FDCA Addresses ACECQA Biennial Workforce Forum on Culture, Wellbeing and Children’s Outcomes

Family day care was placed firmly at the centre of the national workforce conversation this week, with FDCA General Manager of Advocacy and Engagement, Michael Farrell, invited to speak on a panel at the ACECQA Biennial Workforce Forum on the topic ‘Culture, Educator Wellbeing and Children’s Outcomes’.

Representing family day care on a panel exploring how cultural settings shape educator wellbeing and how wellbeing, in turn, shapes children’s outcomes, Mr Farrell highlighted the essential role that family day care plays in achieving equitable access, flexibility and inclusion across the ECEC system. He reinforced the model’s strengths in providing small group environments, low ratios, individualised programming and sustained educator-child relationships over time.

During the session, Mr Farrell spoke to several core themes, including:

• the cultural narratives that shape how FDC educators feel valued and perceived within the broader ECEC context
• the impact of regulatory and administrative systems on educator wellbeing
• the sector’s strengths in providing continuity, relationships and individualised learning
• the critical need for policy design that reflects the realities of home-based, sole-educator environments
• the importance of a national narrative that recognises FDC’s contribution to access and outcomes.

To read Mr Farrell’s full opening statement that was delivered at the Forum, please see below.

ACECQA Biennial Workforce Forum - Panel: Culture, Educator Welbeing and Children's Outcomes

Opening Statement, Michael Farrell, FDCA General Manager - Advocacy and Engagement
Tuesday 25 November 2025

‍This session asks how culture shapes educator wellbeing, and how wellbeing, in turn, shapes children’s outcomes.

From a family day care perspective, what stands out immediately as significant in the cultural context is there is a general perception of negativity, inferiority or simply indifference, which correlates with how it is regulated and how valued workers feel – this, in turn, impacts directly on educator wellbeing.

Yet despite this, the sector’s capacity to contribute to strong learning and developmental outcomes for children doesn’t waver, particularly for a number of specific cohorts - this needs to be recognised, valued and promoted.

Too often, FDC sits at the edge of the conversation. In a system where professional recognition, equitable pay and conditions, burnout and administrative burden are rightly discussed, the FDC context is rarely considered in the development of strategic policy solutions.

As Gabrielle Sinclair once said at a Parliamentary Friends of Early Childhood breakfast, and I quote - “We have failed family day care.”

Too frequently, FDC is viewed through a lens of distrust or treated as a “lesser” version of centre based care. That framing has consequences.

It seeps into policy design and enforcement settings; it adds compliance load for sole operators; it erodes professional identity and, ultimately, wellbeing.

When viable FDC places disappear under poorly calibrated regulations or deficit narratives, families lose access and choice - especially those needing flexibility or non standard hours, or culturally responsive options.

Meanwhile, on the things that drive quality, FDC excels.

• On structural quality, it offers small groups and low ratios with one consistent educator.
• On process quality, it delivers individualised programming and continuity of relationships over time. Yet too often these strengths are not recognised - let alone designed for.

If we are serious about equitable child outcomes across the ECEC system, we must also be serious about equitable wellbeing supports for every educator in that system. And that starts by recognising the unique realities of their work - and designing for them, not despite them.

If we are serious about equitable outcomes for children, we must be serious about equitable wellbeing supports for every educator. That starts by designing for FDC, not despite it:

• Proportionate regulation calibrated to a home based, sole educator setting.
• Targeted wellbeing and capability supports that reduce administrative noise and enable presence with children.
• A strengths based public narrative that reflects what independent inquiries – like the ACCC and Productivity Commission - have made clear: family day care is vital to access, flexibility and inclusion, even as the sector remains in decline and on the periphery of policy discourse.

The test is simple: do our policies and our language make it easier for a sole educator, working from home, to be well, to be valued and to be present for children? If yes, children benefit. If no, access, equity and outcomes suffer. It’s time to see, support and trust family day care - and to build a system that fits the model we say we value.

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