Expressions of Interest now open for the Apiary Fellowship 2022 – be the change

The Apiary Fellowship is a diverse group of leaders and innovators from across the country who are passionate about working to enhance learning and development for children in the years prior to school. The Fellowship is now seeking expressions of interest to join the group in 2022.

Apiary Fellows aim to bring about change at a systems level through thinking about the big picture issues impacting the early childhood sector, challenging the status quo, and identifying what can be done to improve the lives of children, now and in the future. 

Participation in the Fellowship builds leadership, collaboration and the capability to bring about lasting change in early learning, and with the major changes underway in the sector driven by recent announcements from the Victorian and New South Wales governments, the input of passionate and dynamic sector leaders is now being sought. 

Through participation in the Apiary, Fellows become “catalytic leaders who continuously collaborate and learn to create change for children,” said Jane Hunt, CEO of The Front Project.

“The Apiary is about big-picture, impactful change at a systems level to improve the lives of children today and in generations to come,” she added.

“Getting involved in the Apiary means coming together to collaboratively bring about change that benefits children. The people involved in the Apiary are not the CEOs of every company, they are people who are a part of this system. They’re pedagogical leads, teachers, educators, CEOs of peak bodies, academics, researchers and so on,” Ms Hunt explained.

Apiary Fellows are individuals with wide-ranging experiences and perspectives across the early childhood education sector. They join The Apiary to learn more about their own and other experiences, become leaders and take action to improve outcomes for children.

Ms Kerry Graham, Founder and Director of Collaboration, reflected on the space the Apiary creates for different perspectives to be heard, for building a deeper understanding of the system and the social, political, cultural and economic forces around us, and the roles we can play to generate change.

“While organisational leadership and excellence is critically important in a good healthy system, we know that lasting, transformational change comes when we take up leadership for the whole system,” she said.

The Apiary Fellows aim to deliver on their promise to children – to lead, innovate and shape the ECEC system, with the children’s needs and future at the centre. Fellows promise to help children flourish, be resilient, culturally secure, and to grow, be loved and be themselves.

The Front Project pioneered the Fellowship in recognition of the fact that “it is impossible for just one organisation or individual to be able to hold all of the perspectives and ‘moving parts’ of a system at the same time”.

As such, the Apiary Fellowship works with the whole early childhood education and care (ECEC) system – both people inside the sector and those who intersect with it – to influence change across all levels.

Apiary Fellow and Director of the Early Years at the University of Wollongong, Associate Professor Cathrine Neilsen-Hewett, feels that the systems approach taken by Fellows is essential and necessary for bringing about change and has found her experiences with the group to date to be “enriching both personally and professionally”.

To be an Apiary Fellow, Lisa Walker, a Bundjalung woman and Cultural Design Lead for Goodstart, continued, is to recognise one’s position in the sector as being a point of “power and privilege” to advocate and push for change within the early learning sector. 

“I joined to give my people a voice and to advocate for a more equitable continent full with opportunities for our jarjums and communities,” Ms Walker said.

Applications are now open for leaders and innovators who wish to: 

• Shape a shared vision for systemic change in early learning, co-designed with children and families
• Learn to lead differently with a program designed to build capacity in system change, adaptive leadership and innovation
• Work on collaborative projects to address key system challenges
• Convene for two to three days with peers and other early childhood leaders, up to four times per year.

To register an interest in the Apiary Fellowship, see here. Registrations close on 7 July and interviews will take place shortly after.

For more information, please contact Rachael Wilken at [email protected]