Welcome to the last ECA NT Newsletter of 2023! It’s been a very busy last quarter for everyone.

Aside from the build-up being upon us, this quarter has been our conference season! Some of our ISP team along with some of our admin team attended the ECA National Conference in Adelaide in October. It was a spectacular success with some excellent presentations and networking opportunities.

The ECA Statement on Play was formally launched at the conference providing the sector with a great resource that considers six key principles of play.

In November some of our NDIS team attended the Reimagine Conference in Brisbane where our NDIS Area Manager Trish Wachtel and CDU Lecturer Fiona Tipping presented a paper on ECA/CDU collaborations in practice.

ECA also presented at the Little People Big Dreams Conference this year and some of our team attended the National SNAICC Conference here in Darwin.

We have come back from these events with some good learnings, insights, and provocations to keep us on our toes! Not least mulling over the notion of ‘professional love’ in ECEC settings – is it a transformative power of emotional connection (ref: Jools Page) and the ‘F’ words for child development in action – Functioning, Family, Fitness, Fun Friends, Future (ref: CanChild).

In the policy and advocacy space there has been a lot of activity involving all areas of our work. ECA has been busy providing program, practice, and strategic insights to all levels of government regarding some of the most poignant challenges facing our sector. ECA has contributed submissions and attended key forums this quarter that have included:

o   NDIS Review

o   Inclusion Support Program Review

o   Productivity Commission Inquiry into Early Childhood

o   Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)

o   Human Ability – Jobs and Skills Council

o   Shaping our Future – National Workforce Forum

o   Key Stakeholder Advisory Group NT (KSAG)

The community events and program activity has been an ever-increasing area of our work this year with ECA attending most of the key forums, conferences, and community events in our regions. The g4gd® program is in demand and ECA is consolidating a community partnership with Clubhouse Territory to look at how we can fund and increase community activities next year that will support providing gathering spaces and activities for families to connect.

We have consolidated some excellent collaborations for impact with formal partnership agreements now in place with both the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education and Carpentaria Disability Services.

This quarter saw some farewelling of valued members of our staff teams who have either moved interstate or gone off travelling. This has provided opportunities to welcome some new faces too that have really contributed to expanding our team’s repertoire.

As we draw towards the end of another very productive year, there has been an increase in child and family referrals coming through to our NDIS team and an increase in requests for support from ECEC services seeking support from our ISP teams.

I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a safe fabulous festive season and look forward to a productive and exciting 2024!!

Janet Williams-Smith 
Inclusion and Early Intervention General Manager

Welcome to the last quarter for the year! It has been a dynamic, at times challenging, but overall successful quarter. 

We continue to work with our urban services, and we are grateful for the close collaboration that allows us to support you to include all children. Similarly, our efforts continue with our remote locations. This quarter we have visited Jabiru, Gunbalanya, Emu Point, the Katherine region including Roper Gulf, Timber Creek, Groote Eylandt, and Gove. It is always wonderful to be able to connect/reconnect with some of our educators both in very remote locations, as well as urban centres! 

Our collaboration with the Batchelor Institute continues, supporting community students in their studies. Being a part of this space allows us to gain insights into the challenges faced by remote services and how best to support educators during our visits, as well as supporting students to unpack units of study.

In October, several of our Inclusion Professionals attended the ECA Conference held in Adelaide, themed “Kumarninthi: Becoming One: Old Ways, New Wisdom.”  The conference emphasised integrating traditional knowledge with contemporary approaches, enriching our team’s experience, and contributing to their knowledge base. It also provided a platform to share ideas, theories, and exemplary practices in early childhood education and care (ECEC).

Thanks to your ongoing support, our STEL (Sensory Tool and Equipment Library) is flourishing. We're continuously expanding our resources to cater to the unique needs of every child.  If you require any STEL assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out to your inclusion professional or our STEL Co-ordinator Alex Kastellorizios. 

Children’s Week was celebrated with the community at Lake Alexander and the Palmerston Recreation Centre. We bid farewell to Elle Tassell, who relocated to NSW. We are also saying goodbye to Tania Corkill, who briefly contributed to our ISP team after transitioning from the NDIS team. Tania is pursuing new professional opportunities in Darwin. We wish both Ellen and Tania all the best in their future endeavors. We are actively recruiting to fill these positions and welcome talented individuals to join our team. Apply HERE

Recently we had a fantastic two-day workshop with Alice Springs Inclusion Professionals.  Together, we worked on improving our service delivery as Inclusion Professionals and NT’s Inclusion Agency. Amongst other priorities, we took the opportunity to reflect on our existing practices and collaboratively looked at new ideas for supporting services with your inclusion needs.

Our wonderful Admin team have been conducting Pulse Surveys to gather your feedback on how we’ve supported you as NT’s Inclusion Agency. Your insights are invaluable in shaping our improvements.

To all the educators out there, a big thank you for playing a pivotal role in children's lives, fostering growth in their minds, hearts, and souls. 

Wishing you all joy and a well-deserved, rejuvenating break.

Filomena Lay, 
NT IA Northern Region Manager

Hello from the ISP Southern Team! 

As the end of year fast approaches and holidays and festive celebrations fill our minds, I’d like to take the opportunity to congratulate you all for valuing Inclusion and joining with us to walk together throughout this last year as we all strive to build educator capacity to ensure we get the best outcomes for the children and families in our care. 

What a busy few months we’ve had! Our team has been out and about doing some great work with many remote visits including associated follow up to provide continuity of support with capacity building to ensure inclusive practices become embedded in everyday learning. We’ve also learnt a thing or two along the way, so it’s been a two-way exchange and sharing. This has also included some great opportunities to work with, and support, our remote educators with their Batchelor College studies, both during their in-school weeks, as well as following up back on Community.

The town services have also been embracing the support of the Southern IA Team. Whether it be practical support, IT and technical support to get SIPs up and running, or coaching and mentoring to build educator capacity or support with funding applications, our Southern Inclusion Professionals (IPs), Tracey and Sarah, have always got you covered.

We’ve also had our first services using the Sensory Tools and Equipment Library! If your service would like to know more about this great service, then please speak to your IP.

As well as all this we even had a visit from Lucy and Jacinta, IP’s from our Northern Region IA team. They came and worked alongside us for a week and were able to experience life in the Centre, including a couple of visits to our town services. They also got the opportunity to visit the beautiful Emily and Jessie Gaps. Thanks for coming down to share ideas and see what Inclusion support is like in our region.

We are still recruiting and looking for a new IP or ISP Support worker to join our team, apply HERE or you can apply via email to Catherine Clucas- catherine.clucas@ecant.org.au

So, as the year draws to an end, we once again, thank you for joining with us to support our regions' children so they can play and thrive in safe supportive inclusive learning environments.

Wishing you all the very best for the festive season. We look forward to continuing our Inclusion journey together in 2024.

Catherine Clucas, 
NT IA Southern Region Program Manager

As we come to the end of another action-packed year, the NDIS team would like to take the opportunity to thank you for your hard work and commitment to ensuring all children feel welcomed and belong. We hope you have the opportunity to rest and recharge over the festive season and connect with people and activities that bring you joy.

The NDIS team have been busy transitioning to the new PACE computer system that the NDIA introduced Australia-wide on 30^th October. If you are interested to understand more about this new system and the new ways of working, this link will take you to the website We're gradually rolling out a new computer system and improving the way we work | NDIS Improvements.

We said farewell to Rachael Holzberger who is relocating down south and Tania Vesty who is off travelling around Australia and Peta Maryvale who will be staying in Darwin but going back to her passion, directing an early learning centre. Rachael, Tania and Peta will be deeply missed for their wisdom, compassion, and humour but we wish them well and thank them all for their time with ECA.

We welcomed Kim Whitburn and Denisse Gonzalez to the team and have completed recruitment for two additional positions who will commence with us in January 2024. Profiles for Kim and Denisse are above.

ECA commenced delivery of the ENVISAGE families program during the quarter with extremely positive feedback from the families that participated. We are very excited to be providing more face-to-face workshops in 2024 so please keep an eye on our Facebook page for further details. 

Welcome to ENVISAGE - (ENabling VISions And Growing Expectations)

ENVISAGE is a program co-created by Australian and Canadian researchers, clinicians, and most importantly parents of children with developmental concerns and disabilities. Our mission is to empower caregivers like you to feel confident and competent to navigate the experience of parenting a child or children with developmental concerns by embracing contemporary strengths-based ideas about health, wellbeing, and development.

We know that being a parent or caregiver is a big responsibility. And when your child’s development might be complicated by differences or disability, the challenges can feel even greater. We want you to know that ENVISAGE is here for you, to help parents feel confident and supported as they navigate this journey. We understand that parents and caregivers want to do the best they can for their children, and we know that it can be stressful and overwhelming at times.

To learn more about ENVISAGE please click on this link : About Us - Envisage Families

Trish Wachtel
Area Manager Early Childhood Approach

The g4gd® team did a 7-week program with the Get Active, Palmerston team again! We welcomed Samantha Withers who has worked for ECA as an IP in the past, back to the g4gd team. The last program saw us based at the Palmerston Library community room, starting off on the 12^th of October, going through to the 23^rd of November. We finished off with a fun Christmas music special and will start up again in 2024. With thanks to City of Palmerston for their support. Keep checking our Facebook page to keep up-to-date with our g4gd® program! See you all next year. 

It’s been a very busy three months for the Events Team! We started October with the annual ECA National Conference which was held in Adelaide with an impressive turnout of delegates. The ECA NT staff who attended enjoyed the learning and collaboration with other Early Childhood professionals and the high calibre of speakers and sessions.

ECA NT also attended Clubhouse Territory's Inclusivity Forum in Katherine which was attended by many providers, with great food provided by the NT Multicultural Society and fun activities. Minister Ah Kit also attended the event in her hometown of Katherine. This event was run in partnership with Integrated Disability Action Inc (IDA) who is the NT Peak Consumer Organisation for Territorians with disability and Clubhouse Territory which is a not-for-profit organisation, specialising in inclusive events, inclusion advocacy and individualised NDIS Services.

On the 20^th of October we attended the Play Together Early Childhood Inclusion Fair run by Playgroups NT and it was a great morning to be a part of, liaising with other providers, playing with children and talking with families.

The following week we celebrated Children’s Week! On Tuesday we were at the Palmerston Recreation Centre and on Wednesday we celebrated at Lake Alexander, with lots of fun activities, water slides, face painting and a sausage sizzle! It was great to see so many families out and about, especially in the hot October weather. 

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and look forward to all of the exciting events happening in 2024!

Claire Bredhauer,
Media, Events & Program Coordinator 

• Inclusion Professional Positions (Alice Springs) -  Apply HERE. 
• Inclusion Professional Support Officer (Alice Springs) -  Apply HERE. 
• 2 x Inclusion Professional Positions (Darwin) - Apply HERE. 

There are many discounts to be had with ECA's holiday countdown. Check out Early Childhood Australia's Facebook page or the website for the daily deals. There are some fantastic deals!

Get ready to organise, inspire, and create with 20% off our 2024 Early Years Daily and Weekly Planners! 📆 As you embark on a journey of shaping young minds in 2024, our planners stand as your trusted companions.

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Early Childhood Australia NT acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout the Northern Territory and pay our respect to Elders past and present for their continuing custodianship of the land and the children of this land, across the generations.