Healthy, respectful collegial relationships that support educator wellbeing

Sara Richardson:
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the next ECA Be You In Focus webinar: Healthy, respectful collegial relationships that support educator wellbeing. It's a bit of a mouthful, but we're really looking forward to having a conversation today about what that means. And it will just be the start of a conversation to think about what that looks like and feels like in early learning services. If you haven't been to one of our webinars before, really, really, great to have you here, and if you're watching the recording, we hope you enjoy it as well. So the focus of today will be, really thinking about how important those collegial relationships we have, and the connection that that has to our wellbeing. And in particular, we're going to really focus in on how we navigate conflict, when it inevitably arises. So, and we're looking forward to, having that conversation with Jennifer as well, and I'll introduce you to her in a little bit, in a little bit of a moment, but we'll just do a bit of housekeeping first. And importantly, I'd really like to acknowledge that I'm joining you today from Kaurna country, the Adelaide region of Australia, and that acknowledge that Kaurna country always was and always will be Aboriginal land. And I want to pay my respects to Kaurna elders past and present as well, and also to acknowledge all the lands you're joining from today, particularly Jennifer's joining us from Gadigal country, and we have some of our other team joining from Ngunnawal. And if you'd like to acknowledge where you're joining from today in the chat, that'd be great as well.
The other thing that's really important to acknowledge and just mention before we launch into the conversation today is at Be You, we think it, we know that it's, we need to acknowledge our own mental health and emotional safety is important whenever we start having conversations about wellbeing and mental health. So think about and make a plan now for how you, you know, what you might do if you need, if anything uncomfortable raises for you, any thoughts or reminders of experiences. there's always someone you can talk to and have a bit of a plan about what that, who that might be and where you can go. We've also provided you on the screen and also in the chat with some resources that we use here at Be You as well. So please, you access those if you need to. And take care of yourself and each other.
So as I said, today's webinar, I might not have said this, but today's webinar is the third in our In Focus series for 2026. And this year we've been offering monthly webinars focused on relationships and mental health. So we've had a couple more and a couple already. But today's session is really going to focus in on the relationships we have as adults and with our colleagues. So what happens in an In Focus webinar we have an expert speaker, and we have a conversation, and it's really the start of a conversation. It won't be the end. I'm sure there'll be a whole lot
more that we could talk about, but we're hoping that that will start you really thinking, or continue your conversations if you've already really been thinking about that as well. And then a month later, we follow up with an In Practice webinar, which is really honing in on what that looks like in practice. And it will use some of the key messages from today's In Focus webinar, and really hone in on what that looks like, you know, having some examples, from early learning services as well.
So just one more thing before we get going. Let's have a, do a little quick poll about your current approach to supporting what we're calling collegial relationships in your service. What does it look like? So do you already have some things in place? You have an approach and a strategy, and it's thought through and planned. You're starting, you've got a bit of progress happening, so you're in the process of actioning some plans, which means you've already thought of it and started putting some plans in place. Maybe you're just on your first steps, so you've maybe just taken a couple, you know, a couple of, actions, or started making some plans, or having some conversations, or it might be just early days, and this webinar might give you some, the start, or some ideas for you to start thinking about how you want to approach it and what kind of things you put in place. We will ask you another poll at the end of the session, but let's have a look. It's pretty even split, which is usually what happens. So we have a range of people who have already really thought about it, and they have a really thought through strategy, and well on the way. There's some, and some people, probably the biggest group here is, you know, people are starting to, they're making progress, so hopefully we'll get some more ideas, but that will build on what you've already started, and some people in the early days as well, and this might, you might not have even thought about it collectively, so this might be that kickstart that you're going to need. So thank you so much for participating in that, and as I said, we'll ask you again when we get towards the end. About what your actions are going to be.
So, what I'd like to do now is to welcome our guest, Jennifer Ribarovski, who, has some expertise, some expertise, a lot of expertise, and has thought a lot and very deeply about collegial relationships and in particular conflict. But before we start, Jennifer, would you like to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about who you are and why this is important to you?
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Oh, thanks, Sara. Well, I'm, mainly a teacher, I suppose, when I think about it, but I've been in the sector for 40 years, and I've done a whole range of different things. Well, over 40 years, as you can tell by my advanced age. And I've worked as a teacher and in a whole range of different early childhood settings. I've done some academic work with universities, Sydney and Western Sydney University for a number of years, my own consulting work for the last decade or so, and worked with the sector just in a range of different capacities, with the regulatory authority and with ACECQA in executive roles. But my interest in communication really sparked, or it
came from a conversation I had with my colleague at the University of Sydney, Marianne Fenech about how tricky it is for educators to come into the sector and for there to be an expectation that they just know how to communicate well with families, with colleagues, and how that was really underrepresented in training courses for educators and for teachers. So those conversations led to us writing a book. Some of you might be familiar with that book, which is Professional communication for early childhood educators, to try and equip teachers and educators with some, some practical skills around the idea of communicating with colleagues and with families, and just adults in that space of adult communication. We're all pretty good at working with children. But children come with grown ups, don't they? And that's something that we're not often taught to do. So that was the intention of the book and that really sparked my interest in communication and culture really, and building team culture.
Sara Richardson:
Oh, that's fantastic, and I think you're right, and we talked about this, didn't we, when we were doing the planning for this session, about how often people who work with early childhood have those amazing skills at working with children, and there's that little gap. It's actually a big gap, and it can become a big gap, and that's probably one of the things we might touch on a bit today, you know, how that gap can really get in the way of doing the work that we really set out to do, and it is that communication and those interactions and relationships we have with children. I think the other thing from a Be You perspective that we think is really important part of this work is about the impact that this has on wellbeing and people's mental health as well. We'll, we'll touch on that, and so what's going to happen now is Jennifer and I are going to have a bit of a conversation about some of these things that Jennifer's alluded to, and so we're going to start off with, you know, kind of trying to provide a bit of an overview of for why this matters and what it looks like. So, if we start off with thinking about what the key elements of an inclusive, respectful work environment are you would say, Jennifer?
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yeah, look, I think there's probably four, Sara, four really key elements. And they’re for me, psychological safety and respectful communication and the idea of trust and inclusion. And I'll probably just speak a little bit to psychological safety to start with, because it's probably one of the most important concepts, particularly for leaders to understand, but it's often misunderstood. And that's really because in early childhood education we spend our days talking about creating emotionally safe environments for children, but we don't always ask whether our educators feel emotionally safe themselves. People often assume psychological safety means everyone feels comfortable all the time. But it doesn't actually mean that. You might see it, or it might show up when perhaps the newest educator feels comfortable in saying, ‘I don't know how to do this’. Or the more experienced educator might feel safe in saying, ‘I think we could do this better’. Or even your Certificate III educator feels able to
respectfully question or disagree with the educational leader. So, what we know is that teams with high psychological safety make fewer mistakes, because people actually speak up. And they learn faster. And they're able to ask more questions and innovate more.
Sara Richardson:
That's so interesting. And because I think we hear, and obviously those recent changes that have come in around psychological safety, that it's become a bit more mandated. And I think you're right, it's not well understood and people probably have put some things in place because they had to. And we have that tension, don't we in our sector around the compliance element of doing things because we have to. And then sometimes there's a gap underneath about why that's important and what how powerful those things can be.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yes.
Sara Richardson:
Yeah. So interesting. And the examples you gave were excellent. That notion of disagreement is really interesting, isn't it? Because we often don't like that, or don't think it's a helpful thing. And even how you described, you know, a Certificate III educator disagreeing with maybe a leader, and that power difference is really interesting. But when we all feel when we're all contributing and working towards the same goal, those kind of things would be normal and natural. And, like you said, that's where you can get improvement and changes and, you know, outcomes that are, you know, what we're all looking for for the children, but also for ourselves. There's a benefit there as well.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yeah, absolutely, there's a benefit there for educators. I don't know, Amy Edmondson's done some research around psychological safety, and what she tells us is that safe teams actually report more mistakes. So, they actually make less mistakes. But more are reported because people feel safe enough to acknowledge them.
Sara Richardson:
Yes.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
And that's so important, particularly, and I know everyone is well across the current climate and context in education and care, but mistakes can become opportunities for learning rather than something to hide. And that's incredibly important.
Sara Richardson:
Yes.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
If you imagine an educator noticing that, let's say a supervision practice isn't working well. If they don't feel psychologically safe. They remain silent, but if they did, they'd raise the concern immediately, so children would then actually be safer because someone felt comfortable enough to speak up.
Sara Richardson:
Yeah, and you're right, that's so powerful and so important, especially currently, but you know all the time anyway. But I think it's really on everybody's minds, isn't it? And that notion of mistakes is interesting too, because I mean, I think you're actually seeing mistakes as a positive opportunity, and often we don't, you know, often hear in early childhood, ‘I've got to do it right now. They said we have to do it this way’, and all, you know, that fear of getting things wrong, but if, you know, and we know this, this is this whole dilemma we have. When we say children are learning, we don't say they're making mistakes, we say they're learning. And so, you know, if we applied that to us as well, sometimes we would see those opportunities to learn and do things differently and go together and develop that shared understanding. And I think that probably leads me into the next question we're wondering about. What do you think maybe that healthy collegial relationship would look and sound and feel like when people are, when it's working well?
Jennifer Ribarovski:
I want to move on to that, but Sara, can I talk about communication and trust and inclusion?
Sara Richardson:
Of course, you haven't talked, we got stuck on the psychological safety and I rushed it. Yeah, yeah, no, please do.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yeah, so the idea of trust I think is another important one and that's really built through consistency. So it's not built through perfection and educators kind of begin trusting each other and trusting leaders when they know that they'll be listened to. And that confidentiality will be respected. And there's consistency in terms of the way that everyone's treated, and that feedback's delivered in a way that's constructive. So again, that becomes opportunities for professional growth. But trust is tricky because it can also be lost really quickly. And that's when we see those things happening through gossip, through broken confidentiality, being criticised in front of other people, having inconsistent expectations, talking about people instead of talking to people, which is something that we call triangulation in the communication theory realm. You know, saying one thing and doing another. So, one breach of trust
can really do lots of damage in terms of relationship building, so I think trust is super important.
Sara Richardson:
Yeah, 100%. And you're right. Trust builds can build quickly, but it can also be broken quite quickly. Can't it? Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yep.
Sara Richardson:
And are there any more elements to the communication and trust that you think are important?
Jennifer Ribarovski:
I might briefly touch on inclusion, but if I talk too much.
Sara Richardson:
No, keep going. I mean, I think we need to really set the, and that's what we're trying to do here, really set the tone for the environment. And all of these things are things we know, but it's really important and powerful to say them, you know, to have them said out loud. So, no, please keep going.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yep, because I could talk about this all day, Sara.
Sara Richardson:
I know, me too. No, all good.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
The other thing I talked about was inclusion. So, we talk about belonging for children, but belonging really matters for educators who are working in teams. And we all want to know that we matter in the workplace that we're in, that our opinion counts for something, that we're respected. That we're able to contribute and our contributions are valued. So, you know, that's what inclusion might feel like, but sometimes exclusion can be really subtle. So, you know, let's say the experienced educator speaks while the newer educator remains silent. Or casual staff stop contributing because nobody asks their opinion. They're not always intentional behaviours but they kind of shape culture. So, it's good to think about these kinds of questions as leaders in particular. Whose voice is heard the most often in team meetings? Whose voice is rarely heard? Sometimes silence tells us more information about participation, but it can also give us clues about inclusion or exclusion.
Sara Richardson:
Yes, interesting that one about silence, isn't it? Because I think sometimes you get, it's easy to get caught up in the hurry and the rush of things, and so if no one says anything, you're like, oh good, great, we can keep going. And actually, that might not be the right read of the room, and there might be some people who haven't felt safe enough, or that their voice would be included. And the other tension around that too is, you know, the pressure on leaders often to feel like you have to respond to every voice. everyone having a voice is not the same as doing everything for everybody, like, they're slightly different things. I think everybody feeling like they can contribute and say what they think and disagree and those kind of things is kind of really more what you're talking about, and then making a decision together about what's best for us.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yeah. And I think that's whole, that whole notion of healthy collegial relationships feel like that from a personal perspective, as though you can contribute and your voice is valued, whether or not you do. Yeah. As you're saying. Yeah.
Sara Richardson:
Yeah. Do you wanna build on that anymore about those healthy collegial relationships?
Jennifer Ribarovski:
I think I covered all of the points that I that I wanted to talk about with that one, Sara. Yeah.
Sara Richardson:
Sure. So then if we, if we think about how the connection to wellbeing and, that kind of thing around, you know this in an environment that's inclusive, respectful, safe. What are you seeing about, or what would you think is important about that connection to how it not just makes you feel, I think, about, you know, a bit more deeply about our well-being, individually, but also collectively?
Jennifer Ribarovski: Yeah. Well, look, we know the work of educators is very relational and emotional. So, you know, day in and day out for educators, they regulate children's emotions, often families' emotions, the emotions of their colleagues. And often their own emotions. So, it's an emotional labour, but it's largely invisible. But it can be really exhausting, so there's no doubt that early childhood education is emotionally demanding work. I think, you know, no one could argue against that. And when healthy collegial relationships exist, then that emotional labour's shared, and the emotional load is then reduced. Because educators know they don't have to carry everything alone. So, positive relationships, almost act as a protective factor for mental health. Because they reduce workplace stress, and they reduce that emotional exhaustion, and educators feel supported rather than isolated.
Sara Richardson:
Yeah, that's really, really, really important to keep in mind. And I think again, you know, we can get caught up in the doing and forget about some of these elements that feel like they're in the background or they're, you know, you'll get to them later and all of those kind of things, but when you don't pay attention to them or when you don't make them important enough to do something about, plan for them, which is why we asked that question at the beginning in the poll about, you know, what's your plans for this? Then, when things, sometimes it just works, and you know, I've worked in services or in rooms where it just feels right and it's easy and no one's really had to do anything, but that's not always the case. And I think the more intentional you are, and again, this is what we know about children, the more intentional you are, the better outcome you're going to have and the more you're going to buffer against some of those things. But I really like the, you know, really acknowledging the emotional load and sharing the emotional load and how we can do that, not just in a practical way like rostering and making sure and we'll all get our breaks and those kind of things. But in that other way of really helping each other regulate maybe, or helping with those elements of it too is really important.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yeah, I think so. I think planning for sharing the emotional load is very important and for building strong relationships across the team, it increases educators' level of confidence and also their professional resilience. And they are then more likely, and the research is clear about this too, they're more likely to encourage seeking of help and reducing stigma around actually asking for support.
Sara Richardson:
Yes. Tells us about that. Sorry. Sorry. Keep going. Yeah.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
So we know that teams with strong relationships, they'll often demonstrate higher levels of collaboration and job satisfaction. And educators who do feel valued and respected, we know that they're more likely to remain engaged and also committed to the profession. So it's a strong retention strategy as well. Yeah.
Sara Richardson:
Yeah, 100%. Sorry, I was getting carried away because it's so exciting. But I think that help-seeking behaviour is really interesting, isn't it? Because we tend not to. We tend to rely on ourselves and manage ourselves. And this is where that whole notion of the bubble baths and going for walks after work and maybe the cupcake days and those things, which are important acknowledgements and value, you know, show some level of value, but they're not actually what's going to give you that sense of, I can ask for help if I'm struggling here, or, you know, I feel acknowledged and valued
in a way that, for that emotional labour on that work, or the bit where maybe where I'm struggling.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yeah, for sure. And I think those healthy relationships, they're not taking away the challenges. The emotional labour and the emotional load isn't decreased. But they just change how manageable they feel when we're able to share that load across a team. So people become more resilient and more equipped to be able to manage the emotional load better.
Sara Richardson:
Yeah, if you don't feel like you have to carry it all yourself, but you've got, we are carrying it together then, and it's that, you know, we talk about the continuum where, you know, different people are going to have some days when they're feeling better and not, and if you can share that across the team then, and probably healthy teams and teams that have that, have already got that built in do that without really knowing or thinking about it, but if you don't, then you might need to really, you know, make plans for it, or, or talk about it intentionally or, you know, overtly. And sometimes that takes a bit of time to kind of feel safe enough to talk about that, which is back to what you were talking about before, about making, providing the opportunity, giving people plenty of time to do that, and then and then making a plan for making it happen, because it so often we're like, ‘oh, it'll happen’, or, it doesn't just happen. You sometimes need to build that in.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yeah you do really need to build in and I think as we go through this little chat, we'll probably talk about some practical ways to plan for that.
Sara Richardson:
Yeah.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
But I think it's also worth just touching on this point, Sara, that, when educators have healthy collegial relationships, then it supports children's wellbeing. So, children experience the emotional climate that adults create. And if relationships across a team are unhealthy, then conflict's going to be present. And while children might not necessarily understand adult conflict, they can absolutely feel adult tension. Yeah. And it's really important, because we often talk about educator wellbeing as though it's separate. But it isn't. Children borrow from adults' emotional regulation. That's probably something that many people on this webinar have heard before, the idea that children borrow from educators' calm. And calm educators create calmer environments. So supported educators are more emotionally available to children. And they build stronger relationships with children, which is just critical to the work
that they do, because they underpin children's learning and development and wellbeing. So it's not really just a staff issue, it's also a children's issue.
Sara Richardson:
Yeah, and which means we can't not do something about it and we can't just say we're going to focus on our work with the children because actually this is focusing on the work with the children. This is part of what you need to do. And as much as we would plan for children, we need to plan for this as well. And often, and that's the challenging bit, isn't it? Because we've got to document our planning and the plan's often about the children and where do you document this bit? Where does this bit become evidenced and obvious? As well.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yeah, yeah.
Sara Richardson:
So, we have alluded to it a couple of more times, but is there anything else you think we want to, that we need to, that you want to mention in terms of setting that scene around what, what kind of environment we need to put in place before we step into the conversation?
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Did we talk about the, or have we got time to talk about kind of the, what it might look like, when healthy?
Sara Richardson:
Yes, let's.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yes.
Sara Richardson:
Yeah, absolutely.
Jennifer Ribarovski: Because sometimes we think about healthy relationships as everybody just getting along, the teams all just getting along with each other. But I think it's important for educators to think about those relationships as professional partnership. And they're not friendships. Healthy collegial relationships aren't friendships, they're professional relationships. And they're built on mutual respect and a shared purpose, which is children and accountability. So, friendships: optional across teams. But professional respect really isn't optional, and I think that's key to this idea of what healthy collegial relationships look like. They look like educators supporting one another during challenging moments. You know, they look like or imagine that one educator notices another becoming overwhelmed during a lunch
transition. So, without needing to be asked, the educator might quietly say, ‘look, I've got this group, you go and finish what you're doing’. That's collegiality. It doesn't have to be grand gestures, and as you said, Sara, it doesn't have to be cupcakes or appreciation walls. It's the small moments of really professional generosity that build and sustain those healthy collegial relationships. It's about, you know, sharing resources freely, celebrating one another's successes, acknowledging each other's strengths. New educators being supported, ideas being welcomed, feedback happening regularly, I think that's super important, especially from a leadership perspective. You know, there's flexibility, there's often laughter among healthy collegial relationships. So sharing those ideas openly, I think there's some of the things that collegial or healthy relationships look like. Also, differences being discussed directly and respectfully. And leaders being, I think approachable and responsive when those things happen. Yes. So that’s kind of what I think it, they look like.
Sara Richardson:
And I think you've put that so clearly about the idea of it's not about being friends. I mean, it's good if you can get along, and that feels good. But I think that the professional responsibility and accountability that we have to be collegial. We need to really understand what that means and what that looks like and what we're doing when we do that, what we're saying to each other, how we think about each other, how we talk about and with each other. And I think sometimes we could do better at that. So I'm really glad that you’ve mentioned that.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
100%. Which is a lovely segue to talk about language, which I want to talk about very quickly before we move on. In terms of what it sounds like. So, you know, language influences curriculum. We all know that as educators. So the way that we talk to children influences outcomes for children. And critical theory talks about language influencing curriculum. It also influences what healthy collegial relationships might sound like. So, you know, instead of a leader saying, ‘that's not how we do it around here’, you might hear something like, ‘can you help me understand your thinking?’ So this is about being curious and staying curious and moving away from a space of judgment or blame in communication. You know, instead of saying,’ you're wrong’, you might hear something like, ‘I have a different perspective’. It's direct, it's authentic, but it's also respectful. Or instead of saying, you know, ‘it's your responsibility to do that, it's just your job’, you might hear ‘what support do you need for me to help you to get your job done?’ And that's kind of being supportive. So the way that we communicate can really build healthy collegial relationships. Yeah, that's a message that we send often in our book.
Sara Richardson:
Yeah, and that's back to that communication element, isn't it? And I think both of those things, what it looks like and what it sounds like really add up to what it feels like about what those professional, healthy, collegial relationships. And we didn't put that in our heading, but I think you adding that is a really important piece of this. This is professional relationships, collegial relationships that are for the purpose of doing our work better for children. And that's really important. However, like we've said conflict is going to happen, and we're going to sometimes have disagreements, and things are going to happen, and I'm sure this is not new to anybody, and I'm sure it happens all the time. So, I think we've got a slide, to kind of just kick us off with this, just to really, think about that notion of what healthy collegial relationships are when we're approaching conflict in a constructive way. So, yes, it's going to happen, but how can we, how can we use it as an opportunity, and look for things like growth and, team, you know, building the team. And then and also that quality improvement. So we're going to spend a bit of time now talking about how we navigate conflict when, not if, but when it arises. So maybe we should start by saying, what do we mean when we say collegial conflict in the workplace?
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yeah, well, it's interesting, Sara, when we hear the word conflict, you know, many of us might picture raised voices or heated disagreements, people refusing to speak to one another, and that can happen sometimes, but in reality, workplace conflict can be much quieter than that. It might simply occur when there's a difference between people that has the potential to affect their working relationship. And those differences usually relate to different beliefs, or values, or expectations, different communication styles, different approaches to practice. In early childhood education, educators also work in really close proximity. They're under time pressure. And as I said earlier, there's significant emotional and more and more professional responsibilities. So they're making hundreds of decisions every day about children's learning and wellbeing and safety, and it's really unrealistic to expect that everyone's going to think the same way or approach situations in the same way. And in fact, if we always agreed, we might then question, you know, whether educators were genuinely thinking critically about their practice.
Sara Richardson:
Yeah, that's right. And that notion of disagreeing doesn't mean you know, you talking before about blame and, you know, and saying that winning and losing, like, it, it tends to fall that way, and that's actually not what we're talking about. You're right, like two people having two different views can often come up with a third better option. But if you don't surface either of those things, you just have one person having their option, and that's not always the best one.
Jennifer Ribarovski: Yeah, I agree. I think that idea that there's a right and a wrong is often a misconception when we think about conflict. And often, I think conflict is, you can kind of see conflict as evidence that people actually care about what they're
doing. Because they care about children. I mean, overwhelmingly, educators care about children. And they care about quality and doing their job well. So, I don't think the challenge is preventing conflict. I think it's ensuring that conflict remains respectful and constructive. And focused on improving outcomes rather than damaging relationships because it's an inherent part of professional practice. So, you know, in my view, it's pretty important to normalise it. When you think about it, every profession experiences disagreement. Doctors will disagree about treatment. Lawyers will disagree about the interpretation of the law. Architects might disagree about the design of buildings. And early childhood education is no different. So I think normalising that idea of conflict is really important.
Sara Richardson:
And the other thing we talked about when we were prepping for this is that we, and it goes to that notion you were talking about with the emotional load, but we work in a highly complex human-centred environment, and that's also where conflict happens between people because of some of the things you mentioned before: different values, different experiences and add on top of that people who care really deeply about their work like, I think you're right. Conflict is, it's going to happen. So how can we feel comfortable with that and use it to our advantage in ways that are going to make things better for us and for children. So let's think a bit more about what that looks like in an early childhood setting, and you've already started to talk about some of those things, but what kinds of things from your experience do you see and hear and know about.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yeah, I, I think, well, this is speaking generally about conflict, but also in early childhood settings. It kind of exists on a continuum when we think about conflict. So it doesn't suddenly appear one morning, we don't all turn up to the centre and boom, there's conflict. It often begins with something really small. It could be an assumption, it could be a misunderstanding. Someone might have been feeling unheard or excluded or judged. But it's left unresolved that those small moments accumulate. Sometimes when I think about conflict, I describe it as a snowball. So, at first, it's tiny, and it's easier to address when it's tiny or easier to stop. But kind of every avoided conversation adds another layer to the snowball. And sometimes the original issue becomes almost identifying, or impossible to identify. We forget what it is that we were actually.
Sara Richardson:
Yeah, upset about and it's become about something else then. Yeah, absolutely.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
What people remember far more than what the conflict was about was it how it made them feel. So, I think that's an important thing to think about, and a challenge, I think,
for leaders is recognising conflict early, because it often doesn't show up in ways that are really clear. You’re rarely going to have an educator who will walk into the office and say, today I'm experiencing some collegial conflict. That's highly unlikely to happen, but we tend to see changes in behaviour. You know, it might be the educator who usually contributes to a conversation who starts to become quiet. Or you might notice that the educators are not having their lunch in the staff room together anymore. So, some of those, it shows up in some of those ways. Information not being shared. Someone who might start saying, ‘no, it's fine, I'm fine’, when clearly it's not fine. So I think in the education and care context, we see conflict show up in a number of different ways. Yes.
Sara Richardson:
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Because I think what you're talking about, and addressing it early, when it's really about the thing is really important, and you're right, if we miss it, and then it can, like you said, as it snowballs, it can then become quite personalised, and about the person, and you forget what the thing was, and then you, it becomes about the, the story gets bigger and about not even what it was in the first place. And you could see that tipping out over into services, and I'm sure people have experienced this before too, where it then creates cliques or sides or other people get involved, that triangulation that gets even bigger, rooms, all of those kind of things where people, not just does it impact the children, but you can feel it in the environment.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yeah, absolutely. So avoiding conflict rarely protects relationships. I think that's kind of the key message. More often than not, it creates resentment and the issues remain unresolved. And as you said, Sara, assumptions grow, you know, stories start to grow, and, you know, frustration builds across the service. And, you know, then people aren't responding to the issue that might be at hand, or that might have been at hand. They're responding to months and months of accumulated emotion.
Sara Richardson:
Yes. Which adds to that emotional load, doesn't it, too? We've already got an emotional load working with children, but then we've got this other bit going on that takes a lot of energy, emotional energy, yeah.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yes. That's something that we discuss in the book is the idea that professional communication isn't about avoiding difficult conversations. But it's about having those conversations respectfully and honestly, with the shared goal of improving practice, rather than proving that someone was right or wrong. So, I think if people can view conflict as not necessarily inherently negative. It's really unmanaged conflict that can
cause harm. Because conflict is inevitable. But the good, the good news is that dysfunctional conflict isn't.
Sara Richardson:
Yes, yeah, that's helpful. Yeah, that's interesting. I'm just thinking, but we've got a bit more time, so do you want to talk any more about what it might look like in the early childhood setting, or do you think, should we be ready to take on a little bit more about how we're gonna, what we can do? Because I'm sure people are itching to hear about that.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yeah, look, I'll just briefly touch on what it looks like in the education and care context from my perspective anyway, going into centres and working with teams. There are some kind of unique features of education and care. One of those things is differences in pedagogical approaches, so people have different views and ideas about their practice, that can create different, well, they can be contributors to conflict. Different expectations regarding routines and responsibilities. So that's another one that's kind of, you know, specifically for our sector, sometimes perceived inequities in workload. And I say perceived because that also can be, you know, an educator who values working directly with children and being really present with children. Versus an educator who might value routines and getting things done, so the perception can be quite different. Sometimes there's tensions between experienced, and newer educators, and often a resistance to change or initiatives that are new. And it shows up in different ways. Some of them we've talked about, but it can be things like passive-aggressive comments from people. People withdrawing or avoiding. We've talked about gossip and the idea of triangulation. We can see it as frustration or defensiveness. People less willing to collaborate, work on things together, and that adds to that increase in stress, and again, emotional load and impact on mental wellbeing. So those things are often visible through behaviours before they're even talked about. So I think what we want to be doing is trying to flip that around so that we're talking about them first before the behaviours start to show up.
Sara Richardson:
And that's getting in that snowball when it's really small, isn't it? And then you can talk about the thing without all the feelings and all the build-up and all the stuff that's kind of accumulated over time. And so the conversations are actually easier to have when you start with and they, and they can be about the thing, not about the person. And that, that helps to, you know, navigate through maybe.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sara Richardson:
Yes, interesting. So I'm, now my brain's going crazy about all the things. Anything else you think we need to, and probably you are saying all these things and people, I'm sure people are sitting there nodding and going, ‘yes’, recognising all of that and more.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm seeing a few little things popping up about Chinese whispers and things which are all things that people are experiencing this in a whole range of different ways and they'd be very familiar to people. And so I guess it's worth spending some time just talking about what leaders can do in that space of thinking about conflict.
Sara Richardson:
Absolutely yeah.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
And I think it's important to recognise that it's not the role of a leader to solve problems all the time. It would be impossible to single-handedly solve everyone's problems. I'd say that's an impossible ask. But what they can do is shape the conditions that either create the problems, or contribute to the problems, or prevent them from existing or escalating, and that's, you know, a really powerful leadership tool. And again, language is something I think about when I think about what leaders can do. It can be powerful in managing conflict. So, being, one thing we can do is be mindful and intentional around the use of language. Try and remove judgement. Sara, you said it earlier, not make it about the person, but make it about the thing. You know, so instead of saying, ‘you always do this’, you might say, ‘can you help me understand why?’ Or instead of saying ‘she's really impossible’. You know, they might say, ‘I'm finding this difficult, and I'd like us to try and figure out how we work through it together’. So facilitated structured conversations can be useful. And that brings me to talking about a little FACTS framework that I've developed that I think we might have a slide
Sara Richardson:
Yes, let's have a look at the slide. Thanks Kathryn.
Jennifer Ribarovski: Yeah, so this is a little framework and as you can see it's called a FACTS framework because facts is the beginning of all of those little bits of the framework. But sometimes it can be really helpful to have a framework that we can hang our conversations around or off. Just as we like frameworks when we're working with children. So, you know, the first part of that is focusing on observable facts, which is really that idea of not making it personal. This is what I've seen happening, this is, you know, what's been occurring, and then aligning that to the expectations, and those expectations might be, you know, your code of conduct, or it might be, a particular policy, or it might be the way your philosophy or any of those
things. I think it's really important then to check back in for understanding. We sometimes think that just because we say something, someone understands it. So just checking in and making sure that, you know, they're clear on what we're saying. So, you know, ‘how do you understand what we've talked about so far?’ And then talking about the impact of what we've seen in those observable facts, it might be the impact on children, for example. But the last part of that is super important and that's the helpful part, which is supporting next steps. So ‘what can I do to help you so that we're able to move this along?’, I think is super important. So, having little frameworks like this, and this is just one of many, can be helpful for leaders in having those tricky conversations that can be instrumental in not letting conflict escalate to something that becomes really unmanageable.
Sara Richardson: Yeah, and I think this is, you know, and I want to come back to what you said at the beginning, because I think you said it's, leaders are responsible for creating the conditions, but they're not responsible for everything, so we all have a part to play, and so making, and prioritising the collective responsibility is really powerful and important. But I do think, sometimes being prepared and practicing some leaders, you know. And again, we talked about this a little bit in the preps, didn't we? That sometimes you become a leader in an early learning service without any of this, and you said that right at the beginning. Like, you've not had lots of practice at this, and maybe you haven't been, you know, had lots of opportunity to learn about some of the theories, or some of the things that can help you do this work. And so leaders often have to either learn on the fly or make it up as they go along, and so anytime that they can have some kind of structure to help them do a bit of prep work, feel confident, because I think that's part of it too, to address the issues when they're there will only make things better.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think another thing just generally that's really helpful for leaders if they are dealing with conflict is to use coaching kinds of questions rather than directives where they possibly can. They're kind of more curious questions, so when conflict appears. We're not actually asking, look, who's right or who's wrong here. We're asking kind of ‘what happened here? What does each person need? You know, what assumptions are being made?’, so that each person feels heard, and we're not looking for, you know, judgement, or who did the right thing and who did the wrong thing. So, those coaching kinds of questions can be really helpful as well.
Sara Richardson:
Yeah, that curious. Oh, sorry that keep going.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
No, I was just about to say, while it's still in my head. What you were saying is absolutely right, Sara. You know, we're often not prepared when we go into leadership positions for any of this kind of work. And they can be tricky conversations
to have, and uncomfortable. So, one thing we can do before we have them too, that I think we also talked about, was just taking a moment to prepare ourselves before we have those conversations. So you know how you might all be doing 5-finger breathing with children, or balloon blowing up breathing, or all of those things that we do? It's also good to do that for yourself before we enter into those conversations, so that we're really regulated before we have them.
Sara Richardson:
Hmm, yeah. Yeah, there was two things I was gonna say. I, I think that that idea of the coaching conversation and, and having that curious mindset and bringing that more open approach to the conversation is sometimes tricky, because you feel like you just want to shut it down, and stop the thing, and not have it happen anymore, and, and that will feel better, or that will, you know, result, and that actually isn't going to result, probably resolve the, so, just shifting your focus, and it might be slightly, but for some people, it might feel like a big shift into more curious, open-ended conversations is really important, isn't it?
Jennifer Ribarovski:
It's so important. What we know is that curiosity actually de-escalates conflict. Judgment does the opposite, it escalates conflict. So as much as we might want to say to someone ‘you've done the wrong thing’ and we might think that they've done the wrong thing. That approach will just escalate the conflict further. Yeah.
Sara Richardson:
One of the most powerful things I learned a long time ago was just adding "I wonder" at the beginning of a sentence. And I was thinking about this as you've been talking. This requires practice. We're not just automatically going to know, just because we've listened to you and it's been really helpful and we really liked it. We're not going to be able to do this straight away. And it's the same as what we talk, talk about with children. And also, we might make some mistakes, or we might not get it quite right the first time, but it doesn't mean we should stop doing it, and we should continue to practice, and, you know, keep learning and, keep trying and just adding little bits each time we try, each time we're presented with the opportunity and being kind to ourselves I think is important too in all of this.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, much as we might say that, we're all over healthy collegial relationships because, you know, it's in our philosophy, and it's in our policy, and, it's in our code of conduct, et cetera, et cetera. The reality is that those documents usually live on a wall or live in a folder. So, I think planning for how we can really do some of that practicing, you know, if your philosophy says that, as a team, we have respectful relationships, you know, unpacking that at a, at a, maybe quarterly at a team meeting, and saying, ‘what do respectful relationships look like
for us?’ So that everybody's really clear about that. Or even building a team agreement, that's something that I've gone into centres and done frequently when, when there's been, you know, some significant conflict that's affected culture, is just working with the team to build an agreement about the way that we work around here. How do we be respectful? What does it look like?
Sara Richardson:
Yeah. And I think that's why we had that conversation at the beginning and we've kind of really gone back to that a couple of times. We can write the values and we can write the philosophy, but if we don't have a shared understanding of what those words mean and what they look like, what people are doing or saying when we say those words, that often is where we're going to get, where the conflict, where the source of the conflict might come. And it's not because one person's right or wrong, or that, you know, it's just that difference, isn't it? Or that diversity, or that, different understanding of what that word might mean and what that might look like. And I've been tripped up by that before. I'm thinking lots of examples that have happened to me, you know, in the workplace where that's been absolutely the case. Yeah.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yeah, I don't think we can assume that everybody feels or would identify a respectful exchange in the same way. Because as you said, Sara, everyone comes from diverse backgrounds. So what respectful relationships look like to one person can be quite different to another person. And we don't expect children to understand what respectful relationships look like, or what behaviour looks like. They need to learn it. And sometimes we need to learn it as well as a team. For us here, with our team, what do we find acceptable in terms of respectful relationships? Yeah.
Sara Richardson:
And when we're doing that, bringing back in those points we talked about before, making sure that it is an inclusive process and respectful process. Like if you go in with a set agenda about we've got to get this done today and it's going to look like this, you're going to miss the opportunity to hear from everybody, have everybody have an opportunity to contribute to that. And take responsibility for it too, because if you've all contributed and been given the opportunity, then you're more likely to take responsibility for it. But even having a conversation about what that means is probably important too. Like not just assume, and that's that check understanding in your framework. Are we all understanding that this means this, or this is going to look like this, or we're going to be doing this or not doing that? There might be helpful prompts or helpful questions to think about probably.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Yep.
Sara Richardson:
And you have to make the time to do it regularly.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Absolutely. I mean, it has such a strong influence on the culture of a team and therefore the performance of a team, for want of a better way of saying that. So I think it's really important to plan for it. You know, we plan strategically for other things, so I think we can plan strategically for healthy collegial relationships as well, because the payoff is worth it. It's worth the time.
Sara Richardson:
And you've mentioned before, you know, it has benefits for things like retention and, you know, the sense of, not just how it feels to work there, but, you know, what kind of quality of service that you're going to be able to provide as well. It's not just a nice thing to have, it's actually an essential thing. And if we go back, right back to the core of the work. It's actually important and necessary for children to be in that environment where people are respectful and inclusive and, pay attention to those things.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Absolutely, yeah. I think that's so important, to bring it back to the core work of educators, which is children, and, you know, the importance of educators feeling, I guess, mentally well, because they have got those healthy collegial relationships, and therefore the positive impact on children's learning, development and wellbeing.
Sara Richardson:
Now the poll’s popped up, that means we meant to stop talking. So what we might do, we will come back and I'll get you to summarise in a sec some of those concepts. But what we're going to ask everybody else to do first or while they're thinking about that is, you know, what are you going to do? We've heard lots of things. We've had really interesting conversations. And like I said at the beginning, I think this is not the end of a conversation. I think this is the beginning of a conversation and maybe hopefully has inspired you to think about what else you can do. So we'd really be interested in hearing about what your next steps are. And that's the, the last thing in your, in your framework as well, really thinking about what those next steps are. So, you know, are you going to plan to take some ideas back and start talking about that in your service with your colleagues? Oh, you might use the learning to plan for improvements. You might build on what you've already done, because lots of people said at the beginning they're already doing some things. I think linking it to your quality improvement planning is a really important and helpful thing to do as well, because you don't want to be doing extra. You want to be doing the work, and maybe you might want to check in with your Be You Consultant. That could be something. If you're a participating Be You service, then you could check in to that too. So it looks like no one wants to chat with us, but people have got lots of ideas. So that's really
good. And I'm really pleased to hear that you've found some things that are going to help you with the next steps. And also, I really want to thank you, Jennifer, for your expertise and your thoughtfulness. And that's really important and helpful hearing from someone who knows the sector so well. So I'm going to hop off now and let you summarise all the things we've talked about.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Okay. Well, I'm not going to labour these points because we've talked about them in this last little bit of time, but the key messages, I think the takeaways from this little discussion are that healthy relationships are a protective factor for educator wellbeing. And that a respectful culture isn't just created through policies alone, or documents alone. It really is built through those everyday interactions, those small micro moments and communication shapes culture. And importantly, healthy collegial relationships are not conflict-free. Colleagues should be able to navigate differences respectfully and professionally. And I think we've got one more slide. Have we got one more, Sara?
Sara Richardson:
Yes, we do. So thank you for your summary. That's fantastic. And also, thank you very much for your contribution today. Am I back on? Yes. It's been wonderful having a conversation with you, and I know we've gone backwards and forwards a little bit, but it's been really wonderful to hear. And we can see in the chat too, people have really gone, ‘oh’, that's some different ways of thinking about things. And I think what's happened is most of this we know, or we certainly have felt and experienced it, but I think bringing a new way of thinking about it really helps people to perhaps shift if they feel a bit stuck. And so maybe what we, so what we would really like to do is, as I said, really, thank you so much, Jennifer, for your insight and for your thoughtfulness, and, and particularly for your, you know, I know you know the sector so well, and it's part of who you are as well, and I think that's really helpful to hear someone talking about this as it relates directly to our work as well. So, we would also really like to hear, your feedback from today's webinar, so please can a poll or a survey will pop up at the end or now, and feel free to, to give us some feedback. That'll help inform next steps as well. The other thing we want to do is, and I'll ask you, Jennifer, to speak briefly about your, people have asked about some resources, and you mentioned your book a couple of times. So if you would like to, you could do that now first?
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Sure. So the title of the book is Professional communication for early childhood educators. It's published by Oxford University Press. If you google it, you'll find it because it's all over the place.
Sara Richardson:
Including the link in the chat as well for people.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Essentially, it's a book that looks at the practical communication skills, which is so important. It also comes with, the electronic version comes with, some videos, some lovely videos of practice. And some reflective questions. So it's great for teams, to work together on, you know, looking at videos of communication and then unpacking the learning through some reflective questions. So, it's got a great kind of learning companion guide alongside it.
Sara Richardson: That's fantastic. And I think Be You have got some examples and they've been shared in the link and you'll get them in the handout with the recording as well. And again, I think we've got workbooks and recordings that I think, and I think you're right, doing this together as a team is a really, really important thing to do. So let's move on to just remind people that the next webinar is coming up on the, and that will be the In Practice, Thursday the 20th of August. And please feel free to follow up on that conversation and start, you know, that'll be digging really deeper into what, how you can really explore next steps, and that planning that we've talked about quite a lot today, and how important that is, and what kind of things you can do. So, thank you so much again, Jennifer, for your time. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. We've had a great turnout for this, and I know there'll be people watching on the screen, and the recording as well, and some people have said they're going to watch it again, even though they joined us live, so really, really appreciate your time today, and thanks everybody for coming. See you next time.
Jennifer Ribarovski:
Thanks everyone. Bye.