At Mother Duck Childcare and Kindergarten, safeguarding children has always been a core priority. We welcome the growing focus on safeguarding measures that all organisations caring for children and young people are now expected to uphold. Child Safety and Wellbeing is not just an Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) responsibility — it is a societal responsibility. To truly ‘do better’ for all children, we must start with deep reflection.

As leaders in ECEC, we are called to look inward, questioning not only what we do to safeguard children but also how we perceive safeguarding itself. This is the essence of Transformational Unlearning, a concept emphasised in the Queensland Child Safe Standards. Transformational Unlearning invites us to critically examine the subconscious beliefs, assumptions, and biases that shape our decisions and influence our environments. For too long, society may have assumed that organisations caring for children and young people were inherently safe—but experience shows that assumption is not enough. Safety and Wellbeing is about children and young people FEELING safe- safe to show up as they are, without shame or judgement and be embraced and celebrated for who they are. 

This quote by a young person, written into the Queensland Child Safe Standards, captures this concept of a felt sense of safety so beautifully: 

“Being safe makes you feel seen, heard and valued which is really important. There are a lot of times in a lot of places where you don’t have that feeling. You just feel invisible.” By Rhea. (QFCC, 2025).

Why Transformational Unlearning Matters

Child safety and wellbeing cannot be achieved simply by following policies or procedures. The National Principles for Child Safe Organisations and the Queensland Child Safe Standards remind us that true child safety begins with mindset, not paperwork. By unlearning outdated habits and assumptions, we create space for new, safer, and more inclusive ways of leading and caring—for educators, children, and families alike.

Strengthening Our Commitment to Child Safety

Recent updates to Quality Area 2 (Children’s Health and Safety) and Quality Area 7 (Governance and Leadership) of the National Quality Standard (NQS) place greater emphasis on robust governance, leadership, and operational practice in supporting child safety and wellbeing.

At Mother Duck, our long-standing values drive us to create environments where every child feels safe, supported, and truly seen. But being a leader in ECEC demands more than intention—it calls for relentless reflection, rigorous review, and fearless improvement of the systems that uphold this promise. Complacency is the greatest risk to the children and young people we serve; true leadership is never finished, and neither is our commitment to each child’s safety and wellbeing.

Ongoing Reflection at Every Level

Over recent months, our Support Office Team has attended multiple professional development sessions and undertaken structured reflection using the QFCC Self-Assessment Tool for implementing the Universal Principle and Queensland Child Safe Standards. This process is reviewing our existing systems, policies, and procedures to ensure our day-to-day operations uphold the highest standards of child safety.

Simultaneously, our Mother Duck Committee continues to lead in-depth reflections on each standard with their Centre Leadership Teams, guided by the QFCC Reference Guide. These discussions are helping build a deeper, organisation-wide understanding of how every standard connects to our practices, policies, and culture. The insights gained will guide the ‘next steps’ at each Service and across the organisation.

This ongoing journey of Transformational Unlearning at a governance level is shaping the way we lead—with courage, critical reflection, and compassion—as we continue to build a culture where every child’s safety and wellbeing are at the heart of all we do.