As an early childhood educator you play an important role in supporting children’s social and emotional wellbeing. Quality relationships, responsive partnerships and play-based programs that include the children’s interests and opportunities to feel like they belong, creates a positive foundation for restoring a sense of safety and security. All children will respond differently and it is important for the educators to tune-in to the needs of each child.
Practices that support children | Revisiting Belonging, Being, Becoming | Links to NQS
Appropriate practices | Practice considerations | Differentiated responses
Bushfire resources | Everyday resources | Social stories and play to support processing
Opportunities for children and educators to be calm | Practices to support effective transitions | Managing challenging behaviours
Australian Children's Education & Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) provides a range of foundational documents that support educators to meet legislative requirements and provide better outcomes for children. Educators should revisit the National Quality Standard and the Approved Learning Frameworks to draw on their own knowledge and expertise of good quality practice that is underpinned by the National Quality Standards and Early Years Learning Framework. Established practice will support educators and provide good outcomes for children.
Victorian Government
This resource explains trauma and children aged 2-5 years. It is not specific to bushfires, however bushfires listed as a traumatic event and it contains information that will assist educators to respond appropriately.
Natural Disaster Recovery Storybook resource to share with children: Birdie and the fire is a free e-book that you can watch on an iPad with a small group of children or on a large screen with a group to facilitate conversation in a safe and age-appropriate experience.
The site also has a range of Birdie experiencing other disasters that may be useful for sharing with children to process recovery
Educators can use social stories to help support conversations and processing information about the bushfires, this may be particularly useful for children with Autism. These should be used when relevant to an Individual learning plan.
Bushfire Education Victoria tab, has information on learning about bushfires, preparing, responding and recovering from bushfires. Lessons are included that could be contextualised to your children and service.
In response to the Victorian bushfires a decade ago, a project was conducted to create teacher resources with input from Australian Child and Adolescent trauma, loss & grief network (ACATLGN).
An overview for Preschool aged children: Trauma responses in pre-schoolers
All ACATLGN resources can be downloaded and printed or can be ordered by contacting earlytraumagrief@anu.edu.au
Bushfire Education Victoria has information regarding the Early Years about learning about bushfires, preparing, responding and recovering from bushfires. Lessons are included that could be contextualized to your children and service.
The Preschool Situational Self-Regulation Toolkit (PRSIST)
The PRSIST program is a collection of professional learning videos, adult practices, low-cost, play based and everyday child activities that support self-regulation. This resource will build capacity for educators to respond to all children with routines and practices that support positive behaviour.
