areas 1, 3, and 5, and you might also focus on opportunities for children's agency and empowerment in Quality Areas 1 and 5.

So, let's move to another example of how mental health literacy can be an enabler for change, and this time in relation to educator wellbeing.

There are a range of protective factors that can support educator wellbeing. Some of the key ones include having a healthy work environment, a positive culture, supportive collegial relationships, and feeling valued, respected, and appreciated as an educator.

When we understand the influence of these factors, we can start to prioritise them as well-being goals in the Quality Improvement Plan.

So, on this slide, you can see some of the potential quality areas, quality areas 4 and 7, that create space for including educator wellbeing goals.

For example, Standard 4.2.1 highlights the management, educators and staff work with mutual respect and collaboratively, challenge and learn from each other, and recognise each other's strengths and skills.

Through a mental health literacy lens, we can see that these are all aspects of collegial relationship that actively promote educator wellbeing, so we could then create goals that help us to enhance these areas.

So, as an example, a service I've been working with have added the following statements into their wellbeing plan in a section on leadership, and you can see how they use these to build wellbeing goals into their quality improvement plan.

So, the statements are,

• ·our leadership team is committed to embedding mental health and wellbeing at the heart of our centre’s philosophy and daily practices.
• We maintain policies and procedures that reflect our commitment to mental health, wellbeing, inclusion, and cultural responsiveness.
• We regularly review and update these policies to align with best practice and the evolving needs of our community.

So having these embedded, really makes them accountable and maintains that momentum with having those goals.

So, I invite you to take a moment and think about whether you currently have any goals in your quality improvement plan that explicitly relate to educator wellbeing. This is always an important area, but in my conversations with service leaders, as we come to the end of this year, it feels even more critical than ever.

 

So, committing to a wellbeing approach in your learning community might mean weaving a focus on wellbeing into each quality area. For example, Quality Area 1, Element 1.3.3, is about providing information for families on the program and their child's progress.

If we apply a wellbeing focus here, it could mean reflecting on how we nurture strong family partnerships.

How we communicate about wellbeing topics, and how we provide early support for children's wellbeing alongside the family.

Often, you'll already have goals that align with the standards. The opportunity here is to extend these goals so that they include wellbeing. In this example, you might already have a goal around providing information to families. So the next step is to ask, how could that goal be strengthened to highlight wellbeing as well-being approaches as well. And remember, when you're developing a goal, it's important that it addresses well-being needs, that it's clear, aspirational, realistic and measurable.

So, let's look at another example of supporting children's wellbeing.

When we look through a wellbeing lens, we know that creating inclusive spaces is really important. Inclusive spaces foster a sense of belonging, encourage positive social relationships, and support learning through engagement.

If we look at Quality Area 3 in element 3.2.1, Inclusive Environment, we could create a goal such as designated quiet spaces are established and children are supported to use these spaces to regulate, another key element of children's wellbeing. These spaces can be designed to be inclusive of every child's emotion and physical needs.

What this does is take the quality standard, which is about providing spaces that engage children in experiences, and strengthens it by adding a wellbeing focus. It makes a link between the physical environment, children's regulation, and their overall wellbeing.

So, let's explore this goal a little bit further. Designated quiet spaces are established, and children are supported by educators to use them to regulate.

We know that quiet spaces are valuable for supporting children's regulation, which is an important part of their social and emotional learning and overall wellbeing. We can also think about the kinds of practices educators might use to encourage children to access and benefit from these spaces.

Having a goal like this is important for a few reasons. It promotes inclusion, quiet spaces give all children an option, especially those who may feel overwhelmed by noise, large group activities, or transitions, and it ensures everyone's needs are respected and supports children to develop their self-regulation skills and strategies.

It also aligns with the Early Years Learning Framework. Access to quiet spaces reflects the principles of wellbeing, responsive relationships, and environments that nurture learning.

When you're actioning this goal, it's also useful to think about the practical steps. For example, having a clear plan with achievable timelines, and consider how you'll monitor the impact and outcomes along the way.

And Emma, I know that you have some more specific ideas around implementing this goal.

 

Emma Woods

Yeah, thanks, Maria. This example of creating a designated regulation space is something which is manageable and sustainable. It's also something to think about for all age ranges.

As I know, when I was listening to you, Maria, my first connection was to, say, the 3-5 year old room, however, actually, a design space within the toddler room and infant room is achieved is achievable and beneficial. It just might need some reframing and learning around how to support those foundational emotional regulation skills.

For example, for infants, it might be a space which assists and supports the child to self-soothe, to shift attention away from something that might be upsetting and recognising others' expressions.

I also wanted to add that from this goal, you might be thinking, oh yes, we have a quiet space. And if that's you, I ask you to complete a reflection or audit of what it is in the space, of what's in the space, and its intention for being there. This then provides a great opportunity to apply that wellbeing lens that we've been talking about.

Now, my last suggestion or reflection is to remember that once a space is established, it's not a tick and flick. This space needs continual reflection and work, which, as I mentioned, might be an audit where you may end up needing to complete further professional learning.

Remember that saying I used before? You don't know what you don't know? So don't expect that because you have suggested to your team, or written in your goal, to include regulation and wellbeing in your quiet spaces, that they will just automatically know what this means.

This is where that mental health literacy comes into play.

I hope you can hear that I'm asking you to consider that this goal needs, even once it is written, it needs further implementation planning, like Maria has just, shared and mentioned.

So now let's look at another example. This one is considering a goal for educator wellbeing. The one in disguise the most in our governing documents.

The goal on your screen is connecting to Quality Area 7, which is leadership. Effective leadership builds and promotes a positive organisational culture and professional learning community, which is 7.2. Leadership is a contributor to educator wellbeing.

Our goal addresses this, as its leadership nurtures a positive workplace through a range of initiatives that promotes promoting gratitude, growth mindset, and support for educators, providing an environment for educators to thrive and cope with the demands of their job.

Returning to my statement earlier, if they are not well, then how can they be expected to support others to be well?

Now, creating a wellbeing-focused workplace environment is important to achieve the National Quality Standard leading intention, which is ensuring our services promote positive outcomes for children, families, and educators through the assessment of quality.

So, to unpack this goal a little further, the wellbeing lens applied here, recognises the role leadership plays in promoting and sustaining educator wellbeing. This includes the influence that they have for creating a positive work environment.

 

The wellbeing lens is aligning the awareness that when a culture of gratitude, growth mindset, and support for educators is practiced by leadership, it can sustain and promote their team's wellbeing.

Having a goal on educator wellbeing is important, and by making it visible within your Quality Area 7 goals, it creates and supports the awareness of why this is needed.

It also provides an opportunity to reflect on current practices and plan for a future state for a thriving workplace.

Things to think about when actioning this goal include having a clear plan and timelines that are achievable and considering how to monitor the impact and outcomes.

Maria, did you have a reflection about this suggested goal?

Maria Heenan

I do. So, when we start thinking about wellbeing goals and strategies, it can sometimes feel broad and a bit overwhelming. So, this goal includes that leaders nurture a positive workplace through a range of initiatives. When it comes to implementing this goal, we need to ensure that it's manageable and more specific regarding the actions.

So, one way is to set smaller, more achievable steps. For example, you might begin by including wellbeing conversations in your regular team check-ins. So, a simple step that doesn't take much more time, more effort. The important thing is to start by gathering information from your team, asking them how they currently feel about the way their wellbeing is supported, and what would be most beneficial to them.

By doing this, your goals become much more clear, meaningful, and sustainable, and you're much more likely to get genuine buy-in from the team.

Emma Woods

Yeah, so true, Maria.

So, from this goal, which outlines wellbeing strategies of focusing on gratitude and growth mindsets.

It's something you would only, add to your goal once you have gathered that information and input from your team. These goals really do represent how your quality improvement planning is an enabler for creating a mentally healthy service. It provides a level of commitment to prioritizing everybody's, or everyone's, well-being.

So, earlier we spoke about, barriers and enablers to applying a wellbeing lens to your quality improvement plan. It makes your quality improvement plan itself one of those enablers. It helps you to ensure you and your team are committed as it fosters accountability, provides opportunity for your whole team to buy into this priority. It ensures that resourcing will be considered and made available. It brings awareness of why a focus on wellbeing is important and becomes embedded in your already established cycle of continuous improvement.

In our work as consultants, we speak to many service leaders who are working hard to improve mental health and wellbeing, but fewer leaders have these change efforts formalised and acknowledged in their quality improvement plans. If it's in the plan, it can't be ignored or left by the wayside.

 

Maria Heenan

So, the focus of our discussion today has been, obviously, on applying a wellbeing lens to your quality improvement planning. So Be You is one of the support mechanisms that services can draw on to help plan and implement wellbeing goals. Be You takes an implementation principles approach to our work with services, and this approach aligns with quality improvement planning. So here are some ways that your Be You consultant can help you. So, thinking about Be You as not another thing, is the way we look at it, and that Be You is a tool available for you to help you identify and achieve your wellbeing goals.

We apply the implementation cycle, which will be really familiar to you and follows a continuous improvement approach.

Be You has a range of information and resources to support mental health literacy and the implementation of wellbeing goals.

And engagement with Be You can help demonstrate critical reflection and help you take your next steps to embed well-being in your service.

You can access Be You support not only to plan and implement wellbeing goals that have been identified through your quality improvement planning, but also to demonstrate how your services met the requirements of the National Quality Standards Exceeding themes.

Be You can support with embedding wellbeing practices into ongoing operations. Engaging with Be You provides opportunity and support for critical reflection and Be You can help with strategies for engagement with families and the community more broadly, and assist with enhancing a sense of belonging for all community members.

And this is our Be You implementation cycle, and it aligns really well with the quality improvement planning process to help you clearly identify your priority, define the goals and success measures, and outline specific outcomes and time frames. It guides you to explore the underlying need, identifying barriers and enablers for change, and selecting strategies to effectively address them.

The implementation cycle is designed to guide your planning about how you will implement actions to achieve your goals.

Emma Woods

And so, to round out our fundamentals today. Here are some takeaway key messages and ideas to consider and review with your team.

Our governing documents, the National Quality Standard and Early Years Learning Framework version 2.0, recognise the importance of mental health and wellbeing, no matter how in disguise or hidden, they may be. They are there.  And a way to reveal these are to intentionally apply a wellbeing lens to your improvement planning and goal setting. By doing this, you are also ensuring the priority to wellbeing is achievable, measurable, and creates opportunity for real sustainable change.

And the final key message is that you don't have to do it alone. Be You is here to help, and Maria just gave some good examples, around Be You Consultant Support, and also our planning cycle that helps.

 

So, on the screen are some suggested next steps for our audience today. For educators, we  you might like to reflect on your own mental health literacy awareness and knowledge.

Contribute to your services quality improvement planning by applying that wellbeing lens the next time that you're asked for feedback or insight on the service's quality improvement plan.

Be an early adopter or motivator for your team. Share the word about the importance and connect, that wellbeing has to the work educators are doing.

For leaders, after today, you might like to reflect on your current practices and approach to wellbeing. Use your QIP as a tool to embed your priority for wellbeing and apply your wellbeing lens and let it help you to action the national quality standard exceeding themes.

So, here's just a reminder from all of our hints throughout the session today that Be You consultants are here, ready and waiting to help you. Gaining implementation support from your Consultant is a strategy you could add and list within your quality improvement planning.

Not sure if you have a consultant and you're a service leader? Log in to your Be You profile and navigate to the My Learning Community menu. If you're from a participating service. It will list, your Be You Consultant's email address. If you're not a participating service, then it will provide you with the next steps you can take to become a participating service. Or, another quick action is to head to the website and click on the Getting Started tab, and it will show you options for your next steps.

If you're an educator, you may be, the wellbeing champion. Connect with your service leadership and ask about Be You and then explore becoming a participating Be You learning community, via our website.

Now, on the screen are just a list of some of the Be You tools and resources which may help assist you in applying your wellbeing lens. Some are listed on the screen now, as you can see, but we have, many others not listed here that can be found on our website within the Resources tab.

So this brings us to the conclusion of our fundamentals today. I thank you for taking the time to prioritise yours and your team's wellbeing through the exploration of embedding wellbeing within your continuous improvement cycle.

Maria and I have been privileged to spend time with you today, and we hope you are leaving this session inspired, and maybe even transformed.

As you leave the session today, please do stay online to complete a short evaluation poll so that we can hear about your experience today, including any love you wish to provide Maria and I, or any feedback.

May your day be filled with light, love, and gratitude.

Thank you, everyone.