Susy Greenaway, Educational Leader at Warwick Community Kindergarten, Queensland, has been a long-time member of the Be You Connected Community - Being Leaders for Wellbeing.
Susy led her team to collaboratively develop a staff wellbeing policy. Her inspiration came from the Connected Community’s conversations around ‘What makes an early learning service a mentally healthy community?’
Further motivation for the policy came from Susy’s experience in her time at the kindergarten. When she first arrived, Susy was surprised to find that some educators were not taking regular breaks and observed the impact this had on educator wellbeing.
Susy led her team to collaboratively develop a staff wellbeing policy. Her inspiration came from the Connected Community’s conversations around ‘What makes an early learning service a mentally healthy community?’
A vision for staff wellbeing
Further motivation for the policy came from Susy’s experience in her time at the kindergarten. When she first arrived, Susy was surprised to find that some educators were not taking regular breaks and observed the impact this had on educator wellbeing." I always thought children and families were well looked after, but our educators, not so much. We wanted to give 100% to the children, but it was becoming harder to do this. We wanted staff to feel well, feel safe and feel secure at work."
First steps
To begin the policy writing, Susy asked her team:
What helps us to thrive at work?
What does a mentally healthy learning community look like, sound like and feel like?The policy writing was supported by the kindergarten’s management committee and inspired deeper conversations, curiosity, as well as shared ownership of the policy document:
‘Developing the policy meant we had a lot of conversations we had never had before and the policy belongs to the staff who developed it. It also inspired us to want to learn more.’
Susy shared information from Be You with her team and promoted the initiative as an ongoing resource and support for them as professionals.
Sustaining actions into the future
As Susy now steps away from her leadership role at Warwick Community Kindergarten, she leaves behind a legacy in the staff wellbeing policy which captures what is valued.
It is intended that the policy will continue to support the wellbeing of educators and service leaders into the future. Susy also leaves behind educators empowered to advocate for their wellbeing and role models for children in taking care of their own and each other’s wellbeing.