Making change with impact 3: Reflecting for continuous improvement

Sara Richardson

Hello, everybody, and welcome. If this is your first Be You webinar, it's really great to see you, and welcome back, if you've been before. My name's Sara Richardson, and I'm part of the Early Childhood Australia Be You team.

In today's webinar, we're going to draw on implementation science and practice to look at how we can make change with impact to improve the mental health and wellbeing of our early childhood education and care communities across Australia.

Some of you may know this is the third webinar in a series on the Be You implementation cycle, and our focus is on Stages 4 and 5 of the cycle, which is about taking action and monitoring, reviewing, and improving that continuous improvement process.

I guess what we really want to do today is, and I'm really excited to, say we'll be chatting to an implementation science specialist and an early childhood centre manager to hear about their thoughts of those two stages, and particularly, the strategies that are most important in these stages. I'll make more formal introductions of our guests as they come on screen later, but this is really how we might, Think about the how today.

I'm coming to you from Kaurna Country, the Adelaide Plains region of the, of Australia, and I'd like to acknowledge Kaurna Country, and also pay respect to Kaurna elders, past and present. I also invite you to acknowledge, in whatever way you feel comfortable, the places you're joining us from across Australia today.

The other thing that's important when we have conversations about mental health and wellbeing is that we need to take care of our own emotional safety. So you might want to think about and make a plan for what you might do, if anything we talk about raises some uncomfortable feelings or thoughts or reminders of experiences for you. There's always someone you can talk to, and there's some support lines and, health services that you might be able to draw on if you need some support.

As I said before, we're looking at the Be You implementation cycle, and this is the third in a series looking at this cycle. So, at the end, we'll provide you links with the other two webinars, so if you've missed those two, you can catch up. And you can also find them on the Be You website. The other thing we're going to focus on today, too, is how you implement wellbeing plans. And how you monitor and review them, with a real focus on, thinking about the mental health and wellbeing actions that you can take in your early learning community. So, as you engage with the ideas and examples, we really encourage you to consider your own service context. And your unique priorities and challenges. I think it's really important to take a, listen to what you're hearing and take that back and apply it to where you're from.

And also, you might want to think about which of these strategies that you're hearing about are most likely to be successful for you, which are the ones that really resonate with you. And, always remember that we have a team of Early Childhood Australia Be You Consultants who can work together with you to support you in identifying and adapting and implementing approaches. So if you hear something you like, you want to have a chat with someone about how can you adapt this and maybe make some tweaks or some, add some things that might really suit you and your learning community, where we have a team available to support you to do that.

So, before we get going, let's just find out a little bit about how confident you feel in taking the steps to enhance wellbeing in your service. So, we've got a bit of a pre-webinar poll. We're going to ask these questions again at the end. So, we're asking you how confident do you feel in enacting and reviewing your plan, which is Stage 4, and to enhance the wellbeing of your service. So, putting those actions into place, and also then reviewing them. And sometimes this gets, feels like this is towards the end. We really like to get the actions going, and then sometimes, the reviewing to help us think about what next actions is maybe one of the things we don't quite get to. So it's really important to concentrate on these two areas.

So, you might feel very confident, moderately confident. You're pretty confident, or you're very confident. And if you're watching this as a recording in your team, you might want to pause now. That's a really good time to maybe take a pause and have a discussion in your team together about this question. Either you can answer individually, or you might want to think about what that, how you are as a team, how confident you feel as a team to take these steps.

So, we'll just have a look at the results. So, couple of people are very confident. We've got probably moderately confident, so people have kind of got some basics, and they need some direction, which is probably why you're here. So we're hoping that, you will find some more ideas that will help actually shift you into, you know, ready to jump in. And as I said, we'll look at those questions again and see if anything's shifted for you as we go. So, Let's get into the webinar.

I would really like to introduce Marg, and I'm really excited to have Marg Stott with us again today. We've worked with Marg before on our planning for implementation modules, which some of you may know, and we're really looking forward to hearing from Marg around the theory of implementation science and what sits behind the practice of these strategies. Of doing and monitoring change. But before we do, perhaps, Marg, if you could tell us a little bit about yourself, and also why implementation is so interesting or important to you.

 

Marg Stott

Absolutely, thanks, Sara. So, hi everyone, and welcome to today. I'd just like to acknowledge the traditional owners where I'm joining from today, which is the Dharug people from the Eora Nation, from the foot of the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. I am a registered psychologist and a practice and implementation, and development advisor within OzChild.

And when I think about implementation and implementation science practice more specifically, I think about how, in implementation science, we often talk about what is known as the knowledge-to-practice gap. So, in healthcare, we know it can take up to 15 years for research to become everyday practice, so that's 3 generations of children missing out on what we know works now. We already have really good evidence, about what helps children and educators' wellbeing, so unless we're focusing on how we implement that, we're risking leaving that knowledge on the shelf.

So today, if you think about Be You as the what, as Sara has sort of mentioned already, you can think about the implementation as how we go about it to ensure that those resources make it into practice, and it's that how that helps you to make a real impact.

 

Sara Richardson

Yeah, that's really important, Marg, and I kept thinking I'm saying how too often, but I heard you now say a lot, and I think that is really what we're focusing on today. So, if we start thinking about those Stage 4 of our implementation cycle. This is about taking action. So, probably the first thing that would be interesting to hear from you is, how would you put your plan into action?

 

Marg Stott

Great question, and even before I think about that, I think that, if you're in Stage 4, you've already done a whole bunch of stuff. Like, you've laid those foundations for success, you've identified the needs, and you've developed a plan, and so that's often what we talk to as, or refer to as sort of pay now or pay later. So, you've done a lot of groundwork to get yourself to Stage 4. So, stop and take a moment and celebrate that. I think, thinking about putting your plan into action is moving from that planning to the doing part of it. So, keeping your plan alive, keeping it visible, and sort of coming back to it as regularly, as you can. And I guess, Again, thinking about the work you've done earlier, your action plan will have those steps, or what we refer to as implementation strategies, but they're really just the activities that you might do to put your plan into action. So, some examples of those things might be, you're going to schedule some time with your team, staff. To focus on some wellbeing activities. You might engage in some of the Be You professional development activities.

Another thing that's important to have included in your plan and to put into action at this point in time is the shared responsibility of things. So, you might have people that are leading this development of the new thing that you might be wanting to do, but it's equally important to share that across educators, leaders, and also family members if they're involved and interested as well. And then another really practical thing to consider is. Where you can really try and embed those new actions or activities into existing routines to reduce any kind of overload, and to help them to become business as usual over time.

 

Sara Richardson

Yeah, it's really important, isn't it? Because often, and this kind of gets to the next question I want to ask you about, because actually, really, what we're talking about is managing change. And often, you know, in really busy early learning services, it feels like another thing to do, and what you're saying is, what are you just, giving real thought to how you might implement some of these things, or put these things into action, so that they don't, people don't experience them like another thing to do, but it's just part of what we're doing. So, you know, just to build on that question, and again, a how question, how might people manage the change process? Because really, that's what's happening here.

 

Marg Stott

Hmm, it's, this can be the tricky part of, the work that we're doing in our how. So managing that change in that initial adoption, or when you're starting out to do something new, is really important if you want it to be sustainable over time. We know that change can be hard, and it can feel uncomfortable. Some people really embrace it, and others can be resistant, and I think normalising that is really important. Like, I think if we expect that up front, then it's not a shock when it happens, and then we're more likely to be more solution-focused about how we overcome it.

We know that there are some pretty big drivers in successful implementation, and getting your plan into action, and really managing that change process, and they are competency, organization and leadership. So, when we're talking about competency, we're thinking about, do educators have the skills and the confidence that they need to put the new things in place? Is the organization supportive of that? So, do you have the systems and the resources that you need? And then, have you got leaders? And that could be, within the direct learning environment, or within the organization, modelling and supporting that change and enabling you to do what you need to do in your role.

 

Sara Richardson

There are some really helpful things, and I think, you know, what you're talking about is some really intentional planning, normalizing change. All the things that come with that, I guess. And, you know, we do know that we live in a, you know, that change fatigue is very real, and there can be, you know, feels like another change. But you can, and you've described some really great ideas that really can help buffer against that notion. And I think that note, that idea of sustainability, because lots of times, people do really great things, and they've got really good ideas, and come up with some really great plans, and put them into place, and then next minute, you'll turn around, and you're back to doing what you were doing before, and that's that, maybe that no-do gap you were talking a bit about before, and that thing that, you know, you talked about takes 15 years for sometimes for things to get, and we, and you also mentioned, I think, we can't afford to wait for that for children. Like, this is too important to, and for ourselves, I think, too. You know, especially given what's going on in the sector and all of that kind of stuff, we need to pay attention to trying to get it right, and right, maybe that's not the right word, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts about that, but, you know, to get it really embedded and part of what, like you said, business as usual, which is what we do. I think the other thing that is interesting to hear from you about would be we're going, some things are going to pop up, some things we hadn't anticipated, perhaps, or things we might have actually known were going to come, and we didn't make a plan for them. So, you know, we'd be interested to hear your thoughts about how we might adapt to any new, what we might call a barrier, so something that might get in the way, that might just pop up as we go.

 

Marg Stott

Hmm, Another great question, and you, I feel like we're really on the same page here, because they, we can expect them, they do pop up, and I think they're part of the process. They're absolutely not a failure, so I hope that when you do experience those, because you will, don't think, oh my gosh, this is too hard, and let's just sort of throw in the towel kind of thing. It's an opportunity. It's great information, and reframing those sort of things as opportunities helps to keep the momentum going.

I loved what you mentioned earlier, and I just want to touch on that, Sara, and that was about, educators have, do great things and know great things, and getting them involved early on, and drawing on their knowledge and expertise and their agency to go and do things is also a really important part of implementation. So, when things do get tough, and you do, come across barriers. They're the sort of things that you can really leverage to help to keep a bit of momentum going.

There are also some really common or predictable barriers that, I'm thinking, I can't see you all, but I can imagine you can really relate to this one, and that's time. There's time pressures, particularly, in such busy learning environments. There's competing demands. And also, there's different, confidence levels as well. So, a couple of great tips to think about, how do I manage barriers when they come up? It's sort of, like, I would say, predict and plan for them. So, face them head on, and where you can do that with those predictable ones that we mentioned, that'll, that I think will serve you well. When unexpected barriers come up, try to work together as a team to overcome them. You know your learning environments best, and so really making things fit for context and making those tweaking things and changing over time is going to be really important, because every learning community is going to be different, and so really respecting what you know about that and from the people within that to make good decisions to support that.

Leveraging what we call enablers, so what are the strengths within the learning community? There might be, you might have some really good, hopefully have some good supportive leadership, and also some, family engagement. You may even have some skilled mental health people within your learning community that you can draw on to support implementing your plan. And of course, also, as Sara mentioned earlier. Really drawing on your Be You consultants when you need to. Stage, this is a, this is a busy stage, and it's where you will come across some barriers, maybe more than the others. So, they're a great coach on the sideline, that's how you can think of them. They're supportive, they're not going to tell you what to do, but they can really offer you some helpful advice about how to overcome some barriers you might be facing.

 

Sara Richardson

I think that's, I think that's really powerful, too, and this is, the two things you talked about there that you kind of have to hold onto at the same time is, expect them, and don't think you're a failure. Like, you've been, you've got to, like you said, there's so much work you've already done to get to this stage, so you should be celebrating that, and be excited and positive about what you're doing, and not see these things as failures. And sometimes when you invest so much, and then it doesn't work like you had planned or hoped, it can feel like that. And I think the other thing is there are some things we just know are going to happen. Like, we know time's a thing, and we know, you know, we know change is going to happen. Happen, and all of those things. So, kind of. Managing both those things, and drawing on your strengths that you already have is so powerful, isn't it? Because, and it taps back into what you were talking about before, too, you know. Building things into what you're already doing, so building things into staff meetings, for example, and those kind of things is perhaps a way to just normalise the conversations and engaging as many people, or the right people at the right time, I think.

So, that's, we've been looking at Stage 4, which is taking action. Let's move on now to Stage 5, and thinking about, you've put your plan into action, you've managed the change process, you've been, positive, and, you know, built in, responded to the barriers, and drawn on the enablers. So then, if we think about, we want to start reviewing our plan. So what would you say was involved in the reviewing of a plan?

 

Marg Stott

So, in implementation science, this stage of monitoring, reviewing, and improving, it's all about checking how the plan is going. Are you putting it into practice? Making sense of the information that you're gathering, and then making small changes to keep improving. So, monitoring, more specifically, would be paying attention to the things day to day. It could be noticing children's responses, it could be noticing how staff are using a new approach, or whether you're seeing more engagement from families. Reviewing is more about stepping back and having a look at, things at regular intervals. So, what's the information telling you? Are you seeing and noticing the changes that you're hoping for? Or if not, what are the barriers that are getting in the way and problem-solving them? You can use Be You surveys at set points to measure shifts in knowledge, confidence, or an increase in protective factors. And then there's the improve, the improvement, improving. So using what you've learned to make those adjustments so the plan works better. So it really is, a continuous quality improvement approach, making small refinements along the way, rather than expecting everything to be perfect that first time. So again, that really talks into, taps into that. Expect challenges, expect barriers. It's really normal, and little changes can make, you know, big, big, have a big impact over time.

So, implementation science really emphasises that the improvement is ongoing, it's not a set and forget. You monitor and you review throughout the whole process, and it's not just at the end. So this helps ensure that your approach stays relevant, effective, and sustainable within your own setting.

 

Sara Richardson

There's a couple of things there that I think really resonate with the early childhood sector too, and there's such a great link to your quality improvement plan. So, you know, you're already engaging in that process anyway, by, you know, developing plans for that, and you could integrate that, you know, see if you can integrate that, rather than having this piece sitting separately. So thinking about building that in. And that idea of ongoing improvement is part of, you know, how we approach our work anyway in the early childhood sector. So I think that feels very comfortable. And again, that's kind of like that normalizing, well, this is just what we do. Another thing to do, you know, how can we align that with our quality improvement process anyway? I think the other thing you were talking about, and you've mentioned it before, is that momentum. One of the things we talk about a little bit here is progress over perfection. I think it's really tricky because we want to get it right, and we want to be, and we might not say we want to be perfect, but getting it right is really important to us sometimes, and that can sometimes get in the way. And it's slow, because you spend so much time trying to be right that you don't do anything, and then so, you know, that, and then you lose momentum, and I think momentum is really powerful, so doing little, little and often is sometimes really helpful in that, and yeah.

Yeah, it's interesting. And this probably leads into the next question, which is really about how you know you've done a good job, and this is tapping into the idea of measuring your success. Like, what does a good job mean? Have you got it right? You know, assessing how you've been going towards those measures of success, which you hopefully have thought about already at the beginning, but I think it would be interesting to hear your thoughts about, you know. How do you assess your progress? What we might call measures of success.

 

Marg Stott

Yeah, thank you. And this is probably, certainly in my experience, and when I've been involved in implementations, it can be the hardest part to identify this. So, and when you think about that within, this context, wellbeing outcomes are not always easily quantifiable, but they are measurable.

So, if I, maybe I can share an educator, example, and then a child one, if we have time. So, for example, an overarching vision might be that educators feel confident, supported, and equipped to foster wellbeing, both their own and that of the children in their care. So. For example, that wellbeing would be seen as an everyday activity, and not so much a task. So if that's sort of the vision or the end goal that you're looking for, a measure of success might be educators report greater confidence in recognising and supporting children's mental health or wellbeing. Another one could be that there's actually a bit of a service-wide culture shift, so wellbeing becomes embedded in practice and is business as usual, so it's reflected in those staff meetings, planning documents, and everyday interactions, as you mentioned earlier.

And as a result of that, you see more educators using self-care and peer support strategies regularly to sustain their own wellbeing, and they feel safe and supported to have conversations about mental health. So, you can sort of think about the bigger overarching vision, and then breaking that down into some sort of behavioural measures of success, and again, you might have similar ones across different learning communities, but you make them your own. What's the language you would use? And where I always like to think about if you can make them as behavioural as possible in terms of describing them. That makes it easy for you to be able to measure them.

 

Sara Richardson

Yeah, that's really helpful, and I think one of the things you talked about, your vision, but if you're really clear about what your goal is, then that helps you check whether you've achieved your goal or not. And one of the things we know about goals is it's good to make them measurable and, you know. Sustainable, you know, easy to understand, and so maybe, that's where the success, but I think that it's interesting how you describe some of those things, like, do people feel more confident? Are they using the language in a different kind of way? You know, those kind of things. We might not think about those things as things we might want to measure as success, because sometimes you just kind of, you look back and you're like, oh, look, it's working now, and you haven't really known what you were looking at and looking for, so I think that's really helpful. And I think the other thing about that is, your success measures, but then the ongoing impacts of that, because if people feel more confident, and they're able to use the language in different kinds of ways, perhaps you'll see that in, you know, what we would describe as their practices, their interactions with children, with families, with each other, and so that's where the lasting impact comes from.

 

Marg Stott

Absolutely. So, when you look at the short-term outcomes, it might be that educators feel more confident to support children's wellbeing, or children showing stronger social and emotional skills, but the longer-term impacts is a thriving learning community. Seeing this sort of embedded into everyday practice, so it's not about just kicking off the activities and, you know, going through the stages of your plan. It's really about contributing to, you know, lasting, positive change.

 

Sara Richardson

Yeah, and I think sometimes that's a really hard thing to do. You get caught up in the busyness of the day, and you try and do these small actions, and you can, and that's important for momentum, but it's about how then you can really see that sustained change over time. So, and that kind of perhaps gets into the last question I was thinking, and back to a how question. How do you maintain the notion of continuous improvement? Like, how do you keep going with that?

 

Marg Stott

I think, thinking from the start, in, when you're in that, setting the foundations of success, thinking about it as, it's, implementation is not a single event. It really is, a long-term, more iterative, and adaptive process. When we think about continuous improvement, it's about reviewing the data and tweaking. We talked about addressing barriers, and it's also adding in new barriers as they come up, because learning communities change, people change, so it's being adaptive in response, it's responsive to those needs, checking if your goals and your vision is still relevant, and again, just reinforcing that implementation, it is, it's an ongoing journey, so try not to think about it as a destination. We've reached it, we're here.

But what you'll start to notice is sustainability happens when you see Be You as business as usual, so you'll be talking a common language all of a sudden, like, you just sort of inferred to then, oh, we're doing this thing. It'll be embedded into, sort of, maybe induction processes, newsletters, everyday processes, and things like that.

I think it's important to continue to celebrate small successes and wins along the way, and always remember that you've got your Be You Consultant, there in the background, but educators and learning communities absolutely play a vital role in translating what we know works into practice, and Be You really offers that framework, to help move that evidence into practice, so wellbeing becomes part of life for educators and children and families.

 

Sara Richardson

Yeah, that's really important, and it was really good to hear, actually, because actually, I think a lot of what you talked about is already very, quite familiar in the early childhood sector. Like, we know that, putting things in, into policy, perhaps in our philosophy, but then reviewing that on a regular basis, and that doesn't mean every month, but I mean, annual review. We also know that people are going to change, the children move through, the families move through. So, our context might change a little bit, too. You know, things need to shift, so we, So while we need to do the work, it's the ongoing process of that, and that whole notion of, it's not the end, like, oh, we've arrived now, it's actually we need to keep doing that is important, yeah.

 

Marg Stott

And it's, a good point that you make, because those early stages, up sort of one to three, that does, people on here will know that that requires a lot of effort and probably more time, and you're thinking, oh my gosh, I can't keep this up. Well, you can rest assured that you don't have to, because that's why it is that pay now or pay later. You invest early on, you set up good plans, and then over time, it is really just jumping in and checking in on things and monitoring. You're not having to, have the same intensity you are at the beginning of the implementation as you are as you end, because it just, happens. It is business as usual, and that's, that's really good, high-quality implementation.

 

Sara Richardson

Yeah, I think that's a really important message for people, because it, you know, you've only got limited amount of energy, right? You can't create more time, or create more energy, or create more resourcing, so, knowing that if you invest here, then that ongoing work is less energy sapping, I guess, and doesn't require quite as much, because you've invested the time. And I know that's a really key phrase, and you've referred to it quite a lot, that pay now or pay later, because if you don't do it up front, then you're going to have to do it later on anyway. So, yeah, I think that's a really important and powerful, idea, and supports that notion of maintaining continuous improvement, which, consistent with, early childhood practice, but also, like you said. Implementation science as well.

Great. I'm thinking that perhaps we might need to move on. Is there anything else you're thinking about Stage 4 and 5, Marg, that you think we just need to have a reminder of?

 

Marg Stott

I think, not so much about 4 or 5, but just probably implementation in general, and sort of what I kicked off with around that sort of no-do gap, or knowledge-to-practice gap. If we're really not focusing on the how we go about it, it doesn't matter how good the what is, it doesn't matter how good all these amazing Be You resources are. If we're not implementing them well and not focusing on the how, they're not going to have an impact, and we don't want to risk leaving those on the shelf. So, yeah, I guess, I guess I feel really passionate about implementation and hope that this has been a helpful, discussion so far, the first half, to lead into the next exciting part of the real practical application of that.

 

Sara Richardson

Yeah, thank you so much, Marg and I really appreciate it, and I think that's a fantastic segue into, hearing from Melita, so I really appreciate your insights and your, thoughtful examples of, what implementation science can tell us about stages 4 and 5, and making those changes for impact. So, thank you so much, and I'll look forward to, working with you again, hopefully, sometime soon.

 

Marg Stott

Thanks for having me.

 

Sara Richardson

So, as I said, we're really excited to welcome Melita, and it's wonderful to have her with us today, and I am particularly looking forward to hearing from Melita about what she's done in her early childhood service, which she wonderfully described as down the wellbeing rabbit hole. And I, and I just think that's wonderful. But before we go there, it'd be great if you could tell us a little bit about yourself, and your service, because it's a bit of a unique context.

 

Melita Pendergast

Yeah, it is. So, I look after a little service inside of Parliament House. I work for Communities at Work, we are a community-based organization. Our little centre is licensed for 36 children a day. We operate at 30 children a day, because those 6 additional places a set aside for when Parliament sits, and we can use those for occasional care, so all the MPs and their staffers, when they come to Canberra on parliamentary sitting days, they can have access to our occasional care.

And sometimes the children who come for occasional care are children who we've met before, and who we know their routines, and we know them, and sometimes they're children we've never met before see once and never see again, so, our normal, kind of, typical day, really can be dependent on whether Parliament's in session or not, so it's, it's a lovely, small little service, but, very different context.

 

Sara Richardson

And I remember you saying when we were talking before, you said sometimes at the beginning of the parliamentary session that there's a whole bunch of new children, which changes the dynamic again. I don't know everybody has that at the start of the year and those kind of things, but you have that in a few rounds, I guess. So, yeah, interesting. But what we're going to talk about, though, is we're going to ask Melita the very similar questions to what we asked Marg, but what we're going to hear from Melita is from a practical point of view. So we're hoping to take what we've heard from Marg, and kind of really now hear your story about what this looked like stages 4 and 5 in particular look like for you? So, again, we're going to ask the how question. So, you might want to tell us a little bit about your plan and a little bit of background, but really asking, thinking about how you put your plan into action.

 

Melita Pendergast

Yeah, well, it was interesting listening to Marg talk about the importance of the groundwork, beforehand, because for us, that was really important, and what, I guess where we had come from is that we were noticing a spike in the children's challenging behaviours that the team were just really struggling with, and so, we had done lots of professional development, we've accessed lots of webinars, we did lots of reading, and just like Marg was talking about, that kind of no-do gap, what we were finding is that the educators, when they were in that, in a staff meeting context, or when we were having one-on-one conversations about their practice, they were able to really articulate the right thing to do, or the things that were helpful to do when, you know, the children were demonstrating some challenging behaviours, and, what we were finding is that in practice, they were reverting back to things that weren't helpful. And I just, I couldn't understand it. I was like, they know what to do. I don't understand why they keep doing these things that are not helpful. And I just happened to be attending a Communities of Practice event that, there was a Be You speaker who was hosting, and I remember chatting with Alicia beforehand and saying, like, this is what we're struggling with, and she said, I have an answer for that. Please, tell me, what is it? And she said, you know when the children are disregulated, how you can't have that conversation with them? You have to wait until they're regulated and calm before their logical brain kicks in. Yeah, yeah, I know that. She said, well, that's what's happening with your educators. I was like, of course that's what's happening.

We realized that part of supporting the challenging behaviours was supporting the educator's wellbeing, and, what we did is we, worked with our Be You consultant, and she was really helpful in developing our vision for wellbeing, so we got together as a team, we talked about what wellbeing meant to each individual person. We did, like, a little survey to see where everybody's wellbeing was at, so we collected all that information first to see, you know, what people thought was a good day. That was a really interesting question to ask. Different people answered that in a really different way, and that gave us a real insight into the things that people have value in, so some people would answer that question, like, a good day is a meaningful engagement with a child, or if I feel like I've really supported a child, and somebody else's good day is, I've had a good day if I feel like I've ticked everything off my list.

So, we were able to sit down and unpack that as a team. We developed a wellbeing vision that is part of our philosophy. And it's also a huge, important part of our quality improvement plan. So our quality improvement plan is really about supporting children's behaviour. But it's really about supporting the educators to support the children's behaviour. So, laying the groundwork was super important in, for us to be able to do that.

 

Sara Richardson

Yeah, and that's tapped into a number of things we've talked about with Marg already, isn't it? You know, you're being really clear about your vision, and really spending time in the first stages in really understanding and finding out what the issues are, and really knowing, where you want to put your energies and efforts, because you can only do so much with all the other things that you're trying to do, but you've linked it into, like Marg talked about, you know, making it part of just normal business, not another thing to do. And I think it's really interesting that you've, it's still in your quality improvement plan, as outcomes for children. Your strategy at this point in time is to think about educators' wellbeing, because you knew that was the thing, that was your barrier, or that was the thing that was stopping that other thing from happening. So, really making an investment in that is interesting. And you've kind of touched on this a little bit, but the next question is the how question that we, or that we're interested in managing the change process. So you said it was, knowledge was there, but there were, because you'd invested quite a lot of time and effort and energy in that, but it was the practice change. So, it'd be interesting to talk about, for you to hear from you about how you manage that change process.

 

Melita Pendergast

Well, I think it was fairly easy for us, because we invested so much time and energy into helping people understand, into building understanding. So we, there's a lot of, Be You resources that we use, but there was one in particular that really talked about, stresses and stress behaviours, and we made time for everybody to have a look at that resource and to read it, and then we unpacked it together so that we were able to identify our own stress responses, and the stress responses of our colleagues, and that was really important in making that change, because when you understand how people respond when they're stressed, you, it kind of flips your mind into seeing their behaviour, not as they're not doing their job, or they're doing their job wrong, but actually, I can see that they're stressed, and instead of becoming frustrated with them, I'm actually gonna go in and support them. And we've really noticed a shift in the way that we treat one another, because we've worked so hard to build that understanding of each other. There's so much more support going on, and we had a really nice experience the other day. One of the team leaders came in, and she was a little bit teary, because she said. Like, the educators told me that I needed to go and have my break, because my wellbeing is important in order for them to do their job. They need a leader who is rested and refreshed, go and have your break. So she was like, oh, they really, like, it's not just the leadership team caring about the educators, it's the educators caring about the leaders as well.

 

Sara Richardson

That's so powerful, isn't it? And, and we tend not to look after ourselves, and that was good feedback, wasn't it? Yeah, and that's kind of that other thing we were talking about with Marg, too. You can kind of see, though, you hadn't planned for that to be a thing, like, that wasn't one of your actions, but that's how you can, that's a success measure, I guess. You can see that that's happening. People aren't even thinking about that, but they're using that common language, and they're, they all understand why that's happening, and she did, and they did, and she probably then went on, actually had a break, and perhaps did some work while she was having a break, but you know, hopefully.

 

Melita Pendergast

I hope she didn't, she was on break!

 

Sara Richardson

Right, excellent, fantastic. So, we've talked a little bit about barriers, but as you went along, did you, so you kind of found this path that you went, oh, this is going to be really where we need to head, because we hadn't addressed this. But as you were going, how did you adapt to new barriers that popped up that you hadn't, perhaps, anticipated.

 

Melita Pendergast

Yeah, so I think, everything was going really well, everyone was really invested, they understood that wellbeing was going to support them with children's behaviour. It was all going really well, and then we had a brand new trainee start who'd never worked in the sector before, and she started, and 3 days in, she called in sick, and then she, over the weekend, resigned, and in her resignation, she said that the reason that she was leaving is because she didn't feel welcomed or supported, and that her experience with us adversely affected her mental health and wellbeing, and I think when we got that feedback, we were all really devastated, because we'd been working so hard on wellbeing, things had been going so well, we just kind of, were really upset, like, what, we thought we were going well, and we got this feedback, so we, spent a little bit of time just sitting with it. I think I have a tendency to want to act on things straight away, but I'm like, we need to sit with it, we need to feel it, we need to process it. And then we started having conversations about our induction processes, and especially our induction processes for brand new people to the sector. And working with the leadership team, we actually developed a resource that has been so much better than what we previously had. So, it wasn't a great experience. We now have this induction manual for our brand new educators that is so much better than anything we had before. So, yes, we did have a challenge. Yes, we, it was an awful time for us, but, now we've got something we never would have had if we didn't have that challenge.

 

Sara Richardson

Mmm, that's a really powerful story, isn't it? Because you, you know, you do cruise along, and you feel like things are going so smoothly, and then you have something like that that's, you experience that as a really crushing thing, not you, all of you. Yeah. Because you're like, we were doing such a good job, and oh no, now we're not. And so, but then you, and I really like how you allowed yourselves the time to experience the feeling, which is part of what you, being committed to, and not just trying to get on with it and fix it, because that's what we, I agree with the tendency to do that too. But then really trying to, you know, actually doing that whole process again, really thinking about what is it we need to do here, what's the gap. How do we fill it? What's the best way? And you talked about doing it together with a leadership team, so it wasn't just a one, and I think that's really powerful too, and Marg talked about that a little bit, drawing on the expertise of the people around, and how do you, you know, do those kind of things.

I guess this is really now thinking about perhaps moving to Stage 5, because, you know. You've put things into action, you've addressed some barriers that popped up, a big one that popped up. But then, you know, in thinking about have you got to the stage where you've reviewed your plan? So you made your wellbeing plan, you had a really clear vision, and then put some things into place, managed the barrier, that popped up, and I'm sure there was other little things along the way. Kept momentum going, obviously. But then, you know, what, it'd be interesting to hear about your process in reviewing your plan, a bit.

 

Melita Pendergast

Yeah, so we started out, at the very beginning when we were doing the groundwork, we started out with a survey to all of our educators, and we asked them about where they were, where they were sitting. We kind of had, like, a little continuum, and we did, where are they sitting? And then we did a mid-year, because it's all linked to our quality improvement plan, we did, like, a little mid-year, where is everyone up to with the things in our quality improvement plan, and that included wellbeing, and so we asked questions like, how are you feeling now? Compared to where you were at the beginning of the year, has you confidence in being able to support children when they have challenging behaviours improved. So we did that survey as, like, a little mid-year review, and that was really helpful, because what we found is that the educators who were with us last year, who had all of the professional development, and then all of the wellbeing stuff on top of that felt a lot more confident in supporting the children. The educators who joined us and got mostly just wellbeing stuff, while they felt good. They didn't feel as confident in supporting the children because they didn't have the same level of professional development that the other educators had. So, I think that was good for us, because while we can see that we definitely made progress since the start of the year, there's more things to work on. And that's, that's been a really good, mid-year review because it's helped form the direction for the rest of the year.

 

Sara Richardson

Yeah, and that's the perfect example, isn't it, of that whole continuous improvement process, and so enlightening. So, actually, when you were doing that knowledge piece before you got to the wellbeing bit, that was the right thing to do, because then when you didn't have that, you found a really clear way of indicating that.

Yeah, that's, that's a really, that's a great example of that whole process. I guess maybe it would be interesting now to ask you, about assessing your progress, but particularly thinking about your measures of success, like, did, it'd be interesting to hear from you about what you, you know, how you determine those and how you use them to assess your progress, I guess.

 

Melita Pendergast

Yeah, so we, things like the educator confidence in supporting children was a big one for us, but also things like absenteeism, staff retention, that, those are really big indicators for us, and I can say that since we've been working on wellbeing, we've had really low absenteeism, and I can see the educators are a lot more confident, and they're reporting that they're a lot more confident in supporting the children, so, it'd be interesting to ask the children if they feel more supported. We haven't, kind of, done that step, but I would be really interested to get the children's perspective on how they're feeling, but, it would definitely have got those things that are a measure of success. So we're not exactly where we want to be as a team yet, but I think we're headed in the right direction, and I think I don't know, the goalposts always move. You do things, you have success, and you keep, kind of, shifting the goalposts, and I think that's a really important part of what we do in continuous improvement.

 

Sara Richardson

Yeah, absolutely. And that's so interesting, I think, that opportunity to, and you talked about, self-reporting, like, I feel more confident. Asking the question in the first place is an interesting one, because often we don't ask those kind of questions. And there's two questions I think you said you asked, either in survey, but it sounds like you asked them more broadly than that. How confident do you feel? And also, how are you feeling? And sometimes we don't want to ask those questions, because we don't want, we don't want to hear the answers. But you've set up a space where those questions are what we ask, you ask each other. And you said, so people can self-report, they know that they're going to be asked that question, and they're going to answer. But it's also, you also said you notice some things, and I think sometimes there are those intangible things in early childhood that when you've been in it, you just know. It just feels different, and that might be a calmness in the rooms, or the environment just has a feel, doesn't it? That you can tell that people are going about their day, but I can't wait to hear about that whole notion of when you start asking the children what kind of questions you're going to ask them, and because you'll be able to notice things in the children as well, I'm sure, but, you know, actually having children's voice in that would be really interesting. Some of their drawings and their writings about that, I think, are going to be so fascinating.

Anyway, I'm getting, I'm getting sidetracked about Voice of Children, but I think that that's such an exciting, and I think that's interesting, isn't it? Because, you know, you talked about, sometimes Marg and I were talking about the idea of you've arrived at the end, but actually you don't see it that way. You're like, okay, what could we do next? But it sounds like something that's interesting and you're curious about, and it doesn't feel like, oh, we've got to do another thing. It actually feels like the natural next step for you to start, keep exploring that in a bit more deeper way. And I've asked you a question without notice there, but I don't know if you want to say anything about that.

 

Melita Pendergast

No, well, I think we really didn't want to add something extra. I think that was really intentional right from the beginning. We didn't want it to be another thing, so we tried really to weave wellbeing in wherever we could, so it's in our quality improvement plan, it's in our philosophy. Our philosophy is linked to our performance evaluations, so it's in our performance evaluations, it's part of our strategic inclusion plan. So, we tried to kind of weave it in, so it was just a natural part of things that we were already doing, which is something Marg was talking about earlier, but it was something we really intentionally did, so we didn't have to do another thing.

 

Sara Richardson

Yeah, it's so important, isn't it? Because it, you know, and then, and then when you go looking for those opportunities for what next, they make sense, and they still help you achieve the other things you're trying to achieve, which is why it's a good idea to do that, and it is actually a very, useful thing. And it probably comes to the, to the, to the last question, is about maintaining continuous improvement, because it is kind of how you've really integrated into everything, but also it as a process, and it's not a finished thing, it's an ongoing thing.

 

Melita Pendergast

Yeah, well, I think weaving into everything that we're already doing, I think, is just the way that we've set it up. So that we can maintain it, and it's just a natural part of things that happen, and I think when we onboard new people, that's part of their induction. We talk about, you know, I talked about the induction, wellbeing is a huge part of our induction. We talk about it in our staff meetings. We've got wellbeing resources, and, It's just such a normal part of everyday conversation that I think we've really tried to weave it into everything that we do, so that it could be sustainable and ongoing.

 

Sara Richardson

Yeah, and you've used that term, sustainability, which we haven't actually talked about, but Marg talked about before, too. Because we know things are going, things change, and people change, and so sometimes when you put those things into place, when the people go, the thing drops off, the practice drops off. But if you've built it in so much that they can't do that, then that's what true sustainability, all that language we use about embedding and those kind of things.

And I think it's really interesting that you talked about the idea of being very intentional about it, like, you actually did it on purpose. Wasn't an accident.

 

Melita Pendergast

No, no, I didn't want it, I didn't want another thing to add, you know, like, because there's, we have so much that we, that we do, and I think when you start adding stuff, it can feel really overwhelming, so, you know, when we were writing our strategic inclusion plan, I was like, well, absolutely, wellbeing is a huge part of that, so I'm gonna incorporate that into there. We've got it in our philosophy. We've got it, our philosophy is, you know, our performance evaluations are linked, so it's like, it's not another thing, it's just part of things that we already do.

 

Sara Richardson

That's so interesting. And I'm, this is the wellbeing rabbit hole that you've went down, right? This is such a pleasure to have that opportunity to talk to you about that, and to hear from your perspective, you know, the things that you did. I'm actually just one little other question without notice. How long do you reckon this has taken, this whole process, from when you had that first conversation, perhaps.

 

Melita Pendergast

It's been this whole year. We had that conversation with Alicia maybe in February, and, we joined Be You, we got our consultant, and we've been working together, so it's taken, we're in, September now, so it's taken that kind of 8, 9 months, and we're definitely not where we want to be, so it's still ongoing for us.

 

Sara Richardson

Yeah, and I think that's a really important thing. Like, I think sometimes people want to do it in a term, or they want to do it in, you know, a couple of months or stuff, but this isn't, this is just what you're going to be doing now for the long haul, and you're going to keep finding new things to keep embedding, and I think that's a really important piece of this. So, thank you so much for the story. And, for sharing a little bit about your very unique and interesting service, but more importantly, the work that you've done to kind of, take action for wellbeing and for your educators, but actually, the outcome and the goal was for children. So, really, thank you so much for sharing your story, and a bit about yourself as well. Thank you.

Okay, so, let's think about what we've heard today. So we've heard both from Marg and from Melita. The implementation science and the implementation practice of really making change for impact. And we've focused on the idea of reviewing your plan as you action it. That whole idea of managing change, and Marg talked really a lot, and I think Melita didn't use this language, but that's what she meant. Just normalising that things are going to crop up. And things are going to happen, and that kind of speaks to sometimes new barriers will come up, and Marg talked about sometimes there's some that you know are going to come. But there's others that Melita described, where you, they pop up, and you hadn't anticipated, and you hadn't expected them, but expecting the unexpected, I think, is part of this, and then reassessing, and developing some new strategies and those kind of things to continue.

And then moving into Stage 5, where you're really thinking about monitoring your progress, and Marg talked very clearly about the difference between monitoring, and continuous improvement, and how you might then also measure the impact that these things have had. And sometimes that's not see, you can't see that straight away, but if you can, I think Marg described some behavioural things, like language, or, the types of, words people are using, and that kind of thing. And then you can probably see those outcomes maybe later on down the track, and so Melita's talking about perhaps exploring that in terms of what the children might say or do, or be doing as well. And we've talked a lot about continuous improvement, and I think probably don't need to think about that anymore, because we, in early childhood, we do know about that, but I think that making sure we connect in with the things we're already doing is where that's going to be most powerful, probably.

So, it's been just so good to hear, you know, both sides of those, things, and again, I really want to thank both Marg and Melita for sharing their knowledge, their expertise, and their experiences, as we've talked about stages 4 and 5 from the Be You implementation cycle. Just the one thing to note, too, Marg and Melita have both talked about some Be You resources, but one of the, support resources you might want to think about helping you work through this process is our Planning for Implementation modules and Workbook, and they're really designed to really help you, guide you through each of these stages, and they've got some really great, really simple tools, and just to note that Marg helped us develop those, so, a shout out to Marg, and you'll see some consistencies in some of the things we've talked about there as well.

So, as we move into wrapping up, let's just think about how you're, how confident you are, and I think Marg and Melita both talked about this idea. So we ask you the same questions at the beginning. Now, after hearing Marg and Melita, how confident do you feel about enacting and reviewing a plan to enhance wellbeing in your service? It'd be interesting to see if it's changed. And again, if you're watching this record, as a recording, you might want to stop now and have a conversation with each other, or as a team about, maybe individually. And I think Melita talked about that. It's important to ask each person individually, and then you can talk about, together, what does that mean for us.

So, we'll just wait a little bit longer so that everybody's got a chance to, pop their answers in, or responses in, and then we might have a look and see.

There's a little bit of a shift, so some people are still needing a bit more support, and I think the other thing that both Marg and Melita talked about is tapping into the resources, so Be You's got a range of resources, but, and so you can use them from the website, but you also, maybe you're, coach on the sidelines, as Marg described, the Be You Consultant, they could really help you shift if you're not quite sure where to head next, or where to start, or, where you're, even where you're up to with what you've been doing, because often we're doing a whole lot of things, but that's just not maybe in a cohesive plan. Then really tap into your consultant. And the other thing is, if you are doing something and you do feel confident, still tap into your consultant, because we really want to be able to celebrate and share those successes with you, and if that helps you with your momentum, which is one of the things that Marg and Melita both talked about, then, you know, we'd love to hear from you.

So. Oh, here we go, that's right, that's where I was meant to be segueing to that. So, these are the kinds of things, I guess, a Be You consultant can help you with. So, if you're a participating Be You Early Learning Service, a Be You consultant can, is part of the suite of resources that you can access, free, so they can help you think about what change you'd like to make in your service. So if you're just really starting to think about what is this goal or this vision that we've got, what change do we want to see? Then they can help you with that part. They can help you think about what tools, and how to plan, and which strategies might work for you, and how can you take a strategy that maybe you've heard today, or something that you find in one of our resources, and really make them work in your context. For your people with your barriers and your facilitators, or your enablers. And also might want to help you draw out what those barriers and enablers are, and how you can you know, navigate and develop some strategies around the barriers, and then, and then activate the enablers, the things that are working, and build things into what you're already doing, rather than feeling like an add-on.

And I think the other thing that the consultant can really help you with, and we've talked a little bit about this today, is how you're really going to know if you've been successful. So, what are your measures of success, and how do they align back to your goals? Like, how do we know we're going to be successful? How do we know we've done a good job? And I think it was Marg that said, we're not just going to tick it off and say we've done it, but we're going to say it's been successful because, and I think those things a consultant can really help you with. And we've also talked about this notion of being sustainable, so how can it just become part of, and it's interesting, because when Melita was talking, she was saying just, and I think it's not just, because there's a whole lot of work and effort and energy that's gone in, but when it becomes just part of what you do, and I've just said just again, when it becomes part of who you are, kind of embedded into everything that happens there, you think about it all the time without knowing you're thinking about it. That's really sustained, and it probably is more meaningful. So a consultant can help you with any or all of those things. So yeah, please reach out to your consultant, if you're looking for any support in any of those areas, or something that's not on there either.

So, as I said, this Making Change with Impact, is a series of webinars, and this is the third one in the series, the first two were, about Stages 1 and 2. So they were the, Stages 1 and 2 is taking those first steps, and then Stage 3 is really how you turn those ideas into action and to develop a plan, and then today we've talked about stages four and five of the Be You implementation cycle. And we've also talked a bit about some of the implementation tools that are available, and we call them action teams, so I think Melita, it was Melita who talked a lot about making sure you're not just doing this by yourself, and so you can draw on your consultant, but I think it's really important that you, find out who could be in your wellbeing, action team, or your Be You action team, so it's not just one person trying to drive this, there's a group of people who are going to help you think about how you might do this, and then you, in your setting, and then you can, use the implementation tools to help you find a way forward that's going to work for you as well.

So, just remember, if you're not currently registered with Be You, you can go to the website to register, and you'll be assigned a consultant. But if you already are, then you can find your consultant name on your dashboard if you don't know it already.

Right, so there's lots of things to help you with this process, I think, and hopefully not just hearing from Marg and Melita, but understanding the supports that can come along with that to help you make change that's going to really, be of benefit to you, and more importantly for children and families that you're working with, is really what we are trying to all achieve, really, and we're hoping that what we can offer is something that will really help you to do that. So, as we finish up, we'd really like to hear your feedback, about today's session. There's going to be a short evaluation survey, so please fill it out if you haven't already, and, it'll stay open until you've finished. Thank you so much for your time, thank you for coming. It's great to see you, and look forward to seeing you again in the next webinar.