Promoting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Safety in Early Childhood Education and Care

This project discusses the importance of creating a culturally safe environment for children and promoting participation by all cultural groups. It covers topics such as encouraging families to share their cultural knowledge and experience, fostering inclusion and embracing diversity, modeling open, inclusive, ethical interactions, incorporating awareness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and cultures into work practices, working in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities, and taking cultural issues into consideration to increase participation in services. The project is relevant to CHCECE001 and CHCDIV002 courses in Certificate III and Diploma Early Childhood Education and Care.

Certificate III and Diploma Early Childhood
Education and Care
CHCECE001 - DEVELOP CULTURAL COMPETENCE
CHCDIV002 - Promote Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait
Islander cultural safety
Project 1
By
(Add your name & date here)
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Table of Contents
CHCDIV002 - Promote Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander cultural safety...............1
Introduction.....................................................................................................................3
What does it mean to create a culturally safe environment for children?.......................3
With whom should facility staff consult to obtain knowledge of cultural groups within
the community?...............................................................................................................3
How can staff promote participation by all cultural groups?..........................................3
How is it beneficial to encourage families to share their context, cultural knowledge
and experience (including languages)?...........................................................................5
How can staff foster inclusion and encourage children to broaden their perspectives
and embrace diversity as they develop their own identities?..........................................5
Why is it important to model open, inclusive, ethical interactions with children, families
and co-workers?..............................................................................................................5
Under what circumstances might it be necessary to provide additional cultural support
to children and how might this be done?.........................................................................6
How can awareness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and cultures be
incorporated into work practices.....................................................................................6
How could you work in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
and communities.............................................................................................................6
How can service providers take cultural issues (including the focus on self-
determination) into consideration and increase participation in services.......................7
Indigenous people can be encouraged to participate in evaluating services and
negotiating their needs regarding desired outcomes......................................................7
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Introduction
Child care centers are the commercial buildings that provide larger care for the children, when
compared to family child care providers. It includes providing complete care on full time or part time basis.
These are center base and work with typical operating hours, that is from 7:00 am to 6:00pm. The children are
from aged 24 months to 36 months or even less than that. This center provides all meals and snacks options
for the children. The qualification of staff is not any specific educational requirements but attaining a degree
will help in building strong foundation for the job.
What does it mean to create a culturally safe environment for
children?
A culturally safe environment is one in which people are, regardless of difference, welcomed, comfortable and allowed
to be themselves. The environment is spiritually, socially and emotionally and physically safe. There is no assault,
challenge or denial of their identity, of who people are and what they need.
Creating a culturally safe environment will help in building principles of trust, respect and diversity and even
fairness in the minds of children. Culture will form a foundation of developing identity and strong cultural identity that is
very important for the health related factors for the children while making them understand about where they belong.
Cultural competence will help the children in communicating effectively while interacting with other people present
across various cultures.
With whom should facility staff consult to obtain knowledge of
cultural groups within the community?
 Yarrabah community Shire council
 Local government
 Families
 Communities
 Relations with children
How can staff promote participation by all cultural groups?
Build strong, trust based relationships and communicate effectively with children and their families. Observe children’s
behaviours and provide extra support as needed. Consult with elders—aunts and uncles—to determine what cultural
issues are important and what protocols should be followed.
Staff members of the child care center can promote cultural participation with the help of reaching out to the
families of children along with their local communities. This will promote cultural diversity while help in gaining
information about various cultures that are represented by students and staff members. This information can be used to
acknowledge and respect individuals coming from culturally diverse background. In addition to this, staff can conduct
some local community and cultural events that will include artifacts and other things that are relevant to the culture.
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How is it beneficial to encourage families to share their context,
cultural knowledge and experience (including languages)?
 To build trusting and safe relationships
 It eliminates language barriers.
 Develops the feeling of respect from mutual side.
 It lifts up the culture in the best way.
 It deepens the sense of unity and belonging for children.
How can staff foster inclusion and encourage children to broaden
their perspectives and embrace diversity as they develop
their own identities?
When working with different community groups, including CALD groups, consultation is required. Find out what is
important to the family and cultural groups associated with the early learning facility, so that needs can be
accommodated. Develop activities, games and problem-solving activities.
It is important that the staff celebrate multiculturalism with children by celebrating various holidays and festivals
together. It will make every children be a part of the community and will feel valued. Getting the families of the children
involved is a great step towards building multiculturalism and many families to be involved. This childcare allows the food and
meal options for the children, here the staff can ask the food habits and cultures in their family to make the children follow
the same, thus, encouraging diversity. Moreover the staff can have interactive session with the children that will lead them to
explore and engage with their culture. This can even be done by visual communication from conducting plays.
Why is it important to model open, inclusive, ethical interactions
with children, families and co-workers?
Act as role model for all the children by ensuring that your actions are inclusive, ethical and support acceptance of
diversity.
Interactions acts as an opportunities that will will the children grow. With interaction, they will learn and
develop social skills, cooperation while respecting other things. Interactions helps the students in developing language
skills along with fostering creativity and social intelligence at an early stage. Ethical interactions with children will helps
in supporting their development in positive direction and promoting good health, self- awareness and competence in
the children. Ethics is important in safe ad securing the future of the children while providing happy childhood. Open
interactions with families is very important to identify their needs, demands and concerns associated with the child care
setting for their children. Inclusive interaction will help in developing supportive environment for children with the
chances of building relations with proper caring.
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Under what circumstances might it be necessary to provide
additional cultural support to children and how might this be
done?
Observe children’s behaviours and provide extra support as needed. Develop cultural competence and help broaden
children’s perspectives and encourage appreciation of diversity.

 Family and community events
 Share their culture, stories and experiences and learn from each other.
How can awareness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
history and cultures be incorporated into work practices
Strategies that will increase participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in community service and child
care would be to employ ATSI staff members. Such staff will gain insight towards the indigenous community that will the
children in learning about this culture from close. It will allow them to make thoughtful choices awhile improving cross-
cultural awareness and building better relations from children with diverse background.
Another method to incorporate indigenous culture is by showcasing aboriginal art that is both traditional and
modern. Children will learn a lot from the visuals and will make it easy for the staff to introduce aboriginal cultures in
them. Art helps in speaking and captures all the important elements present in the culture while visuals develop
environment of inclusion in the child are setting.
How could you work in partnership with Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people and communities
 Work practices used in a cross-cultural context are grounded in awareness of one’s own culture and the cultural
realities of others
 appropriate communication strategies that support a culturally safe environment
 being transparent will create a feeling of trust.
 Understanding cultural obligations
 Acknowledging all the problems
 Visit aboriginal and Torres strait islander organizations and leaders
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 Demonstrating respect.
How can service providers take cultural issues (including the
focus on self-determination) into consideration and increase
participation in services
By implementing effective strategies for developing and maintaining effective relationships with Aboriginal and/or
Torres Strait Islander co-workers, revisiting strategies to assist in the resolution of any difficulties, differences or
misunderstandings.
Effective strategies such as self- determination is an effective strategy that will help in determining the political
status and develop culturally. It helps in providing collective cultural rights that can be claimed by indigenous
community. With the help of self- determination, aboriginal people exhibit wide range of views related with the goals
while being successful in attaining the same. It will avoid them to be treated separately and providing with the needed
services.
Indigenous people can be encouraged to participate in evaluating
services and negotiating their needs regarding desired
outcomes
By having effective partnerships between staff, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their communities that
facilitate accessibility, affordability, accountability, acceptability of appropriate care and workplace services you could
engage ATSI peoples in conversations that assist in understanding and allowing them to have their say.
Engaging with the community and on often basis will help in gaining input from the community while
showcasing respect, interest and values. It will include going through the issues that are not addressed and helping the
community to move in society.
References
SmallPRINT V3 Sep 2015
http://ccb.elearninglogin.com/t/dashboard
https://www.acecqa.gov.au/
Add a few more references here
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