Welcome to Adobe GoLive 6

Introduction
A Melbourne City Council Children’s Services Grant funded the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Equity and Innovation in Early Childhood (CEIEC) to design, deliver and report on an action learning program to support early childhood staff within the City of Melbourne on the topic of working in equitable and respectful ways with families in early childhood programs and curricula. This project is called RESPECT (Researching Equitable Staff Parent Engagement in Children’s Services Today). The CEIEC has produced case studies for the Melbourne City Council from this program. These case studies describe the changes to thinking and practice for early childhood professionals during the action learning program process.

The RESPECT (Researching Equitable Staff Parent Engagement in Children’s Services Today) team consisted of Associate Professor Glenda MacNaughton, Dr Patrick Hughes, Dr Kylie Smith, Dr Karina Davis and Ms Heather Lawrence. Ms Janet Treweek, CEIEC Project Officer, supported the project team. Jason Crocket, the Resource and Training Officer, Children’s Services, Melbourne City Council also supported the CEIEC team.

The Project
RESPECT (Researching Equitable Staff Parent Engagement in Children’s Services Today) was an action-learning training project for early childhood staff and parents/carers at early childhood centres in the City of Melbourne. Participants in RESPECT were supported to build equitable and inclusive relationships between early childhood staff and parents/carers by combining research-based insights with a practical action-learning program oriented to their centre’s specific social and cultural circumstances. Action learning can challenge & fundamentally transform how those who engage in it understand, experience and practice. The learning work the action learner undertakes goes beyond their own learning to encompass and facilitate, learning or change in the practice of others. Learning occurs at several levels: from relatively superficial and easily acquired shifts in routine to ‘frame breaking’ changes in how we think, feel & do things. Action learning has developed out of an action research methodology. Action research investigates a problem through a collaborative cycle of planning, acting, observing and reflecting (Carr & Kemmis, 1986; Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988; Kemmis & Wilkinson, 1998). It allows participants to critically reflect on theory and practice through a collaborative educational approach to identify an issue and then alter practice to improve what is happening in the classroom setting (Carr & Kemmis, 1986; Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988; MacNaughton, 2001a). Critical reflection is questioning your own practices and aspects of teaching generally taken for granted and considering what the effects are for people (e.g children, parents and early childhood practitioners). Further, critical reflection creates opportunities to consider alternative ways of speaking and acting that shift understandings of others and of you.

The Objectives
RESPECT had two aims:

To develop and disseminate innovative ways to create equitable and inclusive relationships between staff and parents/carers in a targeted number of the City of Melbourne’s early childhood services.
To explore how best to situate such relationships within high quality children’s services that meet the diverse needs of families in the City of Melbourne and that strengthen links between children’s services and their local communities.

RESPECT’s broad aims translate into the following specific objectives:

To identify and document innovative approaches to improving relationships between early childhood staff and parents/carers in services that are embedded in their local communities and socially and culturally relevant to them.
To identify and document the skills and knowledge that early childhood staff need to develop equitable and inclusive relationships with parents/carers.
To share what has been learnt from this project with other early childhood centres in the City of Melbourne and beyond.