FDCA - Promoting You in 2021

FDCA - Promoting You in 2021

Today we bring you the second of Family Day Care Australia's (FDCA) three-part series of bulletins sharing with you our Member Initiatives and Key Projects over the year that’s been.

These initiatives and projects have fallen in-line with FDCA's 2020-2021 Key Initiatives and Strategic Plan, with the core goals being to represent, support and promote the family day care sector.

They have been designed to result in impacts that will not only provide tangible benefits to our members, but assist in reaching FDCA's vision of making family day care the natural choice for more Australia families.

As your national peak body, we are uniquely positioned to develop and deliver broadly representative policy positions through consultative and evidence-based advocacy efforts.

A key strategic priority for FDCA remains raising the profile of the family day care sector on local, state and national levels, and positioning family day care as the natural choice for more Australian families and a career of choice for more Australian workers.

In recognition of this, we have had two specific goals for promoting the sector across 2021:

• Raise awareness and position family day care on its unique strengths in delivering high qualityearly childhood education and care to support long term sector viability andgrowth through marketing, public relations and strategic media management; and
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• Raise awareness and positioning family day care as a career of choice to support services in the recruitment of professional early childhood educators in areas of need and opportunity.
  

In this bulletin we highlight how FDCA has been Promoting You through our Key Initiatives and Projects across 2021.

Your Business, Their Future Recruitment Campaign

Off the back of our successful Educator Recruitment Boost Program, and the ongoing national workforce crises affecting the sector as evidenced by the recent release of the ‘Shaping Our Future’ Workforce Strategy and the latest Sector Profile, FDCA onboarded a dedicated National Recruitment Manager to join forces with services in attracting, screening and placing the next generation of family day care educators.

The ‘Your Business, Their Future’ program has positioned family day care as the natural choice for a rewarding new career in early childhood education and care (ECEC). Through extensive digital and direct marketing, the program continues to target a deepand diverse pool of prospective educators; from current ECEC practitioners to career change professionals and inspired new entrants wanting to make a difference in the lives of the children and families in their community.

With our wide reach and presence on major national job sites, ‘Your Business,Their Future’ has already attracted over 100 applicants interested in joining the family day care sector.

Excellence in Family Day Care Awards

This year we celebrated 10 years of the FDCA Excellence in Family Day Care Awards.

The Awards continue to be the only national event of its kind offering families and the family day care community the opportunity to be recognised for their exceptional work on a one-of-a-kind platform.

Our 2021 Awards season saw over 5,200 nominations come through from parents and members wanting to showcase the efforts of their nominees.

From a promotional perspective, the 2021 Awards reached a number of local, stateand national media outlets, with the publication of over 70 Awards articles and an estimated reach of approximately 1 million Australians.

We look forward to greeting our 2021 National Finalists at the Gala Dinner in Canberra next year, where we will announce the National Winners.

National Family Day Care Week

National Family Day Care Week is one of the most important events on the family day care calendar, showcasing the essential role that family day care educators and services play in the development and wellbeing of over 93,000 Australian children.

This year’s event was celebrated across the country, with FDCA inviting our members to register their Picnics in the Park to bring families, community members and colleagues together.

FDCA was delighted to be joined by the Hon Amanda Rishworth MP, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Development, at our South Australia Picnic in the Park to mark the importance of family day care as a vital part of the early childhood education and care landscape.

Family Day Care Advertising Campaign

FDCA's National Advertising Campaign followed on from our 2019-2020 campaign, focused on the promotion of family day care as an option of choice for families and those seeking a new career.

This year’s campaign focused on driving traffic to the FDCA website and generating leads for family day care services and educators via the Family Day Care Locator Tool, through targeted search engine marketing and digital advertising.

Our advertisements reached families seeking care all across Australia and resulted in an increased uptake of the Family Day Care Locator Tool.

We look forward to the final part of this series where we will look at our initiatives over the year in Supporting You.