Making change with impact 1: Taking the first steps to enhance wellbeing

Sara Richardson

Slide 1

Hi, and welcome everybody. I'm Sara Richardson, and I really want to thank you for joining us for this webinar, Making change with impact: Taking the first steps to enhance wellbeing. 

Slide 2

You'll see on the slide there that this session today is, in this webinar, we're going to be talking about planning for change. So we're going to hear from Associate Professor Serene Yoong, who's going to deliver us a presentation on Implementation Science and the approaches in early childhood settings, which I'm really looking forward too. And then after that, we're going to have a panel discussion that includes Serene and two fantastic educators from services, Martina and Fatma are going to join us as well. 
We're going to have a conversation about planning for change that leads to wellbeing.

Slide 3

So I'd like to acknowledge that I'm joining today from Kaurna country. I want to pay my respects to Kaurna elders, past and present, and invite you to acknowledge the lands that you're on in whatever way feels most appropriate for you.

Slide 4

The other thing I want to acknowledge today, too, and for us to be mindful of, is that we're going to be having conversations about mental health, so please take care of your own emotional safety.  Plan for what you will do if anything comes up that makes you feel uncomfortable, any thoughts or feelings or reminders. Have a plan to think about someone you can talk to, and on the screen you'll see some support services as well.

Slide 5

So the focus of today's webinar is part of a three, firstly, it's really important to let you know it's part of a three-part series that we're going to be hosting across the year, and we're really excited to be exploring with you and sharing with you the how of Be You. We're going to use the Be You Implementation Cycle which you'll see on the screen here. So this webinar, first webinar in a series of three, is unpacking the key actions in setting the foundations which is at the heart or the core and identifying your needs, which is a really critical element before you jump into developing a plan and taking some action.
Webinars 2 and 3 will delve deeper into the later stages of implementation. And we'll provide you with some more information about that lately.
Particularly what we're going to do, and that's why it's really exciting that we've got Fatma and Martina with us is we're going to explore some examples of practice from services that are prioritising mental health and wellbeing, and as you listen to their stories and the things that they've undertaken in their service, you might want to consider your own service context, the unique challenges and priorities that you have.
Because we know that everybody has different things happening, and while there's some similarities of course, every place is unique and we really want to be able to understand and explore that. So keep that in mind, reflect on what strategies might be useful for you, how you might modify them, what might change, and one of the things that we're really really excited about, too, is that, and that we know is a really important and powerful tool and resource in Be You is that we have consultants who can support you in that process, in adapting and finding approaches that are really going to suit your learning community. And a lot of our consultants are here joining us today, so they're learning and listening alongside of you as well.

Slide 6

So before I introduce Associate Professor Serene Yoong, I'd like to invite you to consider how confident you feel for planning for wellbeing in your service. So if you're watching live, you can respond to the poll. If you're watching a recording which we know a lot of you do, and even if you've attended live, you might watch later with your team in a staff meeting, then you might want to pause and consider this how this statement reflects how you're currently feeling. 
So how confident really, are you feeling to take the first steps to enhance wellbeing in your service? So somewhat, moderately confident, or some of you might be already very confident at already making changes.
And I think it's really important to consider this as you're going in to listening and hearing some of Serene's information about Implementation Science. 
What are the things maybe, that you feel most confident in? And maybe there's some areas where you're like, oh, I think I need a little bit more support, or a little bit more understanding, or a bit more knowledge, so Serene will give you some of that information, and then some examples are always really helpful later on as well, which I'm sure we'll get from our conversations with Fatma and Martina.

Slide 7

So keep that in mind as you come into the webinar, and we'll move now into Serena's presentation. So welcome, Serena, I'd really like this is Serene, there you are, sorry.

Dr Serene Yoong

There is a bit of lag

Sara Richardson

That's okay. You're an expert Implementation Scientist with the Heart Foundation, and a Heart Foundation Future leader fellow, and associate director of the Global Centre for Preventative Health and Nutrition at Deakin. And you're going to talk to us about some things about Implementation Science from your area of expertise. So over to you.

Dr Serene Yoong

Thank you, Sara. That was quite a mouthful. As Sara said. I'm Serene Yoong. It's a pleasure to be here today, and I'm really excited to join the conversation later on again. I'll just quickly acknowledge that I'm on Wurundjeri Land as well, and pay my respects to others, past, present, and emerging. Next slide, please.

Slide 8

So in the 20 minutes I have with you I'm a little bit bad with timekeeping, so I'll try to keep to time. I hope to cover some of the following. I want to start by talking about what Implementation Science is, And then move on hopefully, fairly quickly, to talking about some of the tools and the frameworks and the processes that you can use to support some of the programs or the things that you're thinking about doing in wellbeing.
 I want to drill into the initial phases of the Implementation Cycle that Sara showed on the screen a couple of slides ago, and then, lastly, would love the opportunity to share how we've applied it to support early childhood centres with planning healthy (eating) amendments.
Before I move on to the next slide, I want you to spend a second just thinking about the first thing that comes to mind when I said Implementation Science. So I will just give you one second and then move on to the next slide.

Slide 9

Very simply. If you saw Implementation Science is the study of implementation you hit the nail on the head. And it sounds like it would be common sense. But fundamentally Implementation Science, it looks to draw attention to the action of implementing. And historically, when research or when studying healthcare innovations, the focus of the study has always been on what was being implemented.
 So for a long time that action of implementing was actually an invisible action, and it wasn't studied in its own right and focusing on what to implement is right and good when there are gaps in knowing what to do, but in the past two decades or so, both researchers and practitioners, people who use research evidence, we've been more and more aware that often we already often know what to do, there's substantial evidence to inform that, rather we often have no idea how to do it, or have very little knowledge on how to systematically plan for it.
 So Implementation Science was conceptualised. I believe most of you who signed up probably recognise the value of thinking and planning for implementation prior to the act of implementing, and on the slides, I just have a few specific reasons why it is worth spending that probably extra time thinking carefully about how you would go about implementing.
Increasingly, there's lots of evidence and literature to show that you do significantly increase your likelihood of success if you plan for it, it helps you think about any possible challenges that come up as you're doing the action which we all know when you start doing something, things come up. But if we plan for it, it's possible we may be able to put in place strategies to address that, so it doesn't hinder the process too much. 
And lastly, it's becoming really, increasingly important, it helps us work out the impact of what we're doing right. Whether we're actually changing what we think we're changing, and it helps us with not only implementing in the first place, but tracking whether we keep implementing this across time. 
So really, implementation is doing the thing that you know is important to do. And then thinking really carefully about how to do it.

Slide 10

And how can Implementation Science help? 
So I've got some very simplistic boxes about how to do things which we all know is probably more circular and curvy than these straight boxes. 
Essentially, we identify something that we know is good to do, and we want to do, we implement it, and, tada! We get those outcomes that we're after. We all know that this, most of the time doesn't happen in the real world, and so that's where Implementation Science can come in.
 It helps us just think really systematically about how to best do the things and some specific ways in which it can help is, it can help you with drilling down to a particular action or area you might want to focus in on.
 It can help you think about the specific individuals or organisations, or others, who may be useful to engage early on so that you can increase your implementation success, and can help you really set very specific goals that you can monitor and track, and it can set up that process of really understanding what helps or hinders implementation, so you can be prepared for it when it pops up.
 And lastly, there's the piece about understanding the changes to expect, and using that, I guess, to support your implementation momentum and processes.

Slide 11

So again, this is one of the many diagrams that we show you from the Implementation Science literature. This is a bit of a process framework that helps to outline the possible steps that you could undertake when you're thinking about implementing something new in your centre.
 Steps one and two are what I'll be focusing on today, and like Sara said. I think you'll cover the other steps in detail in later webinars.
 tep one is defining what the thing you want to do is. The authors of this piece have framed it as who needs to do what differently. But essentially, it's the point where you work out what you want to do, who your implementers are, what's currently happening, where the gaps are and what needs to be done differently. And then, once you have that specific action, we can move on to identifying things that might help or hinder your implementation process. And the next 2 bits are really around taking action and tracking that implementation process.

Slide 12

I think this is just a highlight that it, really, it probably, it's a linear, straight down framework, but it probably does maybe suit a circular pattern more a circular visual more, because the act of implementation is ongoing and probably never ends. And so this framework, this broadly aligns with that kind of first two phases in the Be You cycle.

Slide 13

So in planning for implementation, so there it can be often a little overwhelming, knowing where to focus in on, especially when you're starting with a very broad area.
 For example, with mental health and wellbeing more generally, there's lots of really valuable important areas you can focus your efforts on. It could be staff wellbeing or children's social and emotional learning. So it can be challenging, working out specifically where to put the efforts of implementation in.
 I've put out, I guess here what's considered a bit of a decision-making tool on screen. It's called the hexagon tool. 
It's designed more generally to support clinical care decisions. So some of the language may not be as appropriate for us here, but some of the principles that they outline might still be useful to help you and your team think more generally about you know the type of criteria you might be able to use to drill down to a specific thing you want to focus on. So in the later section of this presentation, I'll also speak to how we work with early childhood centres to apply some of these criteria to help with drilling down to specific actions and goals.
But in a nutshell the green triangles they speak to, what's called program indicators, which is really the thing that you want to do. 
So there's that first triangle of looking at the evidence, whether it's research evidence on what works, or a guideline that's already in place, or speaking to others in the area about what works well for them. So you might want to consider the range of evidence here when thinking about what to do more broadly. 
The next 2 green triangles, the one around usability talks about how well defined the thing is like, do you have a manual that you can implement step by step? And can you do things, or do you have to work out in a bit more detail what exactly to do. 
And I really appreciate that triangle around support.  so often, even without looking at physical activity, there are programs that are delivered external, when you don't have that, those supports, you're unable to deliver it in care generally. So it's really important to consider these elements when you're selecting a program.
And those triangles in blue, they speak to the characteristics of your centre and your learning community generally. They cover capacity. Do you have time and ability and skills and resources to do the thing? Is it a good fit with what you're currently doing already? Some ideas might, many ideas might be good ideas, but they're a poor fit for your context, or what you're already currently doing. And lastly, is this something that's been identified as a need by people in your community that you really, ultimately want to benefit from the thing that you're doing.

Slide 14

So that the hexagon, too, is really good for kind of potentially drilling down to a particular area you might want to work in. You might be familiar with the SMART goal concept. This is even getting even more specific here, and I guess the value of having a very specific goal is it helps really set some boundaries around the things that you want to do, and you want to achieve in a particular timeframe. So SMART is a acronym and you can see that on screen it stands for.
The goal should be quite specific. Who and what is the action? You want to be able to measure it in some way that is important to you. It should be slightly ambitious, but also achievable. Realistic, and the time horizon is really important to you. 
Don't want too short of a timeframe for this, but you also don't want to leave it too long, so that it's difficult to track across that time. I've thrown up, I guess, there's a goal on here as a potential example, which is around staff attending professional development. In child, social emotional learning from this percentage to 75, so they're all made up figures, by a certain timeframe.

Slide 15

So now that we've had the chance to think about the area we want to work in and set some goals, the framework speaks to really getting a very thorough idea about what it is that, in this, that helps implementation, so barriers and facilitators in this case, because we want to know both, so that we can try and address barriers, but also leverage on the things that are working already.

Slide 16

This is again another sort of visual framework that presents a possible way of thinking about barriers and enablers in your centre. So this is the COM-B TDF, theoretical domains framework. It summarises, based on the existing behavioural research, the key barriers and facilitators to implementation.
 So this is meant to be a bit of a catch all, so I will say, with all the frameworks I pull out. Not everything needs to be used, or not, every box needs to be filled in for absolutely everything. It is important to use your discretion to work out which areas are perhaps most important to you and your learning community.
So the language here probably is a bit jargony as well, but they summarise those barriers into capability, which is the top row, and that generally relates to whether you're able to deliver something, so you can see knowledge and skills are up there, and then some components capture whether something is part of your usual process, and how do you make something an automatic part of your usual day to day operations.
In the second row, there's the motivation aspects which are really is about whether the new thing that's being introduced feels like it's part of staff or the centre's core identity, whether there's a perception of value in the work that is being proposed. And you can see that bottom row there really goes into goal setting and action planning as a way to potentially bring everyone on board and have the same be on the same page in terms of implementing a whole centre change.
And then, last, but not least, is the is there the opportunity, both socially and environmentally and physically, to help make this happen? So sometimes it can be helpful to use this as a checklist or a way of thinking about some of the things that may help or hinder. And you don't have to have something for every box. It's also very important to not be so focused on the challenge that it can lead to possible inaction.

Slide 17

So how would you go about gathering this information? So as I was speaking, I hope some data sources were popping into your mind about you know, oh, I can speak to this person about this particular thing. Or this parent is providing lots of feedback about a thing that we're interested in doing so. I hope some natural places to start are popping up for you as I was going through some of the some of the barriers and some of the enablers.
You could run more formal surveys with your staff or at staff meetings check in about particular opinions or challenges they might be, they might perceive, facing when introducing something new. Often there are things in the literature that suggests some of the barriers more broadly, and you can see if that does apply to your centre in your context as well. You might have network meetings with other others in your region where they might be able to reflect on some of the things that were challenging or helped, and any other stakeholders that do come to mind for you, it's important to be asking about your opinion in the earlier stages.

Slide 18 and 19

So I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on the next 3 slides. I think it's more to perhaps tempt you to sign up for the next couple of webinars. But to show you why it's important to spend so much time in these earlier phases. 

Slide 20 and 21

So the next bit is really looking at trying to identify how to address any of the important barriers that you've identified. So this COM-B framework as you can see here, if you've identified a knowledge barrier, they do suggest a number of things that might be able to be put in place to address this. This is probably best done with your Be You consultant, they might be able to help you think through some of these processes and work out some practical ways you can put in place strategies like this to address any barriers.

Slide 22

So I will move on quickly to how we've worked with partners, with early childhood centres to support childhood nutrition.

Slide 23

So for this work we worked with centres in New South Wales, who were really interested in working to improve the nutrition of children attending their centres. So, as a first protocol, we looked at the evidence to see what centre characteristics were most closely linked to improving child diet, and food provision quickly came up as a good, strong area to work in, and this quickly evolved to looking at menus. And part of that decision making was because of its fit with current initiatives as part of the planning cycle with national quality standards. There is a criteria around menus meeting the Australian dietary guidelines, and it was also aligned with a state program. There is external support to help centres do this work as well and we thought that was really important for ongoing sustainability of implementation. And lastly, the parents and other stakeholders we spoke with did indicate an interest in having healthier menus, and when we spoke to childcare staff and cooks and managers there was strong support for initiatives like this as well.

Slide 24

And so with all that information, we use that to really define the specific action, and this was our data gathering process. We really wanted to observe what was happening just to get an understanding of you know, where would be the best place to provide any support or address any gaps that might arise in that process. So we did interviews with cooks, managers, educators. 
We used the various framework to help us think about what barriers could come up. I think I have one minute left, so I'll keep moving on. Basically, where we landed was, we needed to work with centres and cooks to align your menu planning process and to better support feedback provided in the menus to see if they did align with the dietary guidelines.

Slide 25

In the next step. This is what we did to find, look at the barriers. We looked at the literature, spoke to cooks, did some surveys.

Slide 26

Then we found some of the key barriers around some of the constructs that I shared with you earlier on. And basically, this is really really important to help us with our next stage, where we mapped implementation strategies, and our evaluation from this showed that really positive outcomes for centres and also improvements in children's diet and parents acceptability across.

Slide 27

The next slide, I think, is my last slide. If you, if there's one thing to take away, I hope you take away that planning for implementation is really important. And there are processes and specific frameworks that can help give you that language or step you through that process of planning. And there are many ways to source the data to support your planning. I think your Be You consultant is very skilled in helping solve some of these challenges and helping you action plan and move forward in that

Slide 28 and 29

Just want to acknowledge the work that's being funded across different organisations and our partners on this research, and if you want to get in touch with me, I'm always online, shoot me an email. Yes, look forward to chatting more, Nice. I'll hand it back to you, Sara.

Slide 30

Sara Richardson

Thank you so much Serene. There's so much in that, and I've taken lots of notes. 
And you you're not going, because we will have you join us in the panel now, as we move into this conversation, and I think hopefully what we will do is draw on some of that really foundational information you've provided around Implementation Science. 
And for some people, you said at one point, Oh, there's some jargon here, and I think it's, you know, it's really important for us to understand that Implementation Science is a field of study in and of itself, and we are drawing on some of that information to help us really be successful, and I think one of the things you did say was doing this work increases the likelihood of success, and that's a really powerful and important thing. 
You know, people are trying to make change all the time, and that's what we're talking about when we say implementation. We're actually trying to talk about, we're talking about change. And we know that's something that's going to happen all the time, and often we jump straight in, and what Implementation Science really helps us do is really stay in those first 2 stages, which is why we really wanted to spend time here.
So let's introduce Martina and Fatma. Martina is a Coordinator at All Areas Family Day Care, and Fatma is the Educational Leader at Creative Play Early Learning. And Serene's going to stay with us as well while we have a conversation about what it looks like in practice.

Panel Discussion 

And Fatma and Martina are going to share stories about how, and that was a really important word you talked about Serene all the time. Not the what, because we probably all know the what, but the how they've planned to promote educator wellbeing or an element of that. And that's another thing you talked about, Serene is, you know, there's so much what's possible, how do you decide all of those kind of things? So hopefully, we'll hear some of that. And just keep in mind as we're going along, you know. Keep in mind your own context, and you might have a particular thing that you're interested in, so we're going to hear some stories from Fatma and Martina.
That won't might not be the case in your context, you might want to think about something else. But keep them in mind, because I'm sure you'll get some inspiration.
So let's start off. Maybe we'll start with you, Fatma, because I'm not sure, oh, there's Martina back again! Great! 
So I'll, we'll start with you though, Fatma. How did you first identify the need or the goal in your service?

Fatma Baykal

Wonderful question. How did we identify the need?
 It was upon reflection and experiences, and it was a little bit of self reflection, to begin with. We were a very new service, with a lot of staff coming through our doors into our opening service. So that being said, day by day, we started to notice the staff, coming through the office doors asking for discussions, and that's where it began. Identifying through conversations with staff and collaborating with staff.
(Recording Ends) 

Sara Richardson

Yes, interesting, isn't it? But what about you, Martina? Did you, what happened? Because that's what you talked about Fatma just then, something happened and you went, oh, we need to do something about this. You go, Martina!

Martina Hribar

Sorry. Yeah, that's the same for us. Our educators work on their own, and they're scattered across Western Sydney. So a lot of the, when we're talking to them, they're feeling isolated. They don't get the opportunity to have somebody that they can talk to all the time. So what we recognised was that we needed to provide some type of space that they could get together. You know, share their goals, share what they were going through with people that were like minded, and so we recognised there was a gap there, and we decided that we would put on at the end of the year, a celebration for them. So they could get together and do that, and hopefully we provided that nice safe space for them to be able to talk to each other and just gather.

Sara Richardson

Yeah. And I think one of the things we want to do here, and it's often we'll identify a need, and it'll become apparent, but just in every day, it's the noticing, I think, that you were talking about and you too, Martina. And then often we can go straight to the solution and straight to the strategy. And that's really what we're saying here is really spending a whole lot of time in thinking about and planning for what's actually going on here, and really understanding it a bit more. So I will ask you both another question. Right at the beginning, and I think you alluded to this a bit before Serene, too, how do you know what success was going to look like? Because if you start with, you know, what's our change going to do? What's the change we want to see here? You kind of, maybe your strategies or the things you do might change as well. So, Martina, do you want to keep talking?

Martina Hribar

Yeah. For us, our goal was to get the educators together, and we knew that that was going to be something that was going to be difficult, because the educators are all over Sydney. So how do you get a group of ladies to all come to one place at the same time? And that was the battle. That was what we had to sort of strategise with, and think how, how would we do that?

Sara Richardson

Yeah, so you have a clear vision. And you knew what you wanted to have to achieve, your goal was clear, but you were struggling to get it done, or it wasn't happening in the same way, I think, is what you talked about last time when we, when we had that conversation.

Martina Hribar

Yeah. Those intricacies were the things that we needed to iron out

Sara Richardson

Yeah, and understand a bit more maybe?

Martina Hribar

That was exactly right. We had one vision that we thought would work, but after just having, you know, some discussions, we realised that that was our vision. It wasn't what everybody's vision was. And I think that was another thing that we actually had to sit back and go, oh, okay. People do, you know, you have to listen to everyone's voice, and we can't accommodate everything all the time, but we do have to, you know, take that opportunity and give people a voice and listen to them.

Sara Richardson

Yeah, Serene, would you like to say something about that? Because I'm thinking, that reminds me, when you were talking about that model you showed us around the capability and the motivation. Like, you know, the motivation for people to want to engage in the change is really important.

Dr Serene Yoong

Yeah, yeah, and I think a lot of the value of that is like pausing, and like, all the processes is around pausing, thinking who is likely to engage, who's likely not to engage in, and kind of really engaging that conversation prior. So like Martina, you got there in the end. You got the feedback. That ultimately, you used to, you know, plan a gathering that was probably a bit more accessible. But yeah, so it really does give you the opportunity to, and often people are really quite happy to tell you what they like, or don't like about something upfront and I guess that way gives you a bit of insight, going in as well.

Sara Richardson

Yeah, I think that insight piece is really interesting because we talk often about data. And I think Serene, you mentioned, you know, there's lots of different sources, and I think, you know you can go to trying lots of things. But the first 2 examples you gave were around talking to staff and talking to families, and that gives you information. So, Fatma, you did a little bit of that, too?

Fatma Baykal

That's correct. Yeah. Speaking of just before with vision, it was a lot of what my vision was for the staff. And we, I quickly understood that if I expect everyone to trust me as an expert in pedagogy and practice as an education leader, I might have to do the same, and trust the expert in wellbeing reaching out to a Be You consultant to guide us through, which helped us understand and go for that systematic approach that you mentioned, Serene. Through a systematic approach, because we're such a large service here, through educator wellbeing plans, and really asking specific questions and unpacking with our wonderful educators here.

Sara Richardson

Yeah, Martina, do you want to talk about any other data sources? Or you know, because when we say data, it conjures up particular things. But you know what kinds of sources of information did you draw on?

Martina Hribar

So what we did was, our educational offices that go out to visit our educators, they had conversations with educators, and then they brought that back, and we discussed that as a group. And that was, we documented that. And then over time there became a story, and there was a common thread that the educators found that, you know, the time that we had our gathering planned there was lots of constraints. They had family commitments. We did, we planned on a particular night at a particular time. There were things like travel that we didn't really consider for everybody. There were things like, some educators were still working at a particular time. So all of those components we did like a survey with our educators, and we gathered that information. We documented that over time, and when I say time, this was like over a couple of years, it wasn't just a quick process. We had implemented our gatherings, and then, you know we had a high attendance, and that attendance slowly declined. So that was why we needed to regroup and gather that information and work out what and how we needed to move forward.
So it was lots and lots of discussions with educators, lots of discussions with our team. And you know, surveys, staff meetings face to face, conversations, phone conversations, emails. So yeah, that was the way that we gathered our information and put it together.

Dr Serene Yoong

That reflection of gathering across time. That's like really important as well, because things change and people's perception of what works initially, might, something might change. And things might not work, so really, being on the funds we're like, kind of gathering that information as you go and where you have the opportunities. Really just, such a good process. It helps you to adapt so quickly, right? You're able to respond when you saw the dip.
I wanted to add as well, and this may not be as pertinent because you both work in the centre, but as someone who was perhaps working to support centres, just the experience of watching, like coming in and observing and watching was just such an eye opener. So I think I learned so much more about just looking at the process, taking it in, just observing, like what was being done, and that's a rich, and you probably have all that in your head or, you know where the gaps are. And sometimes it's just kind of putting it down on paper, maybe that framework helps, oh it might be, and that's a rich kind of data source. You're kind of experienced, knowing how things operate in your centre, basically, or hearing from the consultants that go out and speak to the different educators.

Sara Richardson

Yeah, Fatma you were nodding. That that notion of, you know, yes, you identified a thing happening, and you did a bit of noticing about that. Obviously there was a bit more information about that gap that you kind of, and I think this is the other thing I was thinking about. You know how you settle on a particular, you had a vision, and I think both of you came back to that, and that's really clear like that really held you really strong, and I think that's why that bit's so important. But the actual goal, when you talked about this before, Serene like, how do you decide what thing to do? Because there's so much that's possible. You're seeing the issue, but how did you actually determine where you would, you know, where to go?

Fatma Baykal

Well, that's that systematic approach for us, having these educator wellbeing plans, having everything on down on paper, sticky notes, however we collected it so you know, collaborative conversations, everything that was placed in these plans. When it's laid out in front of you, and you're starting to read the plans, and you're starting to find that common theme there, it's the common theme, everyone ended up really having a shared vision, naturally, by placing it on this document. And when we presented this to our educators, our teachers, they also had an aha moment, and felt like they were all on the same train.
And that's where the vision excitement began for us, because everyone felt like they were in the same boat, and not working against each other. Now they're working together, and for oneself a lot of self-discovery. These plans had us asking questions that myself would have never thought of. So opening up very new conversations, very new strategies, and I discovered how important it was, our educators came with a wealth of knowledge, skill sets, and that opened up those conversations. So they were the supporters in our whole process. They ended up leading this journey. I stepped back. They've taken full control.

Sara Richardson

Yeah, that's so interesting, that's fantastic, and it makes me think about again that model Serene you were talking about with the capability, and you've used exactly the words from that, the knowledge and skills. But you spent time identifying what those were. So you didn't, because sometimes we jump to, oh, let's go and do some training, because then we'll know more. But you went, actually, we've already got those knowledges. We've got that knowledge and skill set here, and let's draw on that. And the other language you used before too Serene was around barriers and enablers, which is a Implementation Science jargon, if you like, but helpful. And I think you even mentioned that, Fatma, you said these were the things that helped us. These were the enablers that helped us be successful, and everybody draws on those. We can see what the gaps are, and we can see where, where, perhaps, some of the barriers might be, but drawing on the things that we already know we do well, or we've got capacity to do is equally important.

Fatma Baykal

That's right, and it and it really does bring forward everyone's wellbeing when you're talking on their strengths. And so we're very strength based. Everything switched over to let's work strength based moving forward.

Sara Richardson

Yeah.

Martina Hribar

And it does. It makes a huge difference when the educators actually acknowledge that we're listening to them, that that voice is actually being heard, and something's being done. That's really important, like, especially like I said, for our educators who are isolated. Just that acknowledgement means the world to them.

Sara Richardson

Yeah. And maybe that's a bit of a segue, now into our last question, is one of the things we talk about with, Be You is what, and you mentioned Fatma talking with the consultant. But it's really important to have what we would call an action team in your service. So it's not, not everything's just sitting on one person, and both of you have said we, and so I'd be really interested to hear a little bit about, you know how you formed an action team, what an action team looked like in your context to kind of drive, maybe we'll keep going with you, Fatma, and then we'll come to you, Martina, afterwards.

Fatma Baykal

Sure so after many conversations meetings with our team our educators here, I decided to be very vulnerable with the staff and spoke about leadership, and how quickly it could be a lonely place for myself, and explain how this process with the plans moving forward for us to meet our vision, how could we move forward with an action team? So the staff here at creative play, have banded together. So we have a centre-wide approach for it, and we've opened the door for anyone. We do have a quite a big wellbeing team here, and it falls under different umbrellas. So we've got wellbeing, you know, child-directed wellbeing, staff-directed. So we're trying to, the staff here, after these conversations, the gaps where the educators wanted leadership positions. This is where they felt value. So we do have many forms of leadership and wellbeing within our service. We have mental health first aiders. We've trained, we've got a team. So we're trying to give everyone an opportunity and lessen the load, because in early childhood, our load is quite large here, so, sharing the load. We also have mentorship groups where staff who have unique talents and strengths mentor one another. Buddy groups. And this is all based on staff meetings and collaborative experiences the staff have come up with this and said, this is what we value, and because we've put that forward, we've got a very large team.

Sara Richardson

That's so interesting, and I'm sure Martina, yours will look different in the family daycare context. So do you want to talk a bit about what that looks like for you?

Martina Hribar

Yeah. So for us, we have our team that go out to visit the educators. So they are, when they go out to visit, you know they can do all sorts of things like they go out, they have to do a compliance based visit. But they also are there as a support person for the educator, you know somebody that they can trust and listen to.
So they have lots of different hats that they have to wear, and the same as us in the office, like we, we do the same thing with the educators, like the educators, also are encouraged to talk with each other, because they often they have the same common goals. And buddying up, or having, you know a friend that they can talk to and talk about, you know their vision, their direction, what they want to do. Sometimes they'll discuss that with each other, and then when they get their visit, they'll offload onto our Educational Support Officer. And the Educational Support Officer is that messenger so they'll come back, and then we'll talk about, you know things that might have come up in a staff meeting generally, and all of us will throw ideas in. And we can, you know, support that educator with different visions, and then the support officer will go back out to that educator and say, you know, look, you asked a question about this. This is what we discussed. This is some of the strategies that we've come up as a group, and then they will take out of that what will suit them, because every educator runs their service differently, and we can't, like they're not all in the same, they don't all fit into the same box. Everybody's philosophy is different. Everybody runs their service different. So we actually have to adapt to how they run, rather than they adapt to us. Because there's a lot more of them, and there's less of us.
So we take that on board, listen to them, and then, if we need the support from each other, we can do that. Or if educators need the support from each other, they've got opportunity together and talk to each other. So yeah, that's sort of how we

Sara Richardson

So it sounds like the structure that you have in terms of, do you call it your coordination unit, or the

Martina Hribar

Yeah, the coordination team.

Sara Richardson

It kind of forms the action team and then disperses and brings back that information to you.

Martina Hribar

The information, it goes out in out in, yeah.

Sara Richardson

Yeah. And so when you say we, that's who you're kind of talking about. And that that group kind of forms, your action team. Yeah.

Martina Hribar

That's right. Yeah.

Sara Richardson

Serene. Did you want to add anything to the notion of having the leadership and the decision making piece? And that kind of thing.

Dr Serene Yoong

Yeah, yeah, I think that it's really interesting to hear. I guess the different centre types as well. So it's really like fascinating to hear centre-based, and then family day care. As you were speaking as well, Fatma, like some of the solutions you arrive at. We call, they're like implementation strategies, that's the jargon that we use right? Like the things that you were doing, like, you know, networks, and shared problem solving, and champions is a big part of the kind of language in terms of usually a kind of key, a number of key educators who do champion the effort.
And sometimes I think in some of the work external champions have formed part of an implementation core team, which is always like a lovely, lovely bonus to have when you have community or a parent come in, and they're particularly excited to drive change. You know, it sounds, it really is, it sounds like you've landed at those strategies that have worked well to a very consultative process. And really kind of listening to your staff and working out, you know where enthusiasm is, and leveraging on them, for both, for both cases.

Fatma Baykal

Definitely and it's great to see it just trusting the process. And having a go, and the staff see that. The educators feel that and they begin to trust the process, and then they begin to take those risks and take on the challenges. And it's a wonderful journey to see how it affects their wellbeing.

Sara Richardson

Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned those use those words just then, because Serene, that is something you also talked about, you know some of the models you shared that from Implementation Science are linear. But actually, it's a process.
And that's something we know in early childhood, really well, we know it's the process, not the end. And so, you know, really leaning into the process and being in the process and allowing, like Martina, you talked about how long this process can take. And then, and also, you know, revisiting that and understanding it, and the cyclic nature of it, and as well is really important.

Martina Hribar

Like enjoying that journey, that journey is where the information comes from.

Sara Richardson

Yeah, here's a question without notice, because I'm really thinking about how important that vision is, you know, to ground you and keep because it's really easy to get the new next idea and go, oh, look at that! That's really good, let's do that, and that feels like it's the right thing to do. But being, you know, really setting yourself up for success Serene, which is what you talked about, and having a really clear plan, and really understanding, you know, we've talked about the data and gathering the information, but that really grounds you having that clear vision like, would either of you like to comment on how that did, am I saying something that's true? Or is that not the case?

Martina Hribar

Yeah, no, that's a hundred percent true. That goal, like, we're always working towards it. Like our goal is to provide our educators with a safe space where they can gather, they can, you know, they can discuss their common goals with each other and just share stories. So we keep coming back to that, because that's what the goal is. How we get there is going to look different all the time, because people change.

Fatma Baykal

That, you just mentioned, Martina, rolls out into the educators' everyday lives, becomes a skill.

Martina Hribar

100%. Our educators live in their own homes. Like that vision comes from their own personal experiences. You know, what they're doing within the industry, how they're delivering their service practices, and being able to share that is what the goal is, it's for them to be able to feel safe and to be heard. And they listen to you, and you know, it is about their wellbeing.

Sara Richardson

And I was thinking Fatma, you know you can trust the process when you really, clearly, everyone's, you know, people have bought into the vision. And I think sometimes for change, that's one of the challenges, is getting that real buy-in to the vision. Both of you talked about how you spent time listening, talking, you know, having conversations two-way with people to kind of really get that sense of buy-in to this is something that's really important to us. And people went. Yes, it's important to us, too. Let's talk about it together. So you've got really grounded in that, and that can help you then move into understanding what things get in the way, which are the barriers, and then what things are we already doing at all that we already have, like those knowledges and skills you talked about Fatma, that already exist in people. But if we didn't ask the question like you said we didn't know that.

Fatma Baykal

Right and the relationships between management, leadership, educators, room leaders, parents, families, strengthened.

Sara Richardson

Yeah, it's interesting. And it's really good we haven't jumped too much into strategies, because we talked about this before, we really want to really stay grounded in those first two stages, because like Serene said, that really does set us up for success.

Slide 31

So we do need to start wrapping up. I think we could probably keep talking for a little bit longer if we want to, and we would probably start slipping into the strategies again. But I really want to thank you, all of you, for your contribution. Your stories, Martina. You use that word a couple of times, you know, telling stories is really powerful and really important. And Serene, having us grounded in that Implementation Science information and knowledge has been really helpful, and we have drawn back on that so many times. And so I really appreciate you having helping us do that too. So thank you all very much for your contributions today. 
As we start to wrap up, we just come back to the Be You Implementation Cycle which and today's presentation and conversations were around foundations for success, and really identifying what your needs are and how you might do that. So what we really encourage you to do is pop online, we've got planning for implementation modules that really cover each of these stages and a workbook to guide you through, but also talk to a consultant. They can really help you contextualise, and you heard both Fatma and Martina talk about the differences in the gaps in, the vision might have been similar for both of them, they were talking about wellbeing, but what actually did, the elements of wellbeing were different in different contexts. So everybody's going to have their own particular focus.

Slide 32

So let's just go back to the question we ask you right at the beginning. How confident do you feel, taking the next steps in implementing or enhancing wellbeing in your service, and some other language we've talked about making a change, setting yourself up for success. And if you're again, just a reminder, you can join in the poll if you're here live, if you're watching at home, you might want to pause and consider this and have a bit of a conversation with each other at home, at work.

Slide 33

So hopefully, you do feel more confident. We've given you some information, and we've given you some understandings and some examples to think about and explore, and also some things that you might want to take on differently. So hopefully, it's given you, we've also given you some inspiration to think about what changes you might want to make, or build on what you're already doing. So just to let you know if you're already registered with Be You, we encourage you to contact your consultant, and we've talked about that a lot. That consultant, as Fatma mentioned, will really, can really help you navigate through this, offer you some support, help you think maybe a bit differently about some things, help you identify the change you want to make, support you with some tools that might be helpful, and also really pull on those and identify what those barriers and enablers are that you already, that you're understanding and identifying.
So you can find your, if you're registered with Be You, you can find your consultant information in your dashboard. If you're not, then you can jump on and register with Be You, the link is in the chat there.

Slide 34

So, as we wrap up. As I said, this was the first in a series of three. Our next webinar is going to be on Stage 3 of the Implementation Cycle, which is about that planning piece. And Fatma and Martina mentioned that a little bit, because it's really hard to stop and there and not move into the plan or the action. But we're going to spend a whole lot of time thinking about what the planning process is so that'll be our next webinar in June. So keep an eye out for that, and we really look forward to seeing you there for that.

Slide 35

I just want to say thank you very much for joining us today, and it's been fantastic to have Serene and Fatma and Martina join us with their information and knowledge as well. So, look forward to seeing you online, or at our next webinar. But thanks again, and we'll see you in June.
[END]