Here you will find resources to support practitioners and settings with introducing, understanding and embedding anti-racist practice.
Welsh Government has a vision of creating a ‘More Equal Wales’, where Wales is a country that is proudly anti-racist and where everyone is treated as an equal citizen.
NDNA Cymru aims to support our members to provide quality early years, childcare and playwork opportunities which embed core values in relation to race, equality and diversity and impacts positivity on outcomes for children and their families.
Supporting resources:
Guide to Good Practice Tackling Racism
NDNA Cymru factsheet supporting settings with addressing issues of racism and of promoting inclusion, equality and diversity within your setting.
Race Equity and Anti-Racist Professional Practice
NDNA Cymru resource to support early years leaders and practitioners to develop through individual professional learning, self-enquiry and collaborative thinking with their peers and working communities.
Bulletin: diversity and anti-racism factsheet
This NDNA Cymru bulletin outlines the requirements relating to diversity within the Curriculum for Wales and signposts to resources that can support practitioners with their daily practice.
‘The Colour of Us’: using books and stories to explore diversity and inclusion
This NDNA Cymru factsheet explores why using books and stories to explore diversity and inclusion is beneficial to children’s learning and development. It also includes questions and discussion ideas from ‘The Colour of Us’ book, which could support children to explore and discuss the concept of skin colour.
Diversity and Anti-Racist Professional Learning (DARPL) – Childcare, Play and Early Years (CPEY)
In Childcare, Play and Early Years Provision, we need to ensure anti-racist actions to safeguard the wellbeing of all. DARPL for Childcare, Play and Early Years provision in Wales supports professional practice in tackling racism, exploring commitment, actions and strategy at all levels of the workforce.
Creating an Anti-Racist Culture in Settings Guide – a practical toolkit for those working in Childcare, Play and Early Years in Wales
This toolkit, developed by DARPL and CWLWM, has been designed to help, guide and support the development of a whole-setting approach towards being anti-racist. The support pack is not intended to be used as box ticking exercise but to support ongoing reflective practice and improvement.
The toolkit includes guidance on:
- Governance and Leadership
- Setting the floor/ environment
- Parents and Carers
- Professional Learning
- Early Childhood Play, Learning and Care; Curriculum, pedagogy and practice
The toolkit also includes case studies from the sector, such as NDNA member CWTCH Childcare, Cardiff.
Lullabyz Nursery Blog: how their journey is evolving
Lullabyz Nursery , Newport BLOG how their journey is evolving as they try to create an anti-racist setting, where all children feel special and feel seen.
Lullabyz Nursery Ltd Newport is a private day care nursery and holiday club. The nursery opened in 2012 and has flourished over the years.
The Responsible Individual is Nicola Reed and the Person In Charge is Louise Touhig. Nicola and Louise became friends at university, where they trained to be primary school teachers together. Between them they have over fifty years’ experience of working with children and are dedicated to providing the highest quality of care. They are assisted in their roles by an excellent team of staff who are highly qualified and highly committed to the nursery.
Lullabyz Nursery explains how their journey is evolving
It became very clear to us during our journey that knowledge and understanding were going to be Key to becoming an anti-racist setting. Staff need to be able to recognise racism, not only on an individual basis but on a systemic level too. We have all needed to understand ‘White privilege’ and what that means, in order to open our eyes to the levels of racism that some of our children, staff and families have and will encounter and recognise how we can start to change this behaviour.
We have continued to hold regular staff meetings designated only to Anti racism and all 33 staff have now completed the NDNA Embedding anti racism training.
I am also currently coming to the end of the Enhanced Leadership training through DARPL.
The more we can see, recognise and challenge, the thinking and behaviours of others – the further along this journey we will travel.
The children have responded openly and curiously to all discussions we have had and continue to grow in their own understanding and empathy.
We regularly purchase new resources to support this work and have really taken the time to source books that focus on Identities, Communities, Highlight biases and challenge the children. We have changed our ‘All About Me’s’ to include a ‘My Life’ section. This has encouraged parents to discuss their families, religions, cultures, celebrations and daily life with the staff at the earliest stages and encourages them to get involved and become part of our wider family. We talk about the language they use, Key words and phrases we could use, music that would be heard at home, the programmes which may be unfamiliar to us, along with their likes, dislikes and interests. This ensures that we can provide an environment where each child feels seen and heard as soon as the join Lullabyz.
We are still learning and still working to achieve our goals but the honest answer is that this work is ongoing and will take an extensive amount of time to become embedded. Just the other day something came up that none of us had even thought about until a parent informed us. Luckily, we have created an environment where she felt she could come to us and that gives us hope that we are heading in the right direction. Her little one attends our baby room and recently became fascinated with the farm animals and, in particular, the giant pig. Regular pictures had been sent home showing her little one enjoying nursery life whilst often holding on to his favourite pig.
One day mum asked us to discourage him from playing with the pig which confused us – Again a lack of understanding, the penny finally dropped. The family are Muslim and Islamic dietary laws consider pigs to be unclean animals. Something that we would never have thought of being an issue, again reminding us all that the more knowledge we gain, the bigger impact we can have.
The work doesn’t start with the children – it definitely starts with us
Louise Touhig, Lullabyz Nursery
Lullabyz Nursery case study: Creating an anti-racist culture in our setting.