# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Building belonging: A toolkit for early childhood educators

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn how to create an inclusive learning environment for children and how to respond to discrimination. This is a toolkit for early childhood educators on cultural diversity and responding to prejudice.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Early years to year 2 resources to support parents and educators.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Culture is vital for the safety and wellbeing of Aboriginal children and young people.

Cultural safety involves welcoming Aboriginal children and young people, and their families into your organisation, and supporting them to express their culture and enjoy their rights.

Establishing culturally safe environments for Aboriginal children is also a legal requirement under the Child Safe Standards:

Child Safe Standard 1 requires organisations to establish a culturally safe environment in which the diverse and unique identities and experiences of Aboriginal children and young people are respected and valued.

We've developed a guide to help you understand cultural safety and what you can do to establish culturally safe environments in your organisation. It includes practical tips and tools that will help you meet the requirements of Child Safe Standard 1 and make your organisation a safer place for children and young people.

Our guidance materials include:
Jump to the resources
Who the guide is for

While everyone in an organisation plays a part in creating a culturally safe environment, it is a good idea for people with key roles to read this document. These people might include:

heads of organisations or whoever is ultimately responsible for ensuring compliance with the Child Safe Standards, who may be the CEO, club president, secretary or your board members

anyone who is interacting with children and young people and is responsible for their safety and wellbeing

staff and volunteers directly involved in child safety and wellbeing, such as your organisation's child safety officer

learning and development staff.

What is in the guide

We've developed this guide to support organisations to meet Child Safe Standard 1.

The guide will help you build your understanding of what cultural safety means and why it is important to the safety and wellbeing of Aboriginal children and young people. It follows an evidence-based approach to establishing a culturally safe environment for Aboriginal children and young people.

The guide also includes practical tools, tips and resources that can support you to meet your requirements under Standard 1.
Jump to further tips and resources.
We recommend you read this resource alongside A guide for creating a Child Safe Organisation. There is a dedicated chapter on Child Safe Standard 1, including how the Standard was developed.

Download the resources

This suite of resources will help you implement Child Safe Standard 1 and establish a culturally safe environment for Aboriginal children and young people.

A guide for implementing Child Safe Standard 1

Download the full guide, which includes tools to help you establish a culturally safe environment in your organisation:

Download the tools individually (we recommend reading the guide above before starting work on these tools):

Tips for creating a culturally safe environment

There are many ways to create a culturally safe organisation. This resource has some tips and ideas to help you get started.
Tips for creating a culturally safe environment
Frequently asked questions

Meena Singh, Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People answers some frequently asked questions about Aboriginal people and culture.
Frequently asked questions about cultural safety
Days of importance

One way to help people feel their culture and identity is respected is to demonstrate respect for things that matter to them.

This resource highlights key days of importance for Aboriginal children and young people, their families, and communities.
Days of importance for Aboriginal communities

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Understanding cultural safety for Aboriginal children and young people

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Culture is vital for the safety and wellbeing of Aboriginal children and young people. Cultural safety involves welcoming Aboriginal children and young people, and their families into your organisation, and supporting them to express their culture and enjoy their rights.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This article is excerpted from Leading Anti-Bias Early Childhood Programs: A Guide for Change (2015), by Louise Derman-Sparks, Debbie LeeKeenan, and John Nimmo, published jointly by Teachers College Press and NAEYC. The book provides a framework and detailed practical strategies for the leader's role in working strategically with staff, families, and the community to implement an anti-bias approach. www.naeyc.org/store ​

An anti-bias early childhood care and education (ECCE) program puts diversity and equity goals at the center of all aspects of its organization and daily life. It involves much more than adding new materials and activities into the already existing learning environment. Rather, broad systemic changes are necessary. The learning environment and curriculum, as well as program policies, structures, procedures, and processes, all come into play. Change also includes the attitudes of the individuals who serve the children and families. In sum, it is "a process, not an event" (Kugelmass 2004, 6).

While the urgency to implement anti-bias education is great from the perspective of the children's needs, the process of change happens over time; an anti-bias education leader must plan for the long haul. Successful anti-bias education change needs an intentional and thoughtful strategic approach.

Building an anti-bias ECCE program requires shifting the dominant-culture core of a program's thinking, organizational structures, and practice. It means intentionally moving to a many-cultures anti-bias approach. Shifting the culture of a program brings groups at the margin of early childhood theory and practice into the center of all that happens. Shifting the culture also requires adjustment to the dominant and traditional approaches to ECCE to incorporate other ways of thinking and doing (Anderson & Collins 2001).

Anti-bias leadership builds on the core principles and best leadership practices of the early childhood care and education field. These include relationships of mutual caring and respect; sharing knowledge; reflective, intentional teaching; and collaboration among the staff and between staff and the program leader (Morgan 2000).

Fostering reflective anti-bias educators

Anti-bias education cannot be mastered in a one-time workshop or by reading a book. Most teachers largely learn how to do anti-bias education on the job, in specific settings with specific children and families. Anti-bias leaders provide the necessary time, space, resources, support, and facilitation for teachers and other staff to be part of the process of change. They build a community of learners that enables everyone to explore and grapple with anti-bias issues. A collaborative style of leadership, the preferred early childhood education model, empowers staff members to first begin and then take ownership of their anti-bias work. Anti-bias work grows best in an environment where collegial, mutually respectful relationships among staff and between staff and the program leader are the norm and where a culture exists that fosters open conversation and dialogue, reflection, and risk taking.

All early childhood programs have a staff with a range of awareness, interests, and experiences with diversity and anti-bias education. As the program leader, your charge is to find ways to provide a variety of learning opportunities for all of the staff. You should scaffold the anti-bias education growth of the individual staff members, as well as the movement of the group as a whole.

Managing and negotiating disequilibrium and conflict

Anti-bias work does generate disagreements and dissonance. These dynamics are inevitable as teachers, families, and administrators act on their deeply held and diverse values regarding childrearing and education. Broader contested grounds in ECCE, such as whether schools should have a role in achieving social justice, also fuel these conflicts. Emotional and cognitive disequilibrium often occur in conflict situations, accompanied by a range of feelings such as anger, frustration, and discomfort.

A collaborative style of leadership empowers staff members to first begin and then take ownership of their anti-bias work.

From a constructivist framework, conflict is a productive part of the learning process. The disequilibrium created by conflict is a prelude to problem solving and sharing information, creating opportunities for people to expand and shift their perspectives and behaviors. With this in mind, anti-bias education leaders embrace conflict as a healthy dynamic in the pursuit of change.

Conflicts in anti-bias endeavors occur when there is dissonance between two or more perspectives on a specific equity, diversity, or bias issue. As program leader, you have significant influence over the course of anti-bias conflict situations at your program and the potential for positive learning and behavioral outcomes. These efforts do not begin when an angry parent or staff member storms into the office. The program climate you create affects which issues become conflicts, as well as the possibility for productive change through conflict. Uncovering and examining one's own fears about the potential for conflict is [another] important step. As part of being strategic, it is necessary to think realistically about the possible reactions to anti-bias change from the various stakeholders and broader community. At the same time, you do not want fears about those real reactions to rule what you do or don't do. You have to do a mental assessment and determine if your fears stem from a perceived or a real problem.

Conflict among stakeholders about anti-bias work is not, in principle, about winners and losers. Finding win-win solutions to specific conflicts is always the first strategy. However, reality is likely to be more complex.

We have found that working from the concept of conflict maintenance (Olatunji 1998) is particularly useful. From this perspective, you manage conflict in a way that moves the program forward to greater equity and inclusion, rather than simply seeking a quick end to the conflict. Managing conflict productively requires dealing with each situation in its real-life context. You would listen closely to stakeholders, support the respectful sharing of perspectives, and reflect on decisions in the context of multiple views. This requires perseverance and the ability to accept the uncertainly of not knowing the outcome immediately. It also calls on all involved to be open to changing their thinking and to trying out new ways of acting.

Finding the third space

We view the third space as a place where people in conflict, through a distinct process of communication, reach agreement that goes beyond their initial positions. A third-space solution is particularly desirable because it draws on the creativity and openness of both parties to arrive at a new alternative that does not favor either position. This is both an intellectual and emotional experience in which the participants create fresh understandings and solutions. Engaging in it requires that people are willing to enter into dialogue with respect for each other and a willingness to learn (Freire 1970). When possible, the leader models this process in conflicts with stakeholders and facilitates these discussions between teachers and families.

The following steps of acknowledge, ask, and adapt constitute a useful third-space strategy for responding to conflicts, particularly those involving differences in cultural perspectives (adapted from Derman-Sparks 2013).

Step 1: Acknowledge

Acknowledge that a culture or values clash exists

Recognize the feelings for yourself and those involved

Clearly communicate that a problem exists and needs attending

Avoid becoming defensive or rushing to judgment

Step 2: Ask

Collect information that contributes to understanding the underlying issues

Find out what the issue means to the family, what the family would do or has done in the past

Clarify the priorities and the values involved

Examine your own fears and limitations

Be open to the need to learn

Hasten slowly-attend to relationships

Step 3: Adapt

Seek common ground

Think creatively about alternative approaches

Consider ways to adapt program policies and practices

Consider the needs of the child as well as your responsibilities to other children and families

Be honest about nonnegotiable social justice values

Affirm nonnegotiable values

Conflict discussions and the resulting outcomes highlight the complexity of anti-bias work. A basic premise is that the anti-bias approach does not mean that all beliefs and values are acceptable. Rather, the four core goals of anti-bias education create a framework within which discussions take place (Derman-Sparks & Edwards 2010). In a given situation, one or more anti-bias principles may clash. Since these are not abstract discussions, but attempts to reach behavioral decisions, one principle may have more weight than another in any given outcome.

Strategic leadership requires you to step back from the fray in order to see what is going on. Both teachers and families can lock into a particular viewpoint about what is best for the child. At times, cultural practices will come into conflict with anti-bias values, and you will need to tread carefully, show sensitivity, and be understanding of how change can be difficult. You have to try to balance the several values of anti-bias education and create movement toward the program's mission. The hope is that ultimately groups in a conflict come together and create a workable solution. Nevertheless, while it is important not to be dogmatic and inflexible about goals, you also do not want to abandon the nonnegotiable values of the program's anti-bias mission.

Sometimes respecting the desires of families on the one hand, and of practicing nonprejudice and nondiscrimination on the other hand, may be in contradiction. Consider these possibilities: A parent tells the teacher that he does not want a child with a disability in his son's class because the child will take up too much of the teacher's time. Another parent informs the teacher she does not want her daughter sitting next to a child whose mother is incarcerated. She is afraid that the child will be a bad influence or hurt her own child. Finally, a parent asks the teacher to keep his child out of the dramatic play area because playing there undermines cultural values about the role of men.

How can you balance the principles of respect for a family's beliefs and of nonprejudice and discrimination in these situations? Finding a resolution begins with communicating:

I understand that you are uncomfortable with your child learning about this aspect of diversity. Here at the center we believe strongly that we have to be inclusive of every family. That makes it tough for us to resolve your concern. Tell me more about why you feel so strongly. What might make it more comfortable for you, even though we cannot do what you are asking because it discriminates against other children?

Fortunately, most conflict situations that rest on cultural differences in childrearing practices have reachable solutions. All parties usually have to accept some changes from what they had wanted. Sometimes the balance tips in favor of the family's needs, at other times in favor of the program. In some cases, you would need to make a final decision, especially when the issue concerns what happens at the program or affects the community rather than a single family or staff member. If it is about a practice at the center, you may need to say, "Well, this is the best we can do," and the parent may respond, "Okay, we can live with that." If it is a practice in the home, ultimately the parents have the right to make that decision if it does not affect what happens in the program.

You will also have times when you have to let go of a desired outcome, at least for the time being, in order to build deeper relationships of trust in the program. We have found that even when a third-space outcome is not possible, staff, families, and administrators still learn from the exploration of the multiple perspectives about the specific conflict. Deeper and more authentic relationships often result.

Concluding thoughts: Documenting the shift toward anti-bias change

Program leaders have an ethical responsibility to hold themselves accountable to move forward in their anti-bias mission. Documenting change in a program's culture, staff, and leadership throughout the year guides the forward movement of anti-bias work. You can identify accomplishments, what more needs doing, and the patterns of change in your program at the individual, classroom, and program levels. Revisions in practice and policy; transformations in beliefs, assumptions, and attitudes; and shifts in the relationships among community members are all part of what gets documented and analyzed.

One of the key challenges for you is capturing the changes in a staff's consciousness as well as the quality of adult-child and adult-adult interactions and relationships. The authenticity and effectiveness of an anti-bias program is as much a function of these elements as it is a result of changes in the curriculum and learning materials. Although documenting changes in consciousness and interactions is delicate, it is important to try.

On a more personal level, we see [the documentation] process as an important opportunity to celebrate your own and the community's efforts and successes along the way. Change is a long-term undertaking and program leaders do not always see the fruits of their commitment to an anti-bias vision. A clear picture of where you have been and where you are now in the journey helps sustain you.

Copyright © 2015 by Teachers College, Columbia University.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Building Anti-Bias Early Childhood Programs: The Role of the Leader

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An anti-bias early childhood care and education (ECCE) program puts diversity and equity goals at the center of all aspects of its organization and daily life.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Understanding Anti-Bias Education_ Bringing the Four Core Goals to Every Facet of Your Curriculum _ NAEYC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Moving Beyond Anti-Bias Activities_ Supporting the Development of Anti-Bias Practices _ NAEYC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Anti-bias Education in the Early Years | Talking Race & Kids Webinar

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The power of celebrating cultural heritage

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We explore what UNESCO’s “intangible cultural heritage” list is about, and how you can explore this concept with children.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Calling out casual racism in ECEC settings

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
You may have heard the term “casual racism”, but do you know what itis and how it can affect children’s development and staff wellbeing? Three earlyeducation and care professionals who have experienced casual racism discuss how to identify it and call it out,and how to create culturally safe environments.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Racism, children’s mental health, and anti-racist practice - Emerging Minds

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This short article describes children’s experiences of racism, how it affects their mental health and introduces anti-racist practice.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Dr. Red Ruby Scarlet wants you to know about anti-bias education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Allies and Friends Early Childhood Education Series and Toolkit

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Racism. It Stops With Me is a national campaign that provides tools and resources to help people and organisations learn about racism and take action to create change. The campaign invites us to ask ourselves important questions about the role of racism in shaping society, the way we see ourselves and how we interact with one another. To explore these questions and find out more information, visit the About the campaign section of this website.