Aussie Childcare Network Forum

Q.1 What concerns do you feel Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families may have when they accessing early years care for the first time?
Q.2 What could you do to ensure all families feel valued and welcomed as they access your service?
Q.3 List three strategies you could implement in your service to enhance the children's knowledge and understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture?
Q.4 Look at the Early Years Learning Framework and identify which outcomes;
would demonstrate that you are working in a respectful and sensitive way with diverse cultures.
show that you are enhancing the children's awareness and understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture.
demonstrate that you are providing a welcoming environment for all families.

Answers:
1. They feel racist or discriminated because of their language. elder having worry about moral values which they don't want to lose.
2.Giving all families warm welcome by talking them nicely, listen them and respond in a appropriate manner, feel them special.
3. Display Aboriginal artefact in the centre, reading dreamtime stories, showing videos.
4. no idea

please help me any ideas will be appreciated really very stuck, thanks a lot in advance

thanks a lot lorina for your great help.

thought i could help you out with question one as I work in remote WA in a town with a very large population of aboriginal families.

We actually don't have a huge number of aboriginal children in the centre and here are some reasons why.

Families are not educated on the rebates available to them if they were to put their children into care so many stay away thinking its a high costs they cant afford.

Its not in their culture to have non family caring for their children its actually really frowned upon so we find a huge amount of extended families are not supportive of sending children to day care as they don't know the benefits it can have for a child.

Also for question three....we have found a lot of families who are supportive of children being in care are more than willing to come into centres and share their culture. you just have to ask

hope this helps

chelsea.brooks wrote:QR_BBPOST thought i could help you out with question one as I work in remote WA in a town with a very large population of aboriginal families.

Thanks so much for sharing such practical info! Since you work with Indigenous families what types of support or experiences do you provide to make it an inclusive environment? Besides having posters and dream time stories what more can we do? I am asking from a service who doesn't have any Indigenous families...

,
Lorina