1. Be You Virtual Conference 2022

Empowerment is a partnership: Connecting and engaging with families and communities to build capacity 

  • Transcript

    Empowerment is a partnership: Connecting and engaging with families and communities to build capacity presented by Sonia Regan and Sara Richardson.

    Sara Richardson

    Hello, and thanks for joining the final session of day one of the Be You Virtual Conference.
     
    I'm Sarah Richardson, Early Childhood Australia, Be You National Manager based here in Adelaide. With me today is Sonia Regan. Sonia's an Independent Consultant who has had many roles, all of them working with and alongside families in community development and co-design with children and young people, particularly in the area of disability. Sonia will tell you a bit more about herself a bit later.
     
    This is the final keynote and we'll wrap up day one of the Be You Virtual Conference, exploring empowerment. We've had lots of interesting conversations today and heard some really interesting things about empowerment.
     
    Remember to keep this chat going, you can use the hashtag #BeYouVirtual. So you can spread the word more broadly than just here. So in this session Sonia will explore empowerment, particularly with a focus on partnerships with families.
     
    As I said I'm joining from Adelaide, and I'd like to say Naa Marni and acknowledge that I'm meeting on the Land of the Kaurna people. Kaurna Yarta. And I want to pay my respects to Kaurna Elders past and present. And as you know, we're joining from all over the country and I encourage you to share your own acknowledgement in the chat, or however seems most appropriate for you.
     
    Also if you've joined us all day you'll know that at the end of the day we want to say congratulations on making time for yourself and this professional development that you've been doing. I'm sure in reality being online you're probably juggling a number of things and coming to the end of the day, maybe some of the concepts that you've been listening and thinking about too. And some of you will already be jumping ahead to think about, well, how am I going to do, what am I going to do with this? How am I going to share this?
     
    We hope you've come away from today and from this session with some new ideas, feeling empowered to try some new things. And also probably some of your reaffirmed that you're on track.
     
    We'd love to hear your thoughts throughout the session. So use the chat and the discussion box and we'll have some polls.
     
    We also want to provide a safe space to discuss this information. And making as part of making a virtual space safe, consider confidentiality and privacy. Remember sometimes that these conversations about mental health can trigger feelings. So on screen, you'll have the contact details for services that you can find useful and reach out for support if you need to.
     
    So again, if you've been with us all day, you'll know a bit about Be You and some of you might've already known about Be You so we're a national mental health initiative for educators. Led by Beyond Blue and in partnership with Early Childhood Australia and headspace. The great thing about Be you it's free and available to every educator, early learning service and school across Australia.
     
    Be You really empowers educators to support children and young people's social, emotional wellbeing and their own mental health. So it's great to continue to have those conversations today, but also beyond today.
     
    Be You offers educators professional learning, fact sheets, webinars, and opportunities like this, as well as resources and particularly consultants who can help you think about how you can make Be You work for you in your site. We also offer learning communities, which is part of what today is as well, and also tools and processes to implement that whole learning approach to mental health and wellbeing.
     
    And if you want to know more, you can head over to our website and you'll find out some more there.
     
    So we're coming to the end of day one. Most of you now will know how to navigate around the portal and find your sessions. And you might want to start thinking about day two.
     
    So today we've, as Geri mentioned right at the beginning, we've had an opportunity for all of us together to reflect on a range of ideas, about empowerment, thinking about what it is, about power, about taking care of our own wellbeing, and hearing different perspectives from educators in the field.
     
    And together we're building that online learning community where we're sharing, learning from and with each other and working towards that Be You vision of creating a mentally healthy generation.
     
    Tomorrow we'll be shifting gear to concurrent sessions for different audiences. So there'll be a greater focus on practical strategies to support, grow and build empowered communities.
     
    You'll hear from the Be You team and others we work with including educators and support agencies.
     
    Reminder, if you're having technical issues, you can use the chat function And one of our moderators will be there to help you.
     
    So we'll get on with our final session and I want to welcome Sonia. Sonia and I have connected professionally for a number of years. We were talking about that earlier, and I'm really keen to hear what Sonia's perspective will be about empowering partnerships with families. So I will hand over to Sonia for her story.
     

    Sonia Regan

    Thank you, Sara. So as Sara said my name is Sonia Regan. And I am here today to talk about how we can build genuine authentic partnerships with families that empower and help build those mentally healthy communities that you've been talking about today and will do again tomorrow.
     
    So my the last 20 years I have been working in variety of roles areas all with a focus on supporting families and organisations to create positive outcomes for children and young people.
     
    Now this has been across a range of sectors. So this has included health, disability, education, community, early childhood and a little bit of child protection. So kind of a little bit of everything. But always, always with this focus on improving outcomes for children and young people and creating a better world and a better community at all levels.
     
    So throughout that time, I've also been navigating my own parenting journey. So I became a parent quite young. So I've sort of been going through this professional pathway and my parent pathway at the same time. And that's given me this really interesting kind of balance between parent and professional.
     
    What I found is that as a professional I can be more reflective as a parent, but as a parent I can be more empathetic as a professional. So, so this is really sort of given me that two sides of the same coin and created a really nice balancing act that helps me, I think, in both parts of my life.
     
    Throughout those, both of those journeys I've also had my own experiences with mental health, both in terms of my own personal mental health, my family, and more broadly as a carer of other family members.
     
    So that has really driven my passion for this idea of a mentally healthy community. And I think had the opportunity to come here today has brings all of those things together. The idea that we can work as professionals to empower families and create these mentally healthy communities. So, yeah, that's kind of my journey and how it sort of led me here today, which yeah, hopefully we can navigate everything, am I pressing the right button?
     
    Okay. Good start. All right.
     
    So I guess the first message around family partnerships is that we can do it better.
     
    I don't think we, I don't think we can ever get it exactly right. And I think there's always, there's always room for improvement. So what I'm going to cover today is some conversations about what doing it better looks like and how we can actually get there.
     
    We're also going to talk a little bit about why those partnerships matter and how they can lead us into a space of empowerment both in terms of the families we work with, us as educators and also the children and young people we're working with.
     
    Because it's so important. And doing partnership well actually matters to what we do. We want to make sure that we have some really strong strategies and a really strong framework that sits around the way that we do this work.
     
    And that will actually, we'll kind of wrap up with some, some ideas in that space around how we can bring together what's most important to actually move those partnerships forward.
     
    So because positive partner, because there's positive family partnerships. These positive family partnerships are important because they help us build these foundations for mentally healthy communities.
     
    So I'm interested about this idea that you've been talking today about empowerment and I'd love to know what people think it feels like to be empowered. So if in a mentally healthy community, we are empowered. What does that actually feel like? What is the, how do we experience empowerment? 
     
    So I think we've got a question. Yep. So if you want to pop your ideas in the chat about what you think it feels like to be empowered. And I know that, you know, when we, when we observed families who feel empowered, families will report to us that they feel heard. They feel understood. And they feel like they've been listened to.
     
    We, we tend to see that these families will actually engage more positively in our services, more positively with, with professionals, both educators and external professionals as well.
     
    And we hear that educators who are feeling empowered and more open and curious, they're more willing to maybe take risks in their workplace and maybe ask questions and learn more. They're more satisfied in the workplace and more able to meet families where they're at.
     
    And as part of this, we also want to make sure that children and young people are feeling empowered. How are they part of these partnerships and part of this mentally healthy community and do they, and what's their role in that? What does it feel like for them to be empowered?
     
    Okay. So, so we have, so we know that it's important to feel empowered because we know that that gives us all of these great things around being able to speak up and being able to feel like we have this positive wellbeing that we're actually doing something meaningful. 
     
    But how do we build those partnerships and what, what are we actually talking about?
     
    So when we talk about a partnership, we're talking about something that is, that is two way. That we sort of, we have this kind of duality and we support each other's development. We support the learning and guidance of each other. We sort of, we had this dance going on that we kind of, you know, back and forth with the way that we share those, those ideas. And we work towards a common goal.
     
    And neither of us is an expert. So we, we value each other's contribution in that partnership. And neither of us actually considers the other more of an expert or less of an expert.
     
    Now within this partnership, we also want to give each other space to be vulnerable. To actually say, I don't know the answer to this. I don't know what what that means or what that could look like. But to feel safe in actually expressing that vulnerability.
     
    We also need to be able to give up some power to do that.
     
    So that vulnerability needs to be mutual. We need to actually both feel like we can give up some power and put ourselves in that vulnerable space.
     
    So I had a really interesting situation where my own son was was quite young I think he was about two, and an educator approached me, actually probably younger, and an educator approached me and said she was concerned about his development. And because we had at least the early stages of a partnership we were able to work through that together. She wasn't really sure what, what this development thing was all about, she wasn't quite sure what, what direction we were headed.
     
    I knew obviously even less, so together we actually navigated that pathway around, seeking out some external supports, getting some some assessments and some, some early intervention in place.
     
    And because we did that together, we created this really strong, a trusting relationship where neither of us was an expert, neither of us had more or less investment in the situation. And we both were working towards this shared goal of working out what was going on and ensuring the best possible outcome for my son.
     
    That partnership then obviously supported him and supported me and empowered me to then move forward going into primary school, preschool and his later years.
     
    Okay, so we might just quickly check the chat before we go into the next.
     
    We're all good. Okay. Great.
     
    Alright, so because it's really important for us to all be quite vulnerable in this space, one of the things that we need to consider is a humanism, I guess, that we all have shared experiences. We're all human. We all come. We all turn up each day we stuff going on. We all have baggage from our lives.
     
    And part of part of being able to commit to a partnership and invest in a partnership is that we become mindful and aware of these shared experiences and these kinds of human life stories.
     
    So we're just going to jump into a poll and look at how we actually, sorry, what, what life's experiences we have had recently and how these have impacted on our mental health on the way that we engage with families, the way that we build these partnerships.
     
    So, what I'm going to do is pop a slide I guess it is, it's a slide with 20 different life experiences that you may or may not have experienced in the last three months. And I'm just going to ask you to kind of count them. So have a bit of a look at the slide.
     
    Do a bit of count, take off your socks if you need to, but do a bit of a count and work out how many of these have actually touched you personally. How many have, have actually been a part of your life?
     
    Now just before we jump onto that slide I just wanted to make a note that as has been mentioned already today, and I think Sara touched on it as well, is that look after yourself in this process.
     
    This is not an opportunity for you to beat up on yourself about all of the things that are going, going wrong.
     
    This is actually an opportunity for you to be reflective and mindful. And also to acknowledge that there is stuff that may impact our day-to-day work.
     
    So just be mindful and look after yourself going through this process as well.
     
    If you do a quick count. So I think there's 20 in total.
     
    And just select and just kind of go through and have a look at it whether you think you've experienced none, between one and four, between five and 10. Or perhaps more than 10.
     

    Sara Richardson

    Just having something coming through. Between one and fours hitting the amrk mostly for people, Sonia. 
     

    Sonia Regan

    Yeah. Great.
     

    Sara Richardson

    Some people have had more than 10. 
     

    Sonia Regan

    Yep.
     
    And if we think about some of the families that we work with and some of the experiences that they may be having as well, we can start to see how there's there's some genuine human connection here and this real shared experience that we're all. I mean, things like, you know, the COVID pandemic has, has impacted all of us really. Hasn't it? 
     
    I mean, it's it's hard to, for that to have not influenced your life, whether or not you and your family have experienced COVID directly. The, the changes in our communities has been huge.
     

    Sara Richardson

    Apparently there's a question coming through. 
     

    Sonia Regan

    Okay. We've just got some questions. We're just. 
     

    Sara Richardson

    So the question is about, I don't, I don't want to feel like I can't see the forest for the trees and sometimes I feel overwhelmed with the information and unsure about how to navigate.
     

    Sonia Regan

    Yeah. So, and sometimes these life experiences can actually cloud what's going on and we do get really caught up in this. And I think one of the challenges when we're working with families is for us not, not to dive in there with them.
     
    That it's really important that we're aware of this.
     
    And we actually, you know, we were emphatic and we're mindful of what's going on for them, but not that we actually get invested in what's going on for them. We may actually need to be seeking external support to actually manage some of this so that we don't get caught up in it. 
     

    Sara Richardson

    The other thing I was thinking about too Sonia is there's a mix there of we were talking before that personal and professional and you can't separate them out. They are part of who you are. And they're part of our, our experience and they all contribute and add. And it's interesting looking at the poll now.
     
    Over 50 or 50% of people are saying between five and 10.
     
    Yeah, there are lots of things going on. And it is that overwhelming. You know, it can be overwhelming for yourself as well as, you know, the other people around you too, and being a mindful of that. 
     

    Sonia Regan

    Yeah, absolutely. And I think, and they can often feed into each other as well. So, you know, there's certainly some here that you know, for example, you may have had a change change in your job, and that has then led to, you know, potentially some changes to your financial situation. Or sometimes, sometimes things can actually play off each other a little bit as well.

    Sara Richardson

    Yeah, I think we can probably close the poll now.
     

    Sonia Regan

    Yep. Yep. Absolutely.
     
    So, yes, as I said, I think it's what this shows us is that we all have. Now we don't, obviously we don't all tick all the boxes and I'm not going to ask anyone to actually share which boxes they ticked.
     
    But just knowing that over 50% of people are actually experiencing multiple life's life factors, for want one of a better way to describe it, that I think what that shows us is that we are all human and we all do have stuff. 
     
    Now whether or not we can see how that stuff plays out in our workplace might depend. You know, some days it might show up more than others.
     
    And families are in the same situation. So families are experiencing you know, multiple factors, multiple things on that list.
     
    Then we can expect that they're probably having some challenges in showing up in a positive way as well.
     
    So we want to kind of try and find a place where we actually can have some empathy for each other.
     
    That we can see each other's points of view and that we can have this sort of shared journey of being human and shared journey of, you know, looking out for our children in that space.
     
    So, because by being, by being vulnerable, when by identifying as shared humanity we can actually start to get on the same page. And in that the kind of equal space, I guess.
     
    We want to make sure, so in terms of building partnerships, that's where we want to be right. We want to be in that equal space. We want to both feel safe, to be vulnerable, to actually kind of recognise that you know, perhaps today's not a good day for me to have this conversation because something happens last night at home.
     
    Or perhaps you know, someone else might be a better person to have this conversation because you know, they're going through you know, they're having a good day and they're actually much stronger today than I am. So maybe that's actually going to work better.
     
    The other thing is recognising that we all are wearing different hats. So I mentioned at the start that, that I'm both a parent and a professional, and I can't differentiate those as. 
     
    As Sara said, you know, we can't differentiate one from the other. And you know, for the people in regional communities, you may actually be wearing other hats in your interactions with families as well. You might also be the local footy coach or something like that. So you actually need to be able to have, have a space to be vulnerable when to go, you know what? I don't have all the answers and that's okay.
     
    We're also not always very good at actually saying I need help. I'm not okay. And I need help.
     
    Because we do feel like we have to kind of have this stoic kind of presentation, you know, like I have all the answers and I have, we put up this curtain to sort of say that you know, I'm an expert and I, I can do this.
     
    But that's not always the best way to engage with parents and with families because they because it creates that division and we don't have that kind of equal partnership equal footing.
     
    Having said all of that. We also need to be really mindful of course, of our professional boundaries, because we don't want to put ourselves in a position that actually jeopardises our professionalism either. So we actually need to, and this is what I said before about not diving in. So not getting invested in the details that knowing, knowing the scope of your role and knowing where to bring somebody else in. 
     
    So for example, if you're not a counsellor, and the family needs the counsellor, bring a counsellor in, or refer them out to a counsellor that we actually have some really clear kind of boundaries about what is and is not our roles. So you can be empathetic without actually going beyond that.
     
    And again, in that process to look after yourself to maintain your own wellbeing. 
     
    I think the previous session, one of the earliest sessions was in relation to how we maintain our own wellbeing. And I think that's really important in that process as well is to identify your strategies for self-care.
     
    We know it's not easy and we know it can kind of, you know, bring up some stuff for ourselves. But when we get it right, it's good.
     
    We can create these, these great communities that are mentally healthy and people feel empowered and it's kind of, you know, we're all making good decisions and we're getting better outcomes for the children and young people that we're working with.
     
    So, what we start to see is we see the children and young people are engaging better in, in our classrooms or in our learning environments. 
     
    They're showing more interest in learning and they've shown displaying more positive behaviour. They are developing stronger social relationships, have stronger resilience and better mental health.
     
    And we start to see children reporting that they're feeling valued in our spaces and that they have a voice that they can speak up and share their ideas, share their opinions.
     
    We also have families who we start to see families kind of contributing and engaging in a more positive way.
     
    I've actually had some families that I've worked with and really develop these great partnerships with that have actually used the skills that we have kind of crafted in that partnership to then go on and become leaders in their communities or, you know, take on workplace roles and things like that, that they wouldn't have done if we hadn't built their confidence and built their empowered them really to actually step up and, and find their voice and find their value.
     
    And of course as educators, being empowered means that we minimise burnout. We improve the work culture. We start to actually feel like we're making a difference for young people and for families, we can start to really get those rewards.
     
    And actually, I mean, this is why we work with children, right. We work with children because we want to see outcomes. And when we start to see children engaging in this way, we can really feel that sort of work satisfaction and those outcomes coming to life.
     
    So we're just going to jump into a video.
     
    You ready to play the video? Yep.
     
    They say it takes a village to raise a child and we know full, full well here that it's not just the educators on the floor here with the children. We need to be mindful of what's going on at home. Schools are only there you know, six hours a day, five days a week.
     
    We can't have eyes on students 24/7. We need to work in partnership, it has to be a collaboration space.
     
    To set up a trusting relationship with the families it allows us hopefully to put in preventative measures if necessary before something comes. 
     
    We meet with each family, we get to know a little bit about the family structure and organisation, as well as assessing what learning needs the child might have. When parents have prepaid to talk to the school and share strategies and then try them at home so that we have consistent approaches at both school and home and also school listening to what the parents are doing at home so that we can copy some of those strategies as well. It's great for the children's mental health and wellbeing. 
     
    So these strategies that we use have benefited our families in a number of ways. I guess the most important part of that is we see more open communication around our families. Both within their family unit and with us as educators.
     
    They all love their children, they want to protect their young people and when they know that you're there to help and support them, do to do that you can really work in, in partnership. 
     
    To create best practice partnerships, the best advice I think I would have, would be to be well-trained and well-versed on the information that's available from the professionals. Second to that would be keep lines of communication open at all times. And that is a difficult thing to do sometimes because there are families who are perhaps not on the same page as we are here. However, if we dig in a little bit and we work a bit harder to get that really good line of communication open it's very much well worth it.
     

    Sonia Regan

    Okay. So. The video talks a lot about the importance of partnerships and how we kind of develop those partnerships with families.
     
    I'm interested to know what you think it feels like to be in a partnership. So, what do you think Sara, what do you think it feels like to actually work in partnership. I know we've worked together before. What do you think that kind of feels like in this? 
     

    Sara Richardson

    It's interesting, isn't it? Because you are, we asked that question before about what does it feel like to be empowered? And I'm thinking about what's the difference between being feeling empowered and feeling like I'm in a true, authentic partnership.
     
    Cause there's a difference between feeling like you're asking me a question and I'm responding and that's not a partnership.
     
    So if I, if I'm in a partnership, I will feel like I can tell you what's going on for me or ask you a question with that vulnerability you were talking about, like, you know, I don't know how to do this, or I'm not sure what to do without feeling like it's going to be any judgment or anything like that.
     
    And then I think you also talked about that too, like finding that way forward. So not just having that conversation, but that partnership really feels like there's a full, a future orientation, maybe.
     
    What would you say? 
     

    Sonia Regan

    Yeah, so I guess, yeah. And I guess when I feel like I'm in partnership, I feel like my ideas are a value, even if they're not fully formed. You know, sometimes, sometimes I go into a conversation not really knowing how to put it together and that's okay.
     
    Then I can actually go in and just, you know, pull bits of ideas together and to, you know, together we can kind of create something that I think. And as a way of, as a way of, I guess, finding a solution. That we sort of do that in a creative way. Almost like putting puzzle pieces together.
     

    Sara Richardson

    Yeah.
     

    Sonia Regan

    But it's not, I think it also feels kind of like, I'm not alone, like I'm not alone in whatever this problem is I'm trying to solve, that we're not alone in that. And I think that's, that feels really reassuring. And, and I think, I think helps with that sense of belonging and connection as well. 
     

    Sara Richardson

    Yeah. And if I'm in the partnership with, with the teacher or an early childhood educator, the reason I'm in that partnership is because of my child. And so I want the focus to be on that. 
     
    And the other thing I'm wondering about though and we just go sideways a little bit, of course, but you know, you, and I suppose, are both able to talk, we'll talk a lot and that's going to be how we do that. But there are other people who don't do that. So I was thinking about matching the style too, or, you know, thinking about if there's parents who aren't so forthcoming or more reserved.
     
    What kind of what that partnership might be like for them? And how I might have to adjust my style to support them.
     
    And I know we're not talking about that yet. But yeah. 
     

    Sonia Regan

    Yeah. Well, and I guess it's that you know, kind of, so, so for example, some, some families may verbal communication may not be their strong point. And so to be able to match with them around, you know, you don't want to be kind of talking at a hundred miles a minute. And then the parent is kind of sitting back and just not really getting a space to talk. 
     
    So, so I think creating space for parents is also about creating the time, even beyond, you know, actually creating the emotional space. 
     
    I think we also need to give them time to process and to actually meet us where we're up to. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. All right.
     
    So, once we kind of identified these, what, what it feels like to be in partnership. Right? So we kind of, we know that being in partnership is something that we want to work towards because we know that that's how we get things done. We know that we can't do a puzzle ourselves if someone else is holding some of the pieces. So, so we need to actually find a way to do this in a way that is effective.
     
    So, how do we actually do that? What are the elements that we need?
     
    So, this is the framework I was talking about before. So the first, the first part of this is about knowledge.
     
    So, we actually need to look at does everyone in the partnership have the knowledge that they need to participate effectively in that partnership.
     
    So we're talking about families in terms of that, perhaps they're not comfortable in our learning environment, perhaps they didn't have a positive education experience themselves. In which case their level of knowledge may be way back here. And we may need to support them around building up some knowledge about what a positive learning environment looks like because they haven't experienced that. So.
     
    Without that knowledge, they can't participate effectively in the partnership with us.
     
    We also need some knowledge about the family. So in the video, they talked about having knowledge of the child's developmental status. Potentially something about the family's background. We need a little bit of that so that we know how to engage effectively. 
     
    So for example, if we know that a grandparent is a primary carer, then we don't want to actually jump in and ask for mum and dad you know, to kind of be in the room and have the conversation. 
     
    So, so we need a little bit of knowledge to actually be respectful in that engagement.
     
    But we also need to be mindful that not everybody's going to be at the same level with that knowledge and how do we actually make sure everyone can participate as effectively as possible.
     
    When we think about children and young people, if we bring them into the partnership as well, which of course we should, this is going to look a little bit different. So a child who's three, the level of knowledge that they require to participate might be as simple as just knowing there is a partnership.
     
    Whereas, if you're bringing a 15 year old into the conversation, the knowledge that they need is more likely to be about their options for the future, or it might be about knowledge around their strengths. So we kind of start to think about different types of knowledge that we need to participate and make decisions within the partnership.
     
    And that will look different for each, each person in that partnership.
     
    Once we have some knowledge, then we can start to look at the how we work in partnership to build each other's confidence. So.
     
    We know that, you know, when we, when we feel like we know something, we feel a little bit more confident to actually speak up and share our mind, share our ideas.
     
    The challenge we have in this partnership space is that if we don't think that we're going to be heard, we come in in a combatative way.
     
    So what this is where we see parents come in and this is often the criticism we get right about developing partnerships with parents is that parents just want to fight. They just want, they just come in and they argue about everything or they come in and they challenge us. 
     
    If we think about that a little bit differently, I mean remembering of course this is their children, right? So as you said, this is why we're in relay in partnership.
     
    But it's also about, do they feel recognised? Do they feel heard and valued within the partnership?
     
    Because I know for me that if I feel like I have to share my resume and I have to you know, jump up and down to be heard, I'm going to come across as a bit more aggressive than if someone says you have value and you, you matter, you are part of this and let's do it together.
     
    So that, that idea of actually giving people and supporting, holding a place for people to develop that confidence and that we support each others kind of strengthen and capacity building in that space as well.
     
    And the third component is that we are, we do feel supported. That we actually feel like we have support from each other, so within the partnership.
     
    But then we also feel more likely to, that we actually feel like we likely to seek support, seek guidance and ask questions. 
     
    So for family, if a family's feeling like they're supported by you in the partnership, but they're more likely to come to you and actually have those conversations.
     
    And if you, and I think the same thing for educators is educators also need to feel like they are being well supported by, by leadership.
     
    Even by external providers, really, depending on the family situation.
     
    So we all need to feel like we have some supports around us. This is kind of holding space for us and holding, holding us accountable, but also holding yeah, holding us, I guess for want of a better way to put that.
     
    Because if we can do this well, if we can have shared knowledge within the partnership, we can have this shared knowledge, building confidence of each other and in a supportive way where all parties are supported to participate in the partnership, that we can actually really start to see how that can create those mentally healthy, integrated, supportive communities.
     
    Okay. So. What we've done. So what we've kind of gone through is this journey from how we actually, so how we kind of look at partnerships. So what is a partnership. What is empowerment and what we, how we kind of move through developing a partnership that is genuine and authentic and how that then creates empowerment and builds this sort of mentally healthy community.
     
    So in terms of the Be You messaging and bringing it back to what this looks like in terms of Be You support, how would you kind of recommend we sort of pull that together Sara around being able to look at those partnerships in that way within a Be You community?
     

    Sara Richardson

    Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Because the focus for Be You is around mental health and knowing that mental health is that continuum of mental health, where, where sometimes we have really great mental health and sometimes we have mental health challenges.
     
    And I was thinking about that as you were talking like, you know, these partnerships we have with families are not always going to be where there's an issue or where there's a concern for a child's mental health or wellbeing.
     
    It could be around opportunities where things are going well and thinking about maximising and leveraging those opportunities to think about how do we build this mentally healthy community where as many people as possible feel empowered, take care of their own wellbeing. 
     
    Like we were talking about before in one of the previous sessions, you know, having a plan for wellbeing and actually making a plan for this and being intentional about it.
     
    Ask me your question again, because I'm not sure if I answered it.
     

    Sonia Regan

    Yeah, I guess, I guess I'm interested to know. I mean, I'm sort of, you know, looking at this in terms of what does it look like around specifically around how we build these partnerships and how those partnerships can empower both the children, the families and the educators.
     
    Yeah, how do we then kind of be supported, so obviously, you know, the third circle is around support. So the types of support that Be You could offer us to be able to progress those partnerships and kind of wrap around those.
     

    Sara Richardson

    So, I guess, thank you for asking me again because I went off on a tangent with something else that was in my head.
     
    And, and so obviously Be You has it has a framework and one of the elements is around partnerships with families. So Be You acknowledges that this is a critical element to creating mentally healthy communities. 
     
    And so there's, there is professional learning, which you can engage in as an individual, but I think it's the most differences is made where you might, where you decide as a, as a whole school or as a whole learning community you know, early learning community, what that's going to be. What that's going to look like and, and, and be intentional and plan for it and, and use what the resources, there's fact sheets, there's planning tools that you can make use of too, to think about what you're going to do. 
     
    And talk about it together with your whole staff team. And you were talking before about the knowledge, you know, what is, what knowledge do we need to know, but what knowledge do we, are we going to talk about with families and children so that it isn't just our plan as educators it's everybody's plan.
     
    So that we're all kind of aware of where we're heading with it and, and clear and explicit about what, what that means.
     

    Sonia Regan

    And cause I guess one of the challenges is I've been talking about partnerships as though it's only two people as though it's kind of an educator and a parent and nobody else.
     
    And I think in that context it would be easy. Right. And we would have, you know, this, this really easy kind of relationship.
     
    But the reality is that it's often it's, it's an educator and 20 parents or 30 parents so, I guess what it is what it's about is how do we create those, that culture of, you know, actually being, being there for that many people really isn't it. I mean, it's how do we create a culture that promotes that type of connection and relationship between educator and family on scale.
     
    You know that we want to do it. You know, across the entire site and not just be the one family.
     
    And, you know, like you say the knowledge, I mean, I used the example before of potentially a family who haven't had a positive experience and how do we actually then get them to that point. 
     
    So, you know, and it may be that, you know, it's a we have like family nights or we have, you know, activities like that that actually promote positive spaces so that we can start to move families through that journey. And there might be families who are already comfortable.
     
    But if we include them as well, we can help everybody get to that same point, so everyone has an adequate amount of knowledge to participate in the partnership. So sometimes I think we think about this stuff too theoretically or too big picture.
     
    But it could be as simple as a movie night, you know, on a Tuesday night with families. So it could, it could be something that's a little bit, a little bit simpler. 
     

    Sara Richardson

    Yeah. And so just the doing is really powerful.
     
    I think also that, and we talked about this in a previous session, is knowing that we come with particular views or perspectives or assumptions.
     
    And, you know, it's interesting. You were talking about some families have knowledge in different layers and, and for some of us, it's easier to engage with some families for all sorts of reasons.
     
    You know, it's, it's a more easy, natural fit and there's other families where you don't want to. And it's, you know, and challenging yourself and your own biases, but not just doing that on an individual level, but collectively doing that together. And that's where that support notion comes from what is, what is it that we want to do?
     
    How do we see families and how do we value, you know, what, what do we not just write it in your philosophy or write it in your statement, but what does that really mean here? And what does it look like? Because if you don't do that as well, you might have a movie night and then two parents come the same two parents come who always come.
     
    And so and then you go, oh, well see there we go. We won't do that again because it didn't work.
     

    Sonia Regan

    Yeah.
     
    And, and it might be, so if the movie night isn't working, it might be that we need to go back even further with that, with that stuff. And it might need to be a one-to-one approach before we can actually get them to attend that. 
     
    So. And I mean, you'll know the families that you're working with and what that looks like for them. It may also be about using your connections in the broader community. So how do we actually you know, engage with community Elders, for example, or, or other sort of role models in the community that can help bring those families to us.
     
    And kind of, I guess, advocate for us as a safe space and say that this is some somewhere you can go and be trusted.
     

    Sara Richardson

    I'm thinking one of the things too, you know, and I can imagine people sitting there listening, going here, but I haven't got time for this because I've got so many other things in this crowded curriculum. And that's one of the things that I think is important and Be You can help you with is actually making time, carving out time to and spend time thinking, talking, planning, and doing to this. 
     
    And it's interesting, one of the questions that's coming through is how do you keep children at the centre of the partnership?
     
    And how do you. Well, I'll read the question to make sure that I'm not just paraphrasing what they've just said, but you know, how do you keep the voice of the child at the centre when working with families?
     

    Sonia Regan

    Yeah. And I guess part of it, so there's probably two parts of that. So how do we keep the child at the centre? I think that comes back to that shared goal.
     
    So we think about what is a partnership, a partnership is this interaction where we have a shared goal.
     
    So the child is our shared goal. The outcome for the child, we all want the same thing. You know, parents, as much as we might think, sometimes the parents are on a different track. They, they still want what's best for their child. They just may define what's best as different.
     
    Now I think the voice of the child is kind of another layer of that because to bring the child into the partnership in an authentic, genuine way we actually do need to understand what it's like from the child's perspective.
     
    Now for younger children, this can look a little bit different, cause we might actually be looking at things like child behaviour. We might be observing how they're interacting with particular educators or in a particular environment with older children. 
     
    I think, I think we can have a conversation, you know, I think certainly by the time they're in primary school and into high school, we can be having a conversation is where do you feel comfortable? Who who's your who's your go-to person? Who's your comfort, who's your comfortable person?
     
    And I think children pretty young can identify who their person is.
     
    And I think that can help us really identify what it is about that person. So for example, you know, I only liked the short teacher because the short teacher reminds me of my mom, you know, like what are those things that are actually going on for kids and sometimes it's sometimes it's that simple and it's not something that's, you know, kind of glossy and theoretical, it can be something really simple and practical.
     

    Sara Richardson

    It's interesting. It makes me think about also going back to that that conversation we had about shared experience.
     
    You know, just remembering the humanness of that with children, as well as with their families that this child has a particular view because it matters to them and, and they've got stuff going on too.
     
    But, you know, being, having a genuine opportunity to even just talk about that.
     
    I remember when I was working with this epiphany to me, which now seems ridiculous, but you know, what about if I just asked a parent what they valued. You know, you were talking before about how do we keep the child at the centre.
     
    But of course we want the same thing, but we're heading, we could be heading in different directions. And if I didn't ever stop and say, well, what is what what's important to you? Because I'm busy showing them around the room and showing them this. And joining them that, and they're not interested in. And so I make assumptions that they don't care, but I haven't actually asked them yet.
     

    Sonia Regan

    And what they care is that you're opening and closing times are at the right time so that they can actually, you know, provide for their family right.
     

    Sara Richardson

    So we're not ever at the cross, we're not crossing over so, we could keep talking forever.
     

    Sonia Regan

    I know we could. We often do. 
     
    Yeah, thank you for your questions. That's really useful.
     

    Sara Richardson

    So as we move into the final couple of few minutes I guess what we would be interested in is really thinking about what your next steps are. And what you are looking, what you are going to do. What people are going to do next. And like Sonia said, I think we, you know, we've talked a lot about a number of things, and it's really easy to get too big.
     
    And sometimes just bringing it right back and just making one, even just to notice or to look at things slightly differently, or to think about that shared experience could be the thing.
     

    Sonia Regan

    And I think if, I think if the only thing that you take away from this conversation is to be more mindful and empathetic that families are ticking those boxes as well.
     
    I think, I think that's, that can be a really powerful place to start in engaging families. Yeah.
     

    Sara Richardson

    So if we think about what that might look like in terms of Be You, and like you were asking before about what Be You is, one of the great resources that we have alongside the professional learning and the events and sessions that we have is that we, when you're participating in Be You have a consultant help you think about what that might look like in your service.
     
    And so you can connect in with a consultant. So that's a really great reason to register. You can also attend one of our sessions where we can you can have more conversations like this. So.
     
    You can go on the website and register for a range of different topics and things like that, that will really help you explore these topics in a little bit more detail. And there are opportunities for ones that are more open and you can come with whatever question you've got to kind of continue this conversation.
     
    And the people who work for Be You want to talk about this all the time. So, you know, this is what our work is. So we'd love to have you come along to some of those sessions and join in further conversations about that as well. 
     
    And we've got a whole range of planning tools. You know, I talked before about, about planning. I think there's a number of tools that you can use that will really help. Sometimes people need a bit of structure to help them think about what next and how to manage that, I guess.
     
    So again, I guess we thinking about wrapping up. I know we could keep, keep talking.
     
    So if you if you really want to, as I said, learn more about this particular topic, you can come along to some sessions, but more generally, if you want to learn more about Be You as I said, register as a whole learning community to think about bringing mental health to everything you do. 
     
    And then using that framework to really pay attention to particular things like family partnerships or some of the other elements of the framework.
     
    Just head on to our website and you can, you can, there's a range of things there to find out. 
     
    Remember to connect with us on our socials, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Be You YouTube as well with the video that we watched is actually one of our Be You videos. So you can find them on our YouTube channel, as well as in the professional learning.
     
    You use the Virtual Conference hashtag #BeYouVirtual. 
     
    So tomorrow, tomorrow, as we're heading into wrapping up today and heading into tomorrow, I think engaging in that way would be really great as well.
     
    Thank you.
     
    So I just guess as we come to the end of the session I'd really like to thank everybody for their, for coming today.
     
    Particularly want to say thank you to Sonia for having this chat. When I said to you, Hey, let's do this. You're like, okay.
     
    But you know, Sonia brings a really important perspective around that that shared experience and that bringing people into the, at the centre of this. And I think like you said, I think we could easily theorise about things, but making sure that doing relationships really well is actually at the heart of this work. 
     
    And when people do feel empowered, which is why we asked you those two questions, what does it feel like to be empowered? And what does it feel like to be in partnership then? I think we were working towards something that's really important and that's kind of at the heart of your work as well. So I really want to thank everybody for coming today, I want to thank you for your engagement, for your questions, for your chat. 
     
    I know that we didn't, weren't even looking at that today cause we would've got lost in that, but I really want to thank you for joining in. Really want to commend all of the presenters for their presentations. We've had such an amazing range of things to listen to and think about and learn from today. And I'm looking really looking forward to tomorrow.
     
    And where we will delve into some more strategies based on early learning or school sectors. And so you can come along to some concurrent sessions as well.
     
    And, thanks very much. And we'll see you all tomorrow.


    End of transcript. 

Hear from Sonia Regan, an experienced and passionate advocate for co-creating environments that empower children and young people. Together with Be You National Manager Sara Richardson, Sonia explores practical strategies and tools to build partnerships with families for empowered and mentally healthy communities. Join Sonia and Sara and reflect on the integral role your beliefs and practices have on partnerships with families and communities.

Audience: Early childhood, primary and secondary school educators
Recorded: 08/06/22

Last updated: November, 2024