Welcome Dear Members

Dear members,

We hope you are all keeping well and enjoyed the long weekend. Last week was another busy week for the Federation Committee. The new subcommittee groups set up last week are working well across Ireland. We have met so many members that are willing to work towards positive change to our profession.

DCYA Meeting – Reference Group:

• The meeting took place on Thursday at 2pm and was attended by the secretary Fiona Bowe. Minister Zappone chaired the meeting and there were also DCYA representatives on the call. It was a positive meeting where the DCYA asked for suggestions from providers. The meeting consisted of many larger chains and their general consensus was they agreed with the TWSCS. Fiona gave the results of our quick snapshot poll of 250 people, where 223 said they did not agree with the Siptu statement that 75% of owners/managers support the TWSCS. The point was made that more communication is neeed with Providers on the ground.

Membership Committee

• A new membership form has been shared on the cluster groups and on the Facebook page. If you filled in a previous membership form but didn’t make payment, please refill this one. If you did already pay your paypal transaction is receipt and you can use this or your membership number as proof.

Mental health Committee

• During this unprecedented crisis we all want to help ourselves; our children and our families find coping strategies to ease the stress regarding Covid 19. ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) can empower teachers to help children and families become more resilient and better able to adapt to life’s challenges. Learn the foundations of ACT therapy and how it can be usefully applied to the preschool and home settings. This exceptional professional development course is aimed at training teachers the ACT methods from renowned educational and child Psychologist Dr. Sarah Cassidy. The course runs 5 weeks starting the 12 of June from 3 to 5 pm. More information regarding enrolling will be sent out soon.
• Don’t forget Wednesday at 8pm for week 2 of Mindfullness with Dr Roberta Hines

Ibec Committee:

• The Federation established a working group in April to contact Ibec after initial contact had been made and established from Dec to March. NCN became involved and have been a huge positive support and together we added to this group to include most of the Providers groups. All were invited to join these communications. The FDC group joined us last Thursday for this call. There will be a small group of four covering all service types chosen from this large group to work directly with Ibec to get united support for Providers across Ireland. Details to follow

Social Media Committee:

• New FB and Twitter accounts have been set up
• The new Fb page will be for members only and you will need to show proof of Federation membership to join. This will take a few weeks to complete so the current group will continue until it is ready
• Community Managers need to show proof i.e. a letter from someone on their board to confirm their employment (There is no other quick way to do this as not all CM are on the Tusla list)

Strategic Planning Committee:

• The strategy committee are working effectively to reach out to various stakeholders. We are in the process of creating a website for The Federation of Early Childhood Providers which will be a source of support for providers

Insurance Committee:

• We are currently in active talks with a number of brokers and Insurers who are prepared to consider a formal underwriting proposal for The Federation of Early Childhood Providers. In this regard, we will be sending out some surveys to our members over the coming two weeks and we ask you all to participate, so that the data provided can be analysed to formulate an underwriting proposals for the interested insurers ( in the interest of securing the best competitive deal for our members)

DCYA:

• Providers may apply to the DYCA for overhead payments, even if they did not apply for the Wage Subsidy – Details to follow
• We continue to wait for a response to the email and petition sent to the DCYA.

Please email us with any of your thought  suggestionstofeds@gmail.com

Kind regards

The Federation of Early Childhood Providers Committee