This session will take participants into the detail of the REAL project (an overview of which will have been provided in Cathy's Plenary Session). There will be opportunity to consider the central conceptual framework of the Programme ORIM (opportunities, recognition, interaction, and model). Cathy will also discuss the place of home visiting in work with parents, and the role of teachers and other early childhood professionals who are involved in early literacy work with families. The emphasis here will be on the usefulness of the ORIM framework, home-visiting, group events and resource loans, to evolving practices. Participants will engage in sharing ideas and identifying the usefulness of ORIM to their own work, how it might be adapted and developed in a range of Australian contexts.

There are many ways of understanding and enhancing the workplace. Positive organisational leadership challenges the notion of many current lenses in relation to leadership, change and performance. Positively deviant leadership is one construct to re-image the workplace and human relations. This presentation will explore the notion of positive organisational scholarship and the role it plays in enhancing positivity in the workplace.

Using what we know and don't know about quality in early childhood education, the presentation will posit new approaches to quality services for young children and their families. Moving toward an early childhood system that cherishes children and celebrates their teachers and families, options and opportunities to improve practice, pedagogy and policy will be offered.

Research shows that an investment in the early years can have a significant impact on school success and life opportunities. This session will discuss how early childhood educators can use the Early Years Learning Framework to support Aboriginal children, families and communities in their education prior to commencing formal schooling and will provide an overview of the research that underpins early learning and Aboriginal children including the AEDI. The paper will also highlight some approaches, using the outcomes from the Victorian Early Years Learning Framework, which early learning educators can use when engaging with Aboriginal children, families and communities through an integrated approach. There will be a focus on how the integration of services in a community can support and contribute to the cultural wellbeing and safety of Aboriginal children and their families.

This session will inform participants about two Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) funded research projects investigating partnerships:
• professional partnerships – building and sustaining collaborative, cross-disciplinary practice in Victorian early childhood services. This session will discuss preliminary findings from ten case studies aimed at identifying the common skills and attributes that support collaborative work practice and service partnerships. The findings from the project, being conducted by Charles Sturt University, will be used to develop a resource to assist early childhood professionals build and sustain high-quality, integrated, collaborative and cross-disciplinary practice.
• partnerships with families – ways for early childhood practitioners to support early learning for children in partnership with disadvantaged families. The Early Home Learning Study, being conducted by the Parenting Research Centre, aims to improve early learning and development foundations for children in 2,000 Victorian families and make a significant contribution to the Victorian and international knowledge base on how best to support parents to provide positive home learning environments for young children (0–3), particularly those experiencing difficult circumstances.

In the past five years more than 1,000 children's services workers have experienced a serious workplace injury in Victoria. The children's services sector has been identified as a sector that requires particular attention to improve its health and safety performance and to protect workers from injury. This presentation will focus on practical strategies that people working in children's services will be able to take back to their services so they can eliminate or better control injury risks.

While 50% of kindergartens in Victoria are managed by independent committees, 66% of the buildings used for kindergarten are owned by local government. Sometimes difficulties arise between a committee, which is focused on one centre, and a council which is responsible for the planning of all their early years facilities. This workshop will explore the planning of early years facilities across several municipalities and identify the often difficult decisions councils must make to ensure the right facilities are located in the right places. It will aim to clarify respective planning roles for kindergarten committees and councils in order to address the needs of young children and local families. Individual councils will present some concrete examples of where they have worked together with committees to plan for a kindergarten centre to better meet the needs of their community.

Creating universally inclusive services for children and families requires the development of a shared understanding of what we are trying to achieve and how we can monitor the progress of common goals. This session explores the practical challenges and barriers encountered by early childhood staff within their inclusive mainstream settings and asks whether the support provided through the 'KISS and TELL' program is assisting staff to build towards true inclusion. This study examines the supports to 4 year old kindergarten teachers including:
• overcoming the barriers and challenges towards inclusion
• building staff capacity through learning and support
• strengthening practice
• providing ways of networking and identifying resources
• flexibility and adaptability
• teacher context and situation
• understanding and facilitation of true inclusion.
Participants in the study are kindergarten teachers of 4 year old children and long-term outcomes will assist in understanding the benefits of providing support to universal teachers as well as their perceptions regarding inclusion.

By definition, an engaging setting is one which arouses children's interest, sustains their attention and concentration and enables enjoyment of learning through play. While this is the goal, it does not explain how an outdoor play setting can be created to achieve this. What are the characteristics of play settings that will ignite a child's will to play? What are the elements that arouse their interests and their will to explore? How can you offer developmentally appropriate play opportunities? Does the setting promote all [physical, social, cognitive, emotional and creative] skills? And, how does a supervised setting differ from a public play space? All these will be explored, so that participants will be able to appreciate them from the perspective of user needs. In particular, the interaction between engaging settings and

The focus of this workshop is to explore different styles of music to use with your group of children with dance. It is designed to give teachers more confidence in selecting different styles of music to create different moods to enhance the movement. How can music change the movement? What kind of music can you use? How can teachers expand their music repertoire to develop the children's movement material? We will explore these topics and many more in a non-threatening workshop that will support music becoming another voice in your curriculum.

The development of local community partnerships provides opportunities for transforming communities into inclusive, accessible places that enrich the lives of local residents. DEECD funded Wyndham City Council to provide a Karen Bilingual Kindergarten Program as a model of English as a second language provision for newly arrived refugee students. With a range of stakeholders in tow, the range of initiatives to support the emerging refugee community has grown exponentially in Wyndham. What began as a kindergarten program now has a number of playgroups with parenting information sessions and community engagement opportunities which have evolved at the same time and in partnership with a range of stakeholders. Karen Community leaders have had an active role to play in informing and supporting their community, in partnership with the stakeholders, through a range of effective community engagement programs to support the newly arrived refugee community emerging in Wyndham City.

Our busy lives often leave fewer opportunities for children to listen to stories. We can recreate the art of storytelling and the benefits are great for both ourselves and the children when everyone involved is transported to another place. Presented by KPV in partnership with Gowrie Victoria 5 Children's communication skills are enhanced when they listen and respond to sounds and patterns in speech, stories and rhymes (VEYLDF). Literacy incorporates a range of modes of communication, including storytelling and poetry. Rhyme, rhythm and repetition assist in the development of children's language. Storytelling can happen outside under a tree, or inside sitting in a circle watching the flame of a candle. Family culture, traditions and beliefs can be incorporated through stories to promote in children a strong sense of who they are. During this interactive session participants will: explore the value of literature and playing with language; discover props that are made of natural materials; learn simple rhymes, ditties and raps and identify different ways to tell stories without books.

There is a plethora of evidence on the importance of families being connected to each other and the community. It is also being recognised that more and more families are living further and further away from other family members and can, for one reason or another, feel disconnected from neighbours and their community. Research has shown the importance of families being involved in early childhood services to enhance the child's development, however, families also want to be connected to the professionals who educate and care for their children on a more personal and supportive level. For this to occur families need to feel comfortable and safe in the early childhood setting their children attend. Providing this safe environment for families is recognised as a critical role undertaken by the early childhood educator especially when so many families are feeling isolated from extended family and community.

The presenters will share their experiences in developing an inquiry based project and implementing one of three promising practices for positive transitions to school as part of their involvement in the Transition: A Positive Start to School – Research into Promising Practices to Support a Positive Start to School Project. The project is the continuation of DEECD's Transition: A Positive Start To School initiative. It sought to explore and identify the processes, enablers and challenges in developing practices that support a positive start to school for young children. Three effective promising practises for transition to school were selected for trial with both early childhood and primary educators and professionals participating in an action research process to develop site-specific inquiry projects to implement one of these promising practises.

For the first time a national Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) sets out outcomes for all children's development. Young children with developmental delays and disabilities will benefit, depending on how their inclusion in children's services is understood. To date there have been different understandings about what inclusion means. It is timely to develop a shared position statement on inclusion to underpin collaboration between early educators and those who also support inclusion, such as early childhood intervention practitioners. Early Childhood Intervention Australia (ECIA) is initiating a series of Listening Sessions around Australia on the inclusion of children with disabilities in the early years to obtain input on inclusion from families, practitioners and managers, researchers, university faculty and professional development providers, and policy makers. Sessions will be organised to promote an open exchange of ideas related to critical issues for inclusion, to gather perspectives from stakeholder groups about key issues related to inclusion in early childhood and to use the results of the listening sessions to inform the development of a shared position statement on inclusion.

What does the integration of children's services mean in practice? How do we actually deliver integrated services for families? What actions can early childhood practitioners take to achieve integration? This session will examine case studies from Golden Plains Shire Council to identify the benefits, challenges and opportunities of delivering integrated children's services. Delivering integrated children's services is complex. Merging separate funding, regulatory, licensing, industrial and quality systems is challenging. Combining cultures and traditional practice of different service types can be a frustratingly slow process. Changing community understanding and expectations can be even slower. Since 2007 Golden Plains Shire Council has operated kindergarten, long day care, family day care, occasional care, maternal and child health services and an integrated children's centre. Where possible, an integrated approach to the delivery of these services has been adopted. Through a range of programs, opportunities to deliver services in an integrated way have been taken. These opportunities have involved all the early childhood services operated by Council.

In recent years the concept of child-centred play has been criticised, while more importance is being placed on the importance of environmental education and sustainability in early childhood curriculum. This session presents research from a project where teachers and children participated in three different types of play as basis for learning sustainability concepts; open-ended play, modelled play and purposefully framed play. Early analysis suggests that teachers are more likely to think about and plan for the learning of sustainability concepts through modelled and purposefully framed play. However, using the three play-types in combination may be associated with a more prolonged and thoughtful investigation into particular sustainability concepts rather than relying on one pedagogical approach alone. Findings also suggest that children are capable of engaging with sustainability concepts through play, particularly where the play experiences are informed by teacher thinking and planning.

This paper explores the place of Victorian Elders as teachers of young Indigenous children. Annette Sax along with her colleague Priscilla Reid-Loynes explore what Elders think Indigenous children should know if they are to develop a positive Indigenous identity. More specifically four central understandings around traditional language, clan groups, the land and the natural world and respect for the Elders will be discussed. Annette and Priscilla will provide examples of how these understandings are being implemented in Indigenous specific and 'mainstream' early childhood centres around Victoria, through games, storytelling and the use of natural materials in the program. A story 'Batja and Mayila' will be shared with the participants and will act as a point of reference around Indigenous values such as 'being still and quietly observant' that are important for all children to learn.

This session will focus on the ways in which a range of early childhood services across the State are working to integrate and sustain the Practice Principles of the VEYLDF into their daily work with children and families. Participants in this session will be encouraged to make connections between their own practice and the case study evidence that is presented. There will be discussion of the ways early childhood professionals in a range of settings or service types, including long day care, family day care, preschool, maternal and child health and schools, are working with the Practice Principles of the VEYLDF in order to identify and sustain best practice so as to improve outcomes for children and families. Participation in this session will provide practical support for professionals interested in engaging more deeply with the VEYLDF.

Following on from Growing resilient wellbeing in changing communities, this session will pick up on the notion of 'companionable learning' as the driving process of wellbeing development for babies and young children. Companionship underpins four categories of rich situations and experiences for everyday wellbeing development: anchored attention, authority, apprenticeship, and allowed time and space. These familiar components in the everyday lives of young children and their families carry key messages for wellbeing at home, and in settings. The four 'A's of wellbeing also apply to practitioners' own professional wellbeing development – a useful structure for managers and for practitioners themselves.

The world we live in is changing rapidly and sustainability is an imperative both locally and globally. The early childhood field is also experiencing unprecedented change: new frameworks, new accreditation and new regulations. How can we work together with change to grow sustainably at this critical time? This address will explore our current dynamic contexts and identify ways of thinking and acting for sustainability in our early childhood settings. As early childhood educators we need to change to ensure young children inherit a sustainable earth.

In 2009 the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreed to the introduction of the National Quality Reform Framework. The Framework has been implemented progressively from 1 July 2010 and the system will be fully operational by 1 January 2012. It comprises:
- a National Quality Standard (seven quality areas)
- a new ratings system to complement the NQS
- a streamlined regulatory system
- a new national body.
(DEEWR 2010) The National Quality Framework will put in place a new National Quality Standard to ensure high quality and consistent early childhood education and care across Australia. The new National Quality Framework will cover long day care, family day care, outside school hours care and kindergartens. This session will look at the National Quality Standards and what it means for your service. Experiences from some of the pilot services will be shared together with an overview of the processes involved. Participants will have the opportunity to develop an understanding of the quality areas and reflect on their current practices in line with these quality areas.

Hume City Council has introduced an integrated assessment model to support children's health, learning and wellbeing through early detection and appropriate referral across preschool and long day care (LDC). The model enables early intervention, and utilises practice based evidence, within a multidisciplinary approach between Maternal and Child Health (MCH) nurses and early years educators. The model has evolved from the original program introduced in 2005 and is now affiliated with and operates from a local primary school and demonstrates the benefits of collaborative work between early years professionals. The session will illustrate the model's holistic approach to working with children and their families. The MCH nurse's clinical approach coupled with the educator's role provides specific assessments and supports when a family needs them most: it promotes a family-centred approach, which facilitates a dialogue with parents about any concerns they may have about their child. The workshop will outline the steps in the development of the outreach model and the sustainable benefits achieved to provide the best outcomes for children.

This presentation details how early childhood teachers support children to manage and resolve disputes with their peers and examines a range of strategies used by early childhood educators to intervene in children's disputes. Video observations in two kindergarten programmes over a four-week period illustrate a range of strategies implemented with varying success. Intervention was sought by children and initiated by teachers, typically in response to an escalation of the dispute – that is, where children were unable to resolve the conflict by themselves. Analysis shows that mediation strategies were seldom implemented, but that where the teacher facilitated a collaborative resolution of a conflict, children were better able to continue in cooperative activities. The findings show that supporting children's agency is a productive form of intervention, and equips children with the skills to manage disputes independently, through developing perspective taking and child-elicited approaches to compromise.

This professional learning opportunity explores the synergies between the Early Years Learning Framework and the Reggio Emilia educational project. Join with other educators to share insights, ask questions and discover the way in which the inspiration of Reggio Emilia has influenced the development of the national framework. The conversation will bring participants from the global to the local, draw meaningful insights from the practice examples and challenge us all to offer experiences that transform and provoke.

Approximately one in six children under five in Victoria speak a language other than English at home. This session will assist early childhood educators to understand their communities and the value of bi and multi-lingualism in early childhood and current research into home language maintenance. It will use case studies to encourage participants' active learning and self reflection and offer strategies to assist services where children and families are developing English as a second language. This presentation will:
• connect home language maintenance and bi/multilingualism to the outcomes of both the EYLF and VEYLF
• explore the relationship between home language maintenance and the development of English as a second or additional language
• provide examples of activities that can be incorporated to promote multi-lingualism in curriculum planning
• highlight the importance of the early childhood professional's role in supporting children and families to maintain language and culture building partnerships with CALD families.

This session will explore the Early Childhood Development Project, a Victorian initiative to optimise pathways for vulnerable children (0–5 years) to reach developmental milestones through developing and enhancing partnerships between ChildFIRST/Family Services and Early Years Services by identifying and strengthening partnerships, building capability and enhancing practitioner skills in assessing, planning and responding to the developmental needs of vulnerable children. The scope of the project includes community partnership and development across five local government areas in the western suburbs of Melbourne and will map service response, identify present partnerships/ alliances and create the opportunity to develop further partnerships. A key activity is to encourage vulnerable children and families to access universal and secondary early years services and/or to remain engaged with support programs. This includes specific strategies designed for particular groups including children from Indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

This session will take participants into the detail of the REAL project (an overview of which will have been provided in Cathy's Plenary Session). There will be opportunity to consider the central conceptual framework of the Programme ORIM (opportunities, recognition, interaction, and model). Cathy will also discuss the place of home visiting in work with parents, and the role of teachers and other early childhood professionals who are involved in early literacy work with families. The emphasis here will be on the usefulness of the ORIM framework, home-visiting, group events and resource loans, to evolving practices. Participants will engage in sharing ideas and identifying the usefulness of ORIM to their own work, how it might be adapted and developed in a range of Australian contexts.

This paper will focus on the notion of renewable energy in early childhood education and care arguing that new strategies of practice are required to ensure sustainable practice. Whilst current practice in early childhood in Australia exists across the health, education and community services sectors, within these sectors silos of practice exist that tend to break down opportunities for knowledge exchange and the rethinking of practice. Moreover, a lack of knowledge exchange means that new ideas and approaches in particular sectors are often not understood in others, thereby increasing protectiveness of individual knowledge bases and fostering suspicion that decisions about particular practice approaches are not evidence based. Such factors undermine, rather than enhance possibilities for knowledge sharing and exchange, break down possibilities for successful integration of services and also result in less inclusive practices in work with young children and their families. It is time to rethink practice framing it in a more collaborative light where connections to other professionals are strengthened and leadership is enacted.

In Victoria we now have policies, resources, data systems and strategies that are cutting edge developments in collective planning, community participation and local leadership. This workshop will outline some of these developments with practical examples of how these concepts have been translated into exciting practices and approaches at a community level. The Linking Schools and Early Years project is being implemented in three communities in Victoria. This innovative project aims to mobilise leadership and community partnerships to improve outcomes for children. During the session, several strategies around engaging, mobilising and sustaining community leadership will be discussed. Successful employment of these strategies has helped enable families, services, schools and communities to play important roles in children's early learning and development in participating Linking Schools and Early Years communities. The Integrated Service Development project is based on emerging evidence and aims to establish sustainable governance and leadership models in Integrated Children's Centres throughout Victoria. A number of children's centres are operating throughout the state and this workshop will address the challenges and the learnings that come with developing community partnerships and the integration of services for children and their families.

We have been conducting a series of collaborative, community-based research projects exploring the value of early learning for families, particularly those from migrant and refugee backgrounds and those living in areas of place-based disadvantage. These studies are linked through a shared interest where involvement in playgroups and early learning opportunities are critical sites for promoting social inclusion and reducing inequalities. This workshop will explore these key issues from 3 different perspectives. Session Details Presented by KPV in partnership with Gowrie Victoria 7 Register online for the Conference
• Weaving the social fabric – the value of playgroups in multicultural and disadvantaged neighbourhoods This paper discusses findings from interviews with playgroup facilitators who were coordinating ethnic-specific and mixed culture playgroups.
• Who knows what? Two ways of learning This paper reflects on the redevelopment of an early learning and literacy program (Early Learning is Fun or 'ELF') developed by Berry Street and previously implemented in mainstream, predominantly rural, Victoria in order to meet the needs of Sudanese, Afghan and Karen communities in Melbourne.
• Working with communities – understanding the needs and concerns of families within disadvantaged neighbourhoods This paper examines the nature of the engagements between professionals and families, how they contribute to barriers in accessing care and how these can be improved to enhance developmental, social and educational outcomes for children.

Alpine Children's Services (ACS) is a not-for-profit organisation providing quality early childhood services throughout the Alpine Shire in North East Victoria. The organisation's 2008–2010 strategic plan identified the first core value of the service as 'sustainability'. From this flowed a number of objectives including, 'To make Alpine Children's Services a recognised leader in environmental practices within the early childhood sector'. A model was developed to embed 'green' initiatives at all of our centres and most importantly in staff practices and the educational curriculum. This session will present an overview of our journey.

The Victorian Early Years Coaching Program is focused on raising quality in early childhood through embedding our early years frameworks into the hearts and hands of educators on the ground. Taking an 'inside' perspective of quality we are capturing the voices of educators and sharing their vision using stories, inspiring pictures and video. Now half way through the project we are finding some amazing results!

Music is the key element of the Bonkers Beat Program. Daily music sessions are based on traditional songs and original compositions. They include singing, dancing, creative movement and playing instruments. The music program is based on internationally recognised Kodaly and Orff methods of pedagogy to stimulate children's social, intellectual and emotional growth: it enhances children's multiple intelligences, helping them to become better learners in the early years of their primary schooling. The program uses songs and rhythms to encourage children to follow daily routines. Art and craft projects are linked to the themes covered in songs and are used to support the integrated curriculum and help children learn visually. The program engages students and staff using catchy tunes and interactive dance with a friendly, adventurous and cheeky Bonkers the Monkey, who loves music, exercises and is eager to try his best. Supporting material for parents encourages learning at home and builds strong relationships with families.

Boronia Pre release Centre for Women as a nominated Early Years Site (prisons) now has a well embedded early years program for children of mothers at Boronia. The aim of the facility is to prepare women for sustainable re-integration back into the community. This paper details the journey travelled by prison staff and Early Years workers from NFP organisations during the past seven years. Historical information will be discussed that outlines the challenges and triumphs experienced during this time. The early years program currently being delivered is now funded by the West Australian Department of Corrective Services but this has not always been the case. Regardless of this, a quality service has been developed and delivered to the women with good outcomes being achieved. The current service being provided is an excellent example of the work that can be achieved by people dedicated to improving life outcomes for children. It has required a strong sense of collegiality between a Government agency and the NFP sector. Staff have provided strong support and advocacy for the children so that their voice can be heard in the delivery of this prison based parenting program.

A key part of Victoria's implementation plan for the National Partnership on Early Childhood Education includes piloting the move to 15 hours. In 2010, 20 Universal Access pilots commenced, with another 15 pilots commencing in 2011. The pilots are trialling different approaches to implementing 15 hours in a variety of settings which and are being evaluated. The aim of the pilots are to help develop strategies for rolling out 15 hours across the state. This workshop will give you the opportunity to hear how the pilots have gone so far and to learn from their experiences. As part of the workshop there will be an update on the evaluation being conducted and presentations from pilot services.