Ever thought you couldn't run a Nature Play program because your site isn't postcard-worthy?
Newsflash: Picturesque beaches, a bubbling creek, or a lush rainforest are pretty but they are not essential for your Nature Play program.
We repeat they are not essential.
Today we are discussing place-based learning and how it's actually really important that children connect with their own local environment in a deep and meaningful way.
Nicki and Vicci will share:
🌱The benefits of running programs in dry locations
🌱The three absolute 'must have' facilities for your site
🌱Why picturesque locations could attract 'the wrong crowd' for your programs
🌱Practical ways you can foster deep connections at your nature play site
Join us as we explore why a picture-perfect environment might look great in photos, but can often come with challenges that make long-term engagement difficult. Whether you're a parent, an educator, or simply interested in alternative education and parenting, tune in and we promise to shift your perspective on nature play programs.
Other ways we can help you:
Ever thought you couldn't run a Nature Play program because your site isn't postcard-worthy?
Newsflash: Picturesque beaches, a bubbling creek, or a lush rainforest are pretty but they are not essential for your Nature Play program.
We repeat they are not essential.
Today we are discussing place-based learning and how it's actually really important that children connect with their own local environment in a deep and meaningful way.
Nicki and Vicci will share:
🌱The benefits of running programs in dry locations
🌱The three absolute 'must have' facilities for your site
🌱Why picturesque locations could attract 'the wrong crowd' for your programs
🌱Practical ways you can foster deep connections at your nature play site
Join us as we explore why a picture-perfect environment might look great in photos, but can often come with challenges that make long-term engagement difficult. Whether you're a parent, an educator, or simply interested in alternative education and parenting, tune in and we promise to shift your perspective on nature play programs.
Other ways we can help you:
In today's episode we're going to bust some of the myths of finding the perfect location for your nature play program.
Speaker 2:We like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we record today the carby carby and guppy guppy people. We recognize their continued connection to the land and waters of this beautiful place. We recognize Aboriginal people as the original custodians of this land and acknowledge that they have never ceded sovereignty. We respect all guppy guppy elders, ancestors and emerging elders, and all First Nations people listening today.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Raising Wildlings, a podcast about parenting, alternative education and stepping into the wilderness, however that looks with your family.
Speaker 2:Each week, we'll be interviewing experts that truly inspire us to answer your parenting and education questions. We'll also be sharing stories from some incredible families that took the leap and are taking the road less traveled.
Speaker 1:We're your hosts, vicki and Nikki from Wildlings Forest School Popping your headphones, settle in and join us on this next adventure. Hello and welcome to the Raising Wildlings podcast. We are your hosts today.
Speaker 2:I'm Vicki Oliver and I'm Nikki Farrell. Now we get a lot of people come to us saying, oh, I'd love to do what you do, but where I work and where I play is just not very pretty. It's ugly. So the first thing we're going to do is talk to you about what you don't need in a location. Talk to us about that, vick.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's a lot of myths around what makes a great nature play program. And the one thing that you don't actually need is a beach, a creek, water, a rainforest, an Instagramable face. You don't need it. If we think about Australia, 90% of it is inland or rural and they do not have access, in particular, I think, to some sort of water source.
Speaker 1:So I think that a lot of the time we compare ourselves to those people because water is beautiful and water is amazing, but a lot of people don't actually have sites that are accessible.
Speaker 2:And can I just add there, it's also much easier to manage risk wise not having water.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And it's costless because you have less supervision needs when you don't have water. So I would actually almost argue that not having water is a lot easier.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and can be just as beautiful, and everything is place-based. What we do in nature If you live in a rural area that doesn't have a beach, or some rural areas on the beach, or even forest, or trees, just trees. Yeah, just trees or even a desert. It's place-based. The children that are coming to play there and to learn are learning in an area that they live.
Speaker 1:And it's contextualized and it makes sense to them because this is their environment. They're not looking to experience something that is outside of their home. So it's really important I can't emphasize this enough that having a waterway on your land, on your location, is absolutely not necessary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and for those people that are coming to get themselves on the gram in your beautiful location, they don't stay anyway. Once they've got their snap, they're off. They're not the stayers. So you want people that are there for the right reasons and they're there for the long term, the long hole, because that's where the long term benefits are, not just a photo on the grid.
Speaker 1:And I think that's very important to remember. People are not often coming unless you're a location-specific program. People are not coming to your program because of the environment. Specifically, if we dig deeper, what they're looking for is community and connection and access to nature. Now, nowhere in those three things does it say that it has to be a beautiful rainforest with a waterfall or a beach with rock pools or a creek. Those things are lovely, but each of those areas actually come, like you say, like you know, insects or specific challenges that can sometimes put people off wanting to be in those beautiful environments. They look good in a picture but they're not actually fun to be in long term.
Speaker 2:Particularly with young children.
Speaker 1:You've got a mozzie infested tidal creek.
Speaker 2:Super slippery water, like rocky creek beds that are hard for young children to navigate. We had a location like that and we didn't stay there because it was too difficult with young children for a playgroup.
Speaker 1:So in saying all of that, let's talk about what it is that we actually are looking for, that are an absolute must, or at least we must be able to problem solve these things when it comes to your location, and the first one, which might surprise you, is access to toilets.
Speaker 1:So, preferably, what we're looking for is a regular toilet, a public toilet, something that's within a short walking distance or, you know, a doable walking distance, because people are privacy and hygiene, and if you're working in the early childcare space, there's also some regulations about having these things in order to run your programs as well.
Speaker 2:And it's not just hygiene. You need to add there that in the early years, if you're running a bush kinder program, you also need privacy. So that is as big and as important as hygiene. So just a bush, we doesn't cut it in some spaces, so you will need another option.
Speaker 1:And also when you're an adult, you want to also know that you've got access to a toilet. Some of the people that you're working with will want access to a toilet at some point as well. Depending on the duration of your program, that might make a difference. Otherwise, you might want to think of a portaloo or some sort of camp toilet set up with a camp shower for privacy Shower tent, I should say.
Speaker 2:One thing we do really need to consider is that many mothers who have had children often having continence issues or and or their toilet training toddlers, so having a toilet is really high on their priority list, and you may lose people and lose customers if they know that there's no toilet around. On the other side of that, most councils and shires will only issue a permit for you to run programs with children and or any program If there's a toilet at that space. So I mean really what you're being told here is find a space with a toilet.
Speaker 1:Now the next thing that we often are looking for is some sort of shelter for shade if it's incredibly hot, or for rain, so that we can be out in or weather. Now permanent is best. It's not always available. Otherwise, you are going to have to look at a way of bringing a rope into some trees and putting a flytar or a tarp up and something that's not going to be an overly huge area. It's not going to be an overly huge effort for you and your team members to do when it's raining.
Speaker 1:The ultimate to this is to just cancel your programs, because at some point people will need to be able to get out of the weather, and again this will depend on who's coming to your programs. But if you've got mothers who are nursing babies, then having some way out of the rain is a very important consideration For many different reasons. So as it doesn't have to be a permanent shelter, if you've got one, that's great. But having an option to either put up even a Gazebo is a good idea if you're able to transport that easily enough, because they can be quite heavy as well.
Speaker 2:I just want to add there most of our sites have permanent rain shelters of some sort because we operate on Council land. But our longest running site, our main site in the Sunshine Coast, we've only ever rigged up a lightweight fly which has got hammock hooks in the weed species. You won't be able to do that on Council property. They don't let you attach things to trees. So it's really a site by site decision on how you provide that shelter.
Speaker 1:There's different ways of putting up tarps as well, using poles, and that's just a matter of learning how to do that.
Speaker 2:We did that in the early days until we found a more permanent solution.
Speaker 1:Now the other consideration that we have for locations is actually car parking. Now the reason why this needs to be considered and is quite important is because if you're applying for a permit on Council land, that will be something that they will think about when you're applying for a certain space, you're looking for a preferable car park, not just residential roadside, because you could end up with complaints from local residents. So if you are using an area where it will be parking along the street, you want to have a think about ways in which you can engage the local residents or businesses who ever is along there and letting them know and having a conversation with them, to avoid having complaints being made and then permits or attention being brought to your program and shutting it down.
Speaker 2:Particularly if you're trying to run from home. Most councils will shut that down based on road traffic, noise and neighbourhood complaints. So it's actually a lot easier in a lot of ways to run on public property.
Speaker 1:Another consideration, too, is, if you're running programs for anyone coming to you in a bus, making sure that you have bus access.
Speaker 2:And bus turnaround Bus turnaround.
Speaker 1:So that's important. But what we believe is the most important part of your location is you and your team. What you bring to the program, your team brings to the program, will have people returning. As we said earlier, it won't be the location, it will be how you made them feel when they were in that location, and that is the most crucial thing to remember when you are looking for a location.
Speaker 2:And how well you connect your families to the land and the memories that you help them make on that land. We have multiple siblings come through now, where some families have had every child come through our spaces and they call this our second home. This is where we go when we need to regulate, when poops hit the fan at home. We come here now and I just think that's incredible. So they come to our programs and on their own terms, because they have that deeper connection with the space as well.
Speaker 1:So what we can do at every site in order to enhance that is to help your families and your children to learn all of the different well, maybe not all of them, but as many as you can the different plan and animal names, and that's not to say you need to know them straight away, but you can be on a journey together to learn that, to know the space well.
Speaker 2:And, of course, here in Australia and many, many other places, make sure you're booking and paying for your traditional custodians to come and teach the local traditional stories. That will help you connect to the land. So when you can see the mountain that has the beautiful dream time story based around it from your space, you need to know what the story is and you need to be able to share that with your families as well.
Speaker 1:And they can also give you different perspectives on the plants and animals that live in that space and just share so much cultural knowledge. That will help you and your families feel more connected to that space and know its history.
Speaker 2:Another thing we love to do is we help our families look after the land. So we do litter pickups regularly, we plant trees, we do weeding, all of those things you know. We look after the spaces where there might be more erosion, we move those and then we fix those eroded spaces up. So when you have that sense of custodianship, you know you being that environmental steward, you're more likely to love and protect it and want to come back and return as well.
Speaker 1:And then ultimately, when we're doing all of these things and we're spending time together, we're building friendships and that village and we're making those memories on the land, and that's what people are looking for. They're not looking for that Instagramable site, although you know that will still happen in many cases. What they're actually looking for, what will bring them back every time, is exactly that friendships, connection and that village people to feeling supported and sharing in something, a shared value.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to add to that. With that building that community and that village, that giving needs to be reciprocal. So organizing things like clothes swaps, meal trains for mothers that are having new babies, Anything we're giving and receiving in that village, really brings people together and builds those relationships really tidally.
Speaker 1:And I guess if they are looking for that Instagramable space then they're probably in the wrong program.
Speaker 2:And that's okay.
Speaker 1:That's okay as well. We can't be all the things to all the people, as we mentioned in a podcast the other day. So a nice and short and sweet one for you. Today we really wanted to bust open those myths about what your location needs to be. Ultimately, what you need to do is make sure that people feel comfortable, so having toilets, car parking and shelter for those extremes in the heat and the rain and finding ways to connect those families, so making memories and learning about the space and having that deep connection. You don't need the Instagramable waterway and the beautiful rainforests. It's nice to have, but it's absolutely not essential.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for doing this journey with us, as always, and until next week, stay wild.