Communicating with Families in Challenging Times
Building and maintaining collaborative partnerships with families can be a challenge. Now as three states in our country are dealing with lockdowns, and the other states and territories are waiting to see if they will be next, those collaborative partnerships are even more challenging. In these uncertain times, I wonder if we need those relationships to be stronger than ever to ensure the children in our care continue to thrive.
So now is probably a good time to highlight the ways EarlyWorks supports educators and families in building and maintaining collaborative partnerships when face to face contact isn’t possible.
Home Activities
In response to the initial Covid outbreak in March 2020, we added a new ‘Home Activity’ function to EarlyWorks. This allows educators to create experiences (home activities) for families to do with their children at home. The brilliant part of this, is that these home activities form part of the program. For more information have a read of our Home Activity Experience blog: https://getearlyworks.com.au/home-activity-experiences/ and for examples of how you can include the home activities in each child’s individual planning cycle click on this link https://getearlyworks.com.au/home-program-planning-cycle/ .
Sharing Programs, Observations and Journals with Families
This is really going back to the basics of EarlyWorks, but sometimes we forget the brilliance of the basics! Educators can share any observations, journals or experiences (planned activities) with families using EarlyWorks. Families can then add their own comments to observations and journals. This is particularly important when face to face communication isn’t possible.
Daily Communications
Families are able to see all daily communications as they are added by educators: sleep times, bottle times and quantities, toileting information, menu information, and general comments.
Photo Sharing
Educators can share photos on their own, as well as including with observations, journals and comments. Families can also share photos with educators as attachments to family comments.
Document Sharing
EarlyWorks allows services to share documents, notifications, photos and videos in a variety of ways: Quick Notifications, Announcements, Child Comments, and Service Documents.
We know that being accessible to families is key to effective communication. By making the most of EarlyWorks, educators can keep the online communication lines wide open. So very important when face to face communication just isn’t possible.
