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| Building a diverse workforce
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How to employ and retain indigenous staff
Employing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders offers many benefits for early childhood education and care services, the families which attend those services and the community more widely. In addition services which employ people from Aboriginal and Torres Strait backgrounds find it easier to attract and retain families from those backgrounds.
The benefits of employing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as educators and staff include:
- Improved respect for and knowledge of Aboriginal culture, history and issues
- Increased support for your service's cultural program
- Helping to ensure that culturally inclusive practices and education are included in your service naturally and informally as well as part of the curriculum
- The opportunity to introduce your service to different ways of thinking and doing things and providing a strong link to your local community
- Helps to dispel any negative stereotypes among staff and families.
Hiring and retaining Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
If you would like to increase the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders on your staff and are not having any luck through the usual channels then it might be worth contacting the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care.
Other websites which could be useful include Indigenous Jobs Australia, which specialises in helping employers find Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and Koori Mail a fortnightly newspaper which offers recruitment advertising specifically aimed at Indigenous people.
Some early childhood education and care services struggle to hold on to Aboriginal education and care providers and this can be for many reasons, one of which can be a sense of alienation if they are the only Indigenous person working in the service.
The following strategies may help you retain your Aboriginal educators and staff:
- Be understanding and appreciative of cultural differences and different world-views.
- Offer regular training and relevant professional development opportunities
- Be open to new ways of doing things
- Actively listen and respond to educators
- Be supportive and ensure non-Aboriginal educators at your service are welcoming and open to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture
- Commence staff meetings with an Acknowledgement of Country as a statement of reconciliation and respect of Indigenous people as the traditional owners of the land
- If an educator resigns ask them why they are leaving and learn from their responses by using this information to improve your strategies for retaining staff.
References
Attracting and retaining Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educators and staff from Putting Children First, the magazine of the former NCAC, Issue 38 June 2011. |
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