Message from the CEO: 9 March 2022

Floods have topped the headlines over the last few weeks, and continue to be the focus for us here at CCSA. We continue to support our members and the broader early childhood sector with phone calls, emails, and online support. Please don’t hesitate to contact us with the big and small matters. We are here to help, and take your stories to the Minister’s office and the Department of Education.

Advocacy is something we do every day, and during the last few weeks I have spent a large percentage of my time advocating on several fronts. The floods have certainly taken precedence with us advocating on a range of issues including an immediate support program, the establishment of an Employment Assistance Program (EAP) targeted at staff that have been impacted by the floods, an approvals taskforce team to support relocation approvals or increasing licensed approvals for services to support additional children, wages support for flood impacted services, better support for insurance claims and coverage of large excesses on premiums..

Outside of the floods we have been focused on workforce shortages across small standalone services, recruitment of management committee members, providing feedback to school’s infrastructure on licensed premises and tenders specifically for Out of School Hours services and all other early childhood services, particularly Mobile services. We are seeking updates on the Preschool Reform Agenda and are currently providing input into the capturing of attendance data. We have upcoming meetings with both state and federal departments on several maters and we will keep you updated.

Until next time stay safe and keep dry.

Meg Mendham,
CEO