The Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) Workforce and Wellbeing Forum was held on Thursday 17 July 2025.
The Sector(opens in a new window) event, supported by the department and Goodstart Early Learning, brought together almost 250 ECEC professionals from across the state to share their experience, knowledge and insights. Attendees included professionals from not-for-profit and community organisations, policy experts and service leaders.
Structured around 4 key themes, the forum focused on:
- the ECEC workforce policy environment — how the policy is evolving, Free TAFE and skilled migration pathways
- workforce attraction, recruitment and retention — the importance of culture, capability alignment, recruitment strategies and expectation setting
- educator wellbeing — examples of wellbeing programs and practices and how to succeed in this area
- a reflective conversation with Myra Geddes, the social impact general manager at Goodstart Early Learning, her journey and lessons learned.
Throughout the day, participants had opportunities to network and build professional relationships. They came away with new ideas to strengthen their own practice and services.
Panelist Sarah Logan, Director Workforce Policy and Programs at the department, said ‘it was a privilege to spend a day with so many committed and professional members of the broader ECEC community.’
‘Investing in the workforce is critical to high quality early childhood education and care and this was a fantastic opportunity to share knowledge and build connections’.
The Sector founder and chief executive officer Jason Roberts said hosting a ‘high quality field of panelists’ was ‘tremendously humbling’.
‘The breadth of topics of covered, the insights shared and the experience on display was clearly well received by our delegates, many of which had travelled interstate to attend.’
Find out more
For more information on professional development and career support, refer to the Career opportunities and support(opens in a new window) webpage.
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