Conversations, Collaboration and Connections: Supporting early childhood disaster resilience through professional learning

 Australia has faced significant disasters in recent years, including multiple widespread severe bushfires and floods and the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite recognising children under five as a vulnerable population in disasters, they remain consistently overlooked in disaster preparedness and recovery-related research and initiatives. Acknowledging this gap, the Queensland Centre for Perinatal and Infant Mental Health developed Birdie’s Tree—a suite of resources aimed at aiding young children in navigating disaster experiences. Birdie’s Tree includes a series of storybooks, online therapeutic games, information sheets for parents and caregivers, and an early childhood education and care sector guide: Recovering Together After Natural Disaster: A Resource Guide for Early Childhood Education and Care Services.

This thesis documents the development and implementation of a disaster resilience professional learning program for early childhood educators, designed to complement the Birdie’s Tree resources. The program was implemented in eight early learning centres across Queensland with 56 educators participating in this study. The program included a combination of in situ workshops, online modules and focus groups, which enabled educators to actively engage with and reflect on ways in which they utilised the Birdie’s Tree resources in their teaching practice. Through this study, I explored the facilitators and challenges early childhood educators faced in developing their professional knowledge and awareness about the potential impacts of disasters on young children.

Utilising a qualitative approach with a researcher-as-bricoleur stance, the study employed a variety of data collection methods to explore educators’ experiences of engaging with the professional learning program. By enacting data collection methods that aligned with and extended upon educators’ everyday practice (such as sharing and collaborating with colleagues and observing and reflecting on children’s learning), participants actively provided children with authentic, real-world learning experiences as they engaged with the Birdie’s Tree resources. The feedback elicited from educators’ reflections, survey responses, PhotoVoice, and professional conversations about their pedagogies provided in-depth and insightful feedback on the suitability and usability of the Birdie’s Tree resources in diverse early childhood education contexts.

Analyses of educators’ reflections, feedback and conversations, and my reflections as program developer, facilitator and researcher indicated the relevance of this professional learning to educators’ professional practices, even in learning communities that had not recently been impacted by a disaster or severe weather. Educators used the Birdie resources together with pedagogic ideas from the professional learning program to implement integrated play-based learning about natural hazards and children’s emotions within their everyday curricula. These activities showcased educators’ understanding of and responsiveness to children’s developmental needs and reflected increased knowledge and awareness of the potential impacts of disasters on young children.

As educators explored and implemented early years disaster resilience education supported by the Birdie’s Tree resources, similarities in educators’ understandings of issues children face in the context of disasters and disruptive events, and consistency in educators’ use of resources and of the factors that influenced their engagement with the professional learning regardless of centre type and location were evident. Also evident was the importance of place-based practices, educators’ commitment to supporting children to navigate learning and social challenges, cross-sectoral and community collaboration, connectedness with nature and through educator-child and centre-family relationships, and authentic teaching practices to embed disaster resilience ideas and everyday preparedness across their curriculum. Spanning all pedagogic dimensions was the importance of children as active agents in their learning.

Results from the study indicate that investment through centre-based or organisational funding and a commitment to ongoing professional learning is key to supporting educators’ pedagogic skill development throughout their careers. The working relationship between the Queensland Centre for Perinatal and Infant Mental Health and Brolga Early Learning1 highlighted the benefits of cross-sectoral collaborations to support educators’ knowledge and skills in relation to early childhood disaster resilience. Ensuring that professional learning is accessible, flexible, and contextualised is vital to enabling the early childhood sector to strengthen disaster preparedness and resilience. In addition, considering educators' concerns regarding time constraints, competing workplace priorities, and workforce mobility, professional learning challenges should be addressed in the broader context of building and sustaining a skilled early childhood education and care workforce.