Educator Support At Journey Early Learning

Meet Fiona Veld Brown, the Learning & Development Manager at Journey Early Learning. Fiona is passionate about developing the careers of educators and seeing them reach their full potential. Fiona has prepared the following article to give you greater insight on educator support at Journey.

Being heard. This is what makes Journey Early Learning different as a place to be part of our educating and support team.

Playing such a vital role in our communities, across the nation, our teams can influence change, be part of a thriving positive culture, develop as professionals and strive for excellence in their roles, building a strong professional identity and ultimately, creating better outcomes for children.

In my role as Learning and Development Manager, it is pertinent to acknowledge, that my role was born from feedback from our network. A strong professional hunger to know and learn more. This is one way we engage in educator support for our team community – by enabling voice through regular surveys that promote active contribution to what can make Journey the place to come to work.

Our vision, our values and the incredible standards that support all that we do, here at Journey are the tools that provide a compass and guide educators in their role every single day, providing educator support in a practical and relatable way.

Why choose Journey?

Educator Support comes in different shapes and sizes and at Journey and some of the amazing benefits include:

• Our Meeting Allowance as a thank you for our team members participating in our monthly Learning and Development Meetings
• Having your Birthday off – yes, that’s right, our team gets their birthday off! Journey’s gift to you!
• Volunteer Leave Day: connecting with our community is a big part of who we are at Journey and we encourage our people to be active participants in our community by giving them a day to play their part volunteering.
• Inspire program: Our people come to us with many talents, skills and passions and we have found a way to embrace and celebrate them through innovative programs that are developed by our people and delivered to children and or families in our Centres. What makes it even greater is that apart from the educator support to get their idea off the ground, they receive an incentive payment too!

Professional development 

Our learning portal, Journey Academy was built with feedback on what our teams loved and didn’t love so much about their previous platform. Again, by connecting with our Centre communities we were able to start a conversation about what has been working and where the opportunities were for us to do better. It was through these conversations our new Journey Academy was developed and is home to a range of Journey relevant training material as well as research-informed webinars and modules from Early Childhood Australia.

Where Centres need more targeted educator support to build capacity and work through challenges or extend their team’s learning, bespoke learning is developed, or professional learning experiences see us bringing in specialists to work with our teams

Centre leadership teams contributed to what learning was developed for 2022. There were strong themes around wanting to delve deeper into responsive routines, gain a better understanding around guiding positive behaviour and the influences trauma has on children and families. Through this information, we were able to invite Toni Christie, Director of Childspace in New Zealand to support our conversations about how to shift from Routines to Rituals and Beth Macgregor, Clinical Pyschologist to support learning around trauma informed practice, guiding positive behaviour and the critical role of the educator in the classroom when faced with these challenges.

Trainees support

Starting from grass roots with our Trainees sees an alternative form of educator support where we are working alongside our trainees and their registered training organization to ensure that they get the support they need along the way. A personalized relationship with the Learning and Development Manager provides an additional layer of support beyond the Centre. You see, what better way to grow your people?

Employee Assistance Program

It is safe to say that outside of the complexities in our classrooms, life continues to throw challenges our way and there are always obstacles in our life outside of work as well as in. Journey care about our team’s wellbeing and know that for them to bring their best to work each and every day, having access to support to maintain their mental health and wellbeing is key. That is why we have an Employee Assistance Program. Partnering with Adesso Profiling, our team has support to qualified and 24/7 access to professional help when they need it.

Check out the latestcareer opportunities at Journey!

Complementing our Employee Assistance Program, we are also partnering with Be You to create a unique model to support Action Team Leaders across our network through our Hubs. Currently being piloted, our goal is to see active participation in the Be You community across our network and increased awareness of seeing all our work through a mental health and wellbeing lens, for our educators, children and families.

Team leadership support

Innovative leadership is what makes Journey stand out in a crowd. Our Centre Managers and Educational Leaders have been accessing the “4Cs Transformation and Leadership” training and this work is shaping the way we lead teams and is accelerating us along the Path to Exceeding. Our work in this area has opened the door for creative ways of engaging educators in critical reflection, sharing ideas and working through continuous improvement. One of the key findings of this work is how it has enabled voice in our teams, being the catalyst for even our newest and least experienced team members to feel supported and confident enough to contribute.

A strong set of values and a genuine commitment to educator support is what has drawn me to a career with Journey Early Learning. What does educator support look, feel and sound like for you? Sometimes, it is important to take stock and focus on what you need to be successful in your role.

If you want to talk more, we would love tohear from youtoday!