In this topic, learners will gain a deeper understanding of how to effectively implement the service's health and safety policies and procedures. It will cover how to work collaboratively with colleagues and management to ensure policies are correctly applied and regularly updated. Additionally, the focus will be on the responsibility of educators for ongoing training and professional development, emphasising the importance of prioritising children's health and safety.
By the end of this topic, you will learn to:
- Understand the role of all staff in following and implementing policies
- Inform stakeholders, including families and children, about relevant policies
- Ensure compliance with health and safety policies for yourself and other staff
- Take responsibility for educating others about policies
- Recognise the requirements for ongoing health and safety training in ECEC
- Reflect on and improve your own health and safety practices
- Contribute to and enhance health and safety policies.
Along with understanding your role in health and safety policies, everyone in the workplace has a part in helping others, including children, families, contractors, visitors and other workers, in accessing and understanding them.
As a professional, you must model the behaviours and procedures set out in the service policies. It is also your responsibility to monitor the safe behaviour of others, including other staff and families, and take steps to ensure that policy breaches are corrected and reported, or both.
Accessing Policies
It is crucial that all staff, volunteers and contractors can access policies and procedures readily. Many policies that relate to children and families should also be provided or easily accessible to families. Depending on the service, health and safety policies might be found:
Educators can access policies and procedures in various ways at an early learning service:
- Digital Platforms: Many services store their policies on a shared drive, intranet, or cloud-based platform (e.g., Google Drive, Dropbox), which educators can access online at any time.
- Policy Manuals: Services often provide hard copies of policy and procedure manuals located in staff rooms, offices, or resource libraries, which educators can consult.
- Staff Meetings and Training: Regular staff meetings or professional development sessions may be dedicated to reviewing and updating policies and procedures.
- Noticeboards: Some services post key policies, updates, or changes on noticeboards in staff areas for easy reference.
- Orientation Programs: During orientation or onboarding, new educators are usually given access to the service’s policies and procedures, either through printed materials or links to digital resources.
- Email Updates or Newsletters: Some services provide updates via email, distributing policy changes or reminders of existing procedures directly to educators.
These methods ensure educators stay informed and can consistently follow the service’s protocols.
Policy Breaches
Policy breaches in early childhood services can have far-reaching consequences, affecting multiple aspects of the service. Here’s a more detailed look at the impacts and why adherence to policies is essential:
| Compromised Child Safety and Well-being | Early childhood policies are designed to protect children’s health, safety, and emotional well-being. Failing to follow these policies can result in incidents such as accidents, injuries, or exposure to harmful environments. For example, not adhering to supervision policies could lead to a child wandering off, or neglecting hygiene practices could cause the spread of infectious diseases. |
| Legal and Regulatory Ramifications | Early learning services are bound by regulations such as the National Quality Framework (NQF) in Australia, which includes compliance with the National Law and Regulations. Breaching policies could result in non-compliance with these legal standards, leading to regulatory penalties, suspension of the service’s license, or even closure. It may also expose the service to legal action from parents or guardians if harm comes to a child due to negligence. |
| Loss of Trust and Reputation | When policies are ignored, parents and guardians may lose confidence in the service’s ability to care for their children. This can damage the service’s reputation, potentially leading to declining enrollments and financial losses. Trust is a fundamental element in early childhood education, and policy breaches can severely impact relationships with families. |
| Harm to Staff Morale and Professional Integrity | Educators depend on policies to guide their professional conduct and create a safe, supportive environment. Policy breaches can lead to confusion, inconsistency, and tension among staff. When one educator disregards policies, it may undermine the entire team's professionalism and create a culture where rules are not respected, which can negatively affect staff morale. |
| Child Development Impact | Policies related to curriculum, behavior management, and inclusion are crucial for supporting the developmental needs of children. If educators do not follow these guidelines, it can hinder the children’s learning and growth. For example, breaching policies on inclusive education may lead to some children not receiving the support they need, affecting their learning outcomes and social development. |
| Insurance and Financial Liability | Early childhood services typically have insurance to protect against incidents, but failing to follow policies could void insurance claims. If an accident occurs and it is found that staff breached safety protocols, the service may face significant financial liability, including compensation costs, legal fees, and increased insurance premiums. |
| Ethical Implications | Educators have an ethical obligation to protect and promote children's best interests. Ignoring policies may lead to ethical violations, where the needs and rights of children are not prioritised. For instance, failing to adhere to behaviour management policies could result in unfair treatment or emotional harm to a child, breaching ethical standards of care. |
Breaching policies in an early childhood service is not only a risk to immediate safety but also a threat to the service’s overall operation, reputation, and legal standing. It is essential that all staff understand the importance of policies and strictly adhere to them to ensure a safe, healthy, and nurturing environment for children and staff alike. Regular training, open communication, and a strong commitment to policy enforcement are critical in preventing breaches.
Responsibility for Understanding Policies
It is critical for all employees to understand that "not knowing" about a policy is never a valid excuse for failing to comply with it. While it is the service's responsibility to ensure policies are accessible and clearly written, it is up to each staff member to take the time to read and familiarise themselves with these documents. If policies are unclear, staff must take the initiative to seek clarification from management or supervisors.
Preventing Policy Breaches
To prevent policy breaches:
- Regularly review and stay updated on all relevant policies, especially those related to health, safety, and child protection.
- Attend any training or professional development sessions offered by your service to keep your knowledge current.
- If uncertain about how to apply a policy, seek guidance from supervisors or team leaders.
Being proactive about understanding and adhering to policies not only safeguards children and staff but also protects your professional standing and ensures compliance with the legal and regulatory requirements of the early childhood sector.
Helping Families and Children Understand and Follow Policies
Human behaviour is often predictable, and it is well known that people, including children, are more likely to follow the rules when they understand why they are important. For this reason, an explanation or a reminder about a policy can often be accompanied by a reason or motivation to help them comply. Explanations should be age appropriate and should not create unnecessary fear or concern.
Case Study
Liliane notices that some educators are not complying with the sun safety policy that requires children to wear hats and sunscreen.
She reminds the educators about the requirements under the NQS to ensure that Sun Smart Policies are upheld and that the service could be fined if these policies are not upheld. She respectfully discusses the problem with them and their mutual outcome in mind—the safety of the children—by reminding them of the dangers of sunburn on young skin, the incidence of skin cancer in Australia, and the links to lifetime exposure.
To the children, Liliane talks about sunburn and how it can be painful. She uses the analogy that the sun is very strong and that wearing a hat and sunscreen are the best ways to protect them from sunburn. Liliane suggests to the other staff that they put a reminder for the children and staff at the entrance to the outdoor area that says ‘No hat, no play’, along with a picture of a happy child wearing a hat underneath the sun.
Responding to Issues According to Policy
Health and safety is everyone's responsibility. For example, it is the responsibility of the centre owners to ensure that the building and outdoor structures are maintained and kept safe. Still, it is the responsibility of educators to report problems or issues that they notice in these structures.
The section that outlines the scope of the policy provides information about who is responsible for the policy's requirements. The responsibility for ensuring that policies are followed often falls on managers, but every staff member can and should play a part in this.
If you are unsure about the scope of your responsibilities, the policy likely needs updating to clarify this to you and others. It is far better to seek help with understanding your own role in acting on a policy before you need to respond to a real situation.
In most cases, leaving a health and safety issue to someone else is unacceptable. If you see a hazard, deal with it immediately. If possible, remove the hazard. This could include cleaning a spill, placing a broken piece of equipment in a locked area to be fixed by maintenance workers, putting up physical barriers to keep children away from a window broken in a storm or a tree branch that has snapped overhead in outdoor areas.
Your second responsibility in these cases is to report and document the problem to a manager or appropriate senior person. Reporting and documentation procedures might vary between services and depend on the level of risk. It can mean verbally reporting to a manager, the centre owner, a maintenance officer or even emergency services such as the police or ambulance. Records must be up-to-date and completed promptly where they relate to an issue or an event.
Health and safety documentation maintained by a service includes:
- completed incident reports, or illness or injury reports
- maintenance records
- safety audits reports
- written reports on health and safety findings
- staff training records
- children’s records, such as immunisation, medical conditions, allergies and treatment
- risk assessments and emergency plans.
Practice
Accessing the Policies of your Workplace
If you are currently employed, locate the policies and procedures relating to health and safety and answer the following questions. If you are not currently employed, locate an example set of policies and procedures, such as the policies provided to you as Little.ly policy resources, or via policies of centres published online, such as Bright Futures Children Services: Policy and procedure manual.
Make sure that you keep notes for your future reference, as this information will support you in your assessment and professional practice.
Answer the following questions.
- Where are the policies located?
- Are the policies accessible for families, and how would they go about accessing them?
- Do the policies contain the 11 minimum health and safety policy requirements outlined in Chapter 1?
- Locate the National Regulation that requires these policies to be included as a minimum and write down the penalty that applies to services that do not meet this requirement.
- How are the policies laid out? Provide examples of the headings that separate each policy section and its accompanying procedures.
- What is the process for policy review?
Communicating new or topical policies, changes to procedures, or updates to legislation to families and other educators is a practice that should be regularly carried out, formally and informally.
Communicating Policies to Others
Effective communication of health and safety policies is essential in ensuring that all staff, families, and stakeholders are aware of their responsibilities and the measures in place to protect children and the broader community. Formal and informal methods should be employed to ensure that everyone is well-informed, compliant, and actively contributing to a safe environment.
Formal Communication: Meetings and Structured Discussions
Regular staff and family meetings should serve as a platform for open communication about health and safety issues. These meetings create opportunities for collaborative discussions, addressing concerns, and ensuring everyone is on the same page regarding policies and procedures. Specific topics to address during these meetings include:
Clarifying Policy Understanding and Compliance
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Addressing Policy Breaches
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Updating Staff on Changes
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Legislative Updates and Best Practice Changes
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Providing Support and Training
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Informal Communication: Daily Reminders and Reinforcement
In addition to formal meetings, it is crucial to integrate health and safety policies into the daily routine, making them a regular topic of informal conversation and reminder. Informal methods can be highly effective in reinforcing policies and ensuring that they remain top-of-mind for staff and families alike.
Benefits of Ongoing Communication
Maintaining an open dialogue about health and safety policies helps to create a culture of transparency and collective responsibility. By involving all staff and families in these discussions; services can ensure that everyone is committed to maintaining a safe and healthy environment for children. Furthermore, it promotes a proactive approach to policy compliance, reducing the risk of misunderstandings or breaches and ensuring that changes are communicated efficiently and effectively.
This combination of formal and informal communication strategies ensures that health and safety policies are not only understood but actively embedded in the day-to-day functioning of the early learning service.
Example
When another worker or a family member has breached (or is at risk of breaching) policy, point this out non-aggressively as soon as you notice with a comment like, ‘You might not be aware, but we are not permitted to use that procedure. We must, by law, do it this way. Follow this up by assisting them in approaching the problem in line with policy, along with explaining why this is important: ‘I’m happy to show you what our policy says about this. We could be fined if we don’t follow the regulations, or worse, a child could be injured.
Professional Development
Educators are expected to engage in formal and informal professional development throughout the year to maintain the currency of their knowledge of health and safety. This can be arranged and undertaken by yourself or supported by in-house training at your service.
Professional development may include:
- Short courses, such as courses for health and safety representatives run by the health and safety authority in your area or courses run by authorities in children’s health and safety
- Webinars, such as those advertised by the ACECQA or Work Safe bodies in each state
- Seminars, such as those held at industry conferences
- Reading fact sheets and briefings from respected industry bodies
- Online training, such as health department training in Covid-safe practices
Services will ensure that the source of information is credible and accurate. Services will rely on sources such as government departments/websites and industry bodies such as ACECQA and Work Safe as authorities in health and safety in early childhood education and care services.
Reading and watching industry updates from respected sources, such as videos on the ACECQA website. Reading broadly about your industry is an excellent way to keep up-to-date with best practices and changes to legislation. Changes often come about because of new ideas and thinking that begin in academic literature, from industry conference discussions and media stories' impact. Listening to and reading news stories about children’s education and care experiences can help you understand hazards and risks differently.
Following well-respected industry groups on social media and subscribing to e-newsletters or mailing lists are excellent ways to keep informed and updated in real-time.
Practice
Professional Development
Research one professional development training session or webinar you could participate in relating to children’s health and safety. Make sure that you keep notes for your future reference, as this information will support you in your assessment and professional practice.
Website
The ACECQA website has an extensive reference list of sources that can help you stay ahead of research and developments in the children’s education and care sector.
Case Study
When a media story about the death of a child in a Melbourne kindergarten was released several years ago, shock waves went through the children’s education and care sector and the wider community. The child died due to an anaphylactic reaction to traces of peanuts. Although the educators attempted to administer an EpiPen while they waited for an ambulance, their panicked reaction caused them to administer it incorrectly. While this is a rare and tragic occurrence, the widespread media coverage encouraged many services to reconsider and strengthen their nut-free policies, pushing them to improve staff education in this area.
Training
Legislation requires certain levels and frequency of training to be completed for you to remain current and for your service to maintain its accreditation. For example:
- First aid qualifications must be renewed every three years
- Refresher training in CPR should be undertaken every 12 months
- Fire safety and emergency evacuation training
- Emergency evacuation drills must be performed by staff members, volunteers and children every three months.
Each state and territory also has their own requirements for ongoing training. Examples of these include:
- Mandatory reporting or child protection training
- Asthma and anaphylaxis training.
Your service must keep up-to-date records of staff who have attended compulsory training, along with records of other non-compulsory professional development. These are a crucial part of accreditation assessments.
All staff must inform their manager if they feel inadequately trained for a specific task or if they feel they could benefit from additional training. Educators may also identify training needs for the team. Educators may seek feedback from their supervisors and colleagues about their health and safety practices. These could be raised with the supervisor during performance reviews, reflection sessions, or emergency reviews.
Resource
Asthma Australia (asthma.org. au) and several other respected organisations regularly scheduled training across Australia and online in asthma, allergy and anaphylaxis awareness. Completing a certificate or statement of attainment in these courses can contribute to your professional development. They can also provide an excellent boost to your resume when applying for educator jobs.
Quality improvement must be a team effort. Try to work towards a culture of shared learning and not being defensive when improvements are suggested. The benefits of working together to improve safety, with feedback from other workers and stakeholders, are well documented. Workers are sometimes reluctant to speak up about their ideas for safety or with problems or concerns they might have. There can be many reasons for this, but workplace culture with low morale or poor communication is the most common cause for reluctance to speak up.
Example
In workplaces where open communication is not encouraged, respected or followed up, you may often hear complaints like these:
- ‘I hate the way we get told to do it this way. But they are the bosses.
- ‘No one listens to us anyway, so what’s the point?’
- ‘If I do speak up, it never gets followed up. I might as well be talking to a brick wall’.
- ‘The owners are only in it for the money. They don’t really care about ‘safety’.
- ‘I just nod and say yes, but in the end, I just do things the way I want to do them’.
Changing this kind of culture can be difficult, but being open to listening and talking is the most important place to start. Here are some ideas to help change attitudes to sharing feedback:
- Encourage an open-door policy. If a person has a complaint or problem, listen, talk, and help them work through it.
- Follow up when you say you will. There is nothing more frustrating than reporting a serious concern and then hearing nothing more about it after reporting it. Closing the loop by letting the person know the outcome of their complaint or feedback can encourage them to keep reporting next time.
- Seek out feedback without waiting for it. The case study below provides some examples of how to seek feedback proactively.
- It is an offence to discourage someone from making a written report, such as an incident report or a complaint. It is known that businesses and services that treat reporting as a nuisance or a sign of the staff’s failure to do the right thing are more likely to miss great opportunities for quality and safety improvements.
- Encourage staff to own up to mistakes in the interests of safety. Always thank the person for owning up to a mistake and help them to work through ways to prevent it from happening again.
Example
If an educator tells you that they have accidentally given a child the incorrect dose of medication, your first response should be to ensure the child is safe. Parents should also be alerted, but the person who admitted to the mistake should be given credit for owning up to it and then provided with support, rather than punishment, in ways that will help prevent a future recurrence.
Case Study
Liliane believes that there is always room for improvement in her service. One of the ways that she and other managers work towards continuous quality improvement is to ask staff and families to contribute ideas for safety openly.
They distribute regular surveys to families and staff, guiding them on health and safety topics and asking for suggestions for how they could improve. Families and staff can provide anonymous feedback via a suggestion box in the entrance foyer. They hold regular staff and family meetings in which safety is discussed actively, focusing on the importance of a shared understanding of where improvements might lie. When a complaint or concern is raised, they respond as soon as possible and are always taken seriously.
Their incident reporting paperwork requires them to close the loop by providing information to the person who wrote the report. This can include what action was taken.
If no action has been taken, an explanation for the factors that led to this result, including considerations the reporter may not have known about, is given to them promptly.
Incident reports are never treated as a nuisance. Instead, the service culture encourages incident reporting, thanking the reporter and reminding all staff that reporting helps to solve problems and increase safety. When a family member makes a complaint, Liliane encourages other staff to welcome the complaint warmly and to thank the family for their input. ‘Complaints are a good thing’, she tells the other educators. ‘They help us to improve’.
Critical Self-Reflection
Self-reflection is a crucial part of being in a professional role. Sometimes referred to as reflective practice, it is a process of checking your own work and attitudes to ensure that you are continually open to improvement. The process asks you to use deep critical thinking skills regularly to think about how you could work more safely and effectively. Reflective practice can happen on your own, through seeking feedback from others or in groups of workers.
| Type of Reflection | Examples |
|---|---|
| Individual reflection |
Keeping a journal is one way to use critical thinking about your own performance. Alternatively, you might ask yourself questions after an experience related to health and safety practices that could be improved. Questions for self-reflection might include:
|
| Seeking out feedback from others |
Being honest, open, and non-defensive when asking for and receiving feedback is crucial to reflective practice. Learning from your peers and their own experiences can contribute knowledge and perspectives that can help you continue to grow and improve. Again, asking questions of supervisors, peers, or mentors can include:
It is tempting to ask for or expect only positive feedback as a way to improve your confidence. However, there is a lot to learn from asking for honest feedback and being non-defensive when given. This is a skill that can be difficult to learn, but that can ultimately have a positive effect on your work practice. |
| Reflection in groups |
Group reflection can help to create opportunities for your workforce to discuss challenges, propose solutions and help each other to improve safety through shared learning. It can also be useful in group work to consider where there may be gaps between your own practice and the legislation, standards and policies to which you are held responsible. |
Using Critical Reflection
Critical reflection is a process of reviewing, questioning and assessing beliefs and practices to make decisions that will enhance future practices. Critical reflection assists educators in identifying areas of development and provides an opportunity to build their knowledge and skills. It should be conducted regularly to explore the educators’ thoughts, feelings, and experiences. It is a valuable method for extending and refining professional practice and informing future development in all aspects of practice, including working more safely.
Reflection involves thinking openly and analytically about key topics or questions that are the focus of the reflection. The insight educators and other staff gain during critical reflection can improve the quality of the service's practice. Meaningful information recorded during the reflection can also be shared with other stakeholders, such as families, to include them in the reflection and improvement of practice.
Educators use critical reflection to identify the need to acquire new knowledge and make positive changes to practice. Reflection enables the team to openly discuss success and areas for improvement so that they can work more safely.
Reflection aims to be meaningful by involving thoughtful and analytical thinking focused on improving the educator’s practice. Meaningful reflection occurs when quality information is gathered in response to key questions about what has occurred and why.
Meaningful reflection includes:
- Thoughtfully exploring different aspects of a topic, including:
- the reasons that decisions were made
- whether and how the service's philosophy is reflected in the decision or practice
- what were the outcomes of the decision or practice?
- Thoughtfully considering a range of perspectives on a topic, including the way that practices impact children and families,
- part of an established routine and conducted regularly to become an essential part of the culture of the service
- others being involved in facilitating the sharing of ideas, giving feedback, and debating on areas that are unclear or could be improved or developed to contribute positively to practices.
Contributing to Policy Change
All members of the workplace, as well as others affected by policies, such as families, should be included in updating, reviewing, and altering policies.
The first part of this process is to seek feedback on how the policy works using the methods described above. Other sources of feedback that can influence policy include looking closely at incident and illness statistics, near-miss reports, and the results of risk assessments. It can also mean watching how procedures are performed and asking for feedback on safer procedures.
The policy committee, director, and management team must ensure that the policy meets current legislation.
Any change to a policy must be done in cooperation with the people who are affected by it. A draft form of the policy should be put to staff or families (or both) for feedback before it is finalised.
You can contribute to policies with ideas and feedback at any time in the review cycle.
For example:
- Submitting a suggestion for non-urgent improvement to the policy committee so that your suggestion can be considered the next time the policy is reviewed
- Bringing feedback or a suggested change to a staff meeting
- Put your improvement idea into writing and provide it to managers via email, mail or a suggestion box.
Note
Your service must give families at least 14 days’ notice before making any change to any of the eleven mandated policies or procedures if the change may significantly impact the child’s care and education or the family’s ability to use the service. These eleven mandated areas are:
- Food safety
- Sun protection
- Water safety
- First aid administration
- Incident, injury, trauma and illness
- Infectious diseases
- Medical conditions in children
- Emergency and evacuation
- Delivery and collection of children
- Excursions and transportation
- Providing a child-safe environment.
Practice
Critical Reflection in Practice
Watch the following ACECQA video, ‘Critical reflection in practice’.
- Discuss the video in a small group, outlining the benefits that can come from self-reflection regarding the ongoing safety of children.
- What might you do differently as a result of ongoing critical self-reflection?
Make sure that you keep notes for your future reference, as this information will support you in your assessment and professional practice.
