Raising Wildlings
Raising Wildlings
Thriving in the Legal Landscape of Nature Play
Are you grappling with the fear of cease and desist letters or the anxiety of operating your nature play business in legal grey zones? Get ready to arm yourself with essential insights and practical advice that can help you stay compliant and successful in this challenging landscape.
We'll help you understand where your business fits within outdoor recreation, education, and environmental education and clarify how these definitions impact your regulatory obligations. By focusing on the purpose, age group, and structure of your programs, you’ll learn how to navigate the often complex regulatory landscape effectively and ensure your nature play business thrives without legal hurdles.
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There's a lot of anxiety in the nature plate industry at the moment because we've heard of quite a few businesses being shut down, which is obviously pretty scary if you're in this sector and industry at the moment, and ourselves well, we've been receiving quite a few calls asking for help and advice on how to prevent being shut down after the business has received a cease and desist letter, whether that's from a CEQA or the education department. Now we also know that for a lot of people who follow us on Raising Wildlings that are keen to start their own wild business, that one of the main reasons they never take the leap is that they're worried about being shut down or doing things wrong or not being legal, which is great, actually. We're actually really, really pleased that that's a concern, but we thought it was about time we address these concerns and give you our top tips on how to avoid being shut down.
Speaker 3:I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the lands on which we work the Kabi Kabi and the Gubbi Gubbi people. I'd like to recognise their continuing connection to the land and waters and thank them for protecting this coastline and its ecosystems. Since time immemorial we pay our respects to Elders past, present and extend that respect to all First Nations people listening today.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Raising Wildlings, a podcast about parenting, alternative education and stepping into the wilderness, however that looks with your family.
Speaker 1: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 travelled.
Speaker 2:We're your hosts. Vicky and Nikki from Wildlings Forest School, pop in your headphones, settle in and join us on this next adventure.
Speaker 3:Hello and welcome to the Raising Wildlings podcast. We're your hosts today, Vicky Oliver and Nikki Farrell.
Speaker 3:It's been a hot minute, since the two of us have been together on a podcast and this is a really important topic that we wanted to chat about today because we have had a lot of people talking about it. It's been a topic of discussion on our Facebook groups for a while business and we think that, although it is a concern, we definitely have some things to chat about to maybe put some people's minds at ease, particularly because there are lots of things that you can do to ensure that, if you're running an HPA business, that you're doing it legally and that you don't have that fear sitting on your you know the back of your head about whether or not you're going to get shut down. Very important information today.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think our first tip and you know, these tips have probably seemed really obvious, but it's also really obvious that people aren't doing them really obvious, but it's also really obvious that people aren't doing them. I think that's the glaringly obvious thing to ask is that, first of all, you need to know your industry, and I think the first thing that people are getting confused about is actually where they fit. So, vic, do you want to talk about where we fit?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I mean it has been quite a blurry line, because we actually do fit under outdoor recreation, which, when you look at the definition of that, that's outdoor leisure, time that's spent outdoors, which is essentially what our programs provide. Now, if you were to do like a kayaking trip or you know, obviously Nikki, you've done a whole outdoor recreation course. There is an element of learning that goes into taking part in leisure activities, which is where that crossover, I guess, happens with the types of activities that we're providing for children and I guess, because they are learning, it does bleed into the ages of the children that we're working with. Oftentimes it bleeds into looking a lot like an educational program. But there's a few defining characteristics that really are important to consider in the fact that we are not providing education programs at the same time. But the other thing I also want to really highlight is there's such a scope of what people are doing when it comes to nature, play and businesses.
Speaker 3:If you are very specifically just providing a nature kindy experience, then you would be bleeding more into early childcare, as opposed to our business, which really has a plethora of different types of programs that we provide, including a bushcunny, but we not exclusively and it's not the whole part of our business. In fact we probably deal with older children, and then there's also this concept of outdoor recreation and outdoor education and also environmental education. So I guess the purpose of bringing this up is to get really clear on where you best think your type of programming sits. What is the purpose of your program? For a lot of people it's actually teaching more about the environment, which would then lend yourself more to environmental education, and for other people it is more on the outdoor recreational side of things and I guess there's a little less structure than some of the other outdoor rec activities, but it still has elements of lots of those things as well, like hiking and things like raft building, and there's so much crossover, which is, I guess, what makes it so blurry sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think you made a really good point there that if you're only offering services to preschool age, then it's going to be really difficult to not be slotted into the early years services and into the Child Services Act. And if you're only offering your programs to school-aged children and you're running five days a week during school hours, it's going to be really hard to not be slotted into the school regulations. So have a really good think about A what programs you're offering. B what age you're offering them to.
Speaker 1:C what days and times you're offering those programs, and maybe make sure that you're offering a mix, or you just need to know the difference, because this is where people are getting tripped up and particularly in New South Wales, is people are pretty much running only preschool and only drop-off. So if you're offering a drop-off service during school hours, that's available five days a week during, and even if you're not five days a week, if you're doing drop-off for preschool age children, you're a childcare service. So and in New South Wales there is no exemption outside of this Other states have exemptions. So there are mobile services, there is tutoring, there are occasional care, which you know to be clear, occasional care is generally only available to hotels and shopping malls and things like that. So there's only this really limited scope of exemptions in different states where you can actually run drop-off programs. So the reason people are being shut down is because they are actually running illegal daycare services, childcare services. So just because you can see someone else running it also doesn't mean it's legal.
Speaker 3:That's exactly right, and I think that's a really important distinction to make. There are plenty of people out there running phenomenal programs.
Speaker 3:Let's not deny that the programs themselves aren't great, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're meeting the legal requirements in their state. And that's the tricky part about regulation is that we cannot outright state here's how you can run, because that is going to be very specific to where you live, and even outside of Australia that's going to be completely different, because even levels of government run completely differently in different places around the world as well.
Speaker 1:So I just want to add one more bit there. With the early years it's so tricky. So to become an approved childcare provider because sometimes people go, oh well, we'll just become approved and then parents can get rebates, great. But to be an approved provider, a, you need to go through that application process, but B you cannot become a drop-off childcare service without a building, without a gate and without meeting all the incredibly specific requirements required of a childcare centre. So again, this is why nature play programs that are based purely outdoors just frankly cannot be right now, and we're hoping this changes as the years come. You cannot be an approved childcare provider and run purely outdoors at the moment.
Speaker 3:That's right, and I think it's really important to note that, whilst there have been, obviously, people who have been running outdoor programs of this nature for a very long time, as an industry this is very new. It is taking, and it will take, a bit of time for the agencies that are in charge of making these decisions to catch up with what people are wanting to provide and what families are wanting to provide, wanting their children to have access to as well. So that's why it's really important to have these conversations and that's why we take our role very seriously in making sure that people are getting the correct information, and we have that little pang, too, when we hear that someone's being shut down.
Speaker 3:You know you get that nervous feeling of like, oh my goodness. But when you peel back the layers and you ask the right questions, you find out that it's really obvious why they were shut down in the first place. It's not like they're just, I don't know, someone's just decided that they don't like what they're doing and shut them down because they really haven't met very clear regulatory guidelines or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:Besides the facts of whether we agree with them or not. Right Like I would love, love for there to be a space in the regs that say, yes, you can run a pure outdoors. For there to be a space in the regs that say, yes, you can run a pure outdoors. You know, child care, approved child care provider, but at the moment there just isn't. So while we talk about running in the grey zone all the time, actually, when it comes to law and regs, it's very clear cut and it's very black and white and they don't run in the grey zones. So you know what we mean by the grey zone is, you know, making sure you know where you fit, because you may not like us.
Speaker 1:We do not fit in as a school, we do not fit as a childcare service and we fit in outdoor recreation because of the plethora of programs that we run and how we run them. So our early years programs essentially, are all parents attending, right. And then during school holidays we do do drop off for school age children during the holidays, which are not within school programs. And then there's the homeschooling kind of. It's not an exemption, but this is where, if you're, you can run homeschool activities for homeschool children because it's not a five day aweek program. So that's what we mean by the grey zone. We don't mean there's a grey zone in what the law says.
Speaker 3:That's exactly right. It's about us making sure that we are meeting those requirements, but it's about us bending our programs to make sure that we're not operating illegally, like you said having parents attending by being specific about when we run our programs.
Speaker 1:having parents attending by being specific about when we run our programs, and that's what makes us legal and the fact that we run a range of programs too. You know, we've got afterschool, we've got school holidays, we've got school age for homeschoolers and we've got preschool. So you couldn't fit us in any one category, because we aren't just one category. The only exemption there is really running as a family daycare operator. But then of course you have to have a house, you have to run from the house, you have to leave.
Speaker 1:If you're running a bush kindy program, you have to leave from the house in the morning and you have to come back to the house in the afternoon. You can't just drop off to a location, and then you're very limited with how many children you can have. I think it's four and then two school-age children or something like that. So you're limited that way as well. So really no. I mean, your big dream might be to have a five-day-a-week nature play drop-off program. If you're going to run that in New South Wales, you're going to get shut down eventually, unless you can justify your outdoor rec program.
Speaker 3:And even as we were pointing out before when we were chatting about it, is that you don't see outdoor rec drop-off programs. They don't exist, yeah. Or preschool aged children.
Speaker 1:The few that I do know run as cultural programs and they are wonderful. It's a very small amount of those that have been left alone to run yeah.
Speaker 3:So essentially, what we're trying to say is that there are so many nature play businesses out there running. They're running legally, they're not going to be shut down because they follow all of the things, the same sort of principles that we follow by. So making sure that you know you read the regulation properly and look at the wording and ask yourself the questions am I running? Do I fit under that heading? So if you do have a very close look at the Child Care Services Act, have a very close look at the Child Care Services Act. It tells you the categories of child care there and you can look at and see where you think you fit based within that wording. We can still have questions, which brings us to our next top tip, which is you actually need to make contact with a department, some government agency of some sort, and ask questions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people are terrified of doing this, you know, and I think sometimes we do consults and we get quite a few of them and, oh, can I do that? Can I call them? Oh, what if I say the wrong thing? What if I think that I'm legal and then I tell them what I want to run and then they tell me that it's illegal. I'm like, well, you're better off knowing now before you start them, three years down the track and being closed down. So I guess our first tip there is A you can call anonymously. So just call and say I'd like to remain anonymous.
Speaker 1:I haven't started my program yet, but I want to make sure that what I am running will be legal. I don't want to be shut down, I don't want to be running illegally because, also, if you're running illegally, your insurance won't cover you. I think people forget this too. You might be insured because you're an insurer, but they're two completely separate industries. So your insurer is not going to check that you've made all the correct checks, ticks and balances to run your program. They're going to assume that you have, and if you haven't done that correctly and something happens, then they go oh, you weren't running legally, bad luck, you're not covered.
Speaker 3:That's right. Yeah, and I think that is a really important point to make, is that your insurer is only going to cover you for what you've told them you've been doing, and sometimes they don't ask those questions after, until they're investigating.
Speaker 1:Until the department says they were running an illegal childcare service, even if you didn't know that. So this is the thing. This is why you have to do your research, because you may be misinformed if you're starting a program because Vicky down the road is starting has got a wonderful program that you just assume is legal because it's running. Yeah, you know, you have to do your own research.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you have to do your own research, and then what you do also need to do is you need to have documentation and a record of the responses that you get. So our next tip, once you've made contact and you've talked to someone, is to make sure that you write it down, that you note it down, that you even pop it in an email, ask them for their email address, send it to them to confirm the information that they've given you, and that way you can come back and say but I did my due diligence, I did the very best that I could in contacting them to get the answers that I needed. And this is what they said and you've got that evidence written down and it's probably you may as well not make the call unless you've got that evidence recorded in some way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would also add there be the squeaky wheel, because I mean, we went through this over seven years ago, right, and they had no idea where to put us. So at least now a lot more people are making these calls. They are very much aware of how many more nature play programs are out there, but in the beginning they honestly were like we don't know where to put you, we don't know where to slot you, it's not us Call. So a CEQA would say which is the childcare body here in Queensland would say call the education department. We'd call the education department. They'd say call CEQA. And then both of them would say, oh, it's actually out to a wreck. So that's where we got to eventually. But I think where I'm going with that is it took us over three months, or was it six months in the end, probably even longer by the time.
Speaker 3:We've talked to lots of different, because then you know, then it was the council with land, and you know, yeah, it comes down to not only the education department or any other government agency in that way, it might even come down to whose land you're using, like the same applies for asking permission to run the program on the land that you're using, whether that's government land. So the same tips apply for that too, in making sure you write down who you spoke to, what department they're, from their contact details.
Speaker 1:How it's zoned.
Speaker 3:All dated and documented and then following it up with an email confirming this is the information that you've given me. Is this correct, so that you've got a?
Speaker 1:paper trail. That's where I was going. This is because they didn't know where to put us. They were kind of just letting the email go. So it wasn't until I called and was like I sent an email three months ago and then two months ago and then one month ago and I haven't heard anything. Who do I need to speak to? Is there a manager? And they're like, oh, we just don't know who to send you to. I said, well, put me up, like keep calling up.
Speaker 1:So I think people are so scared to make the call and they're so scared to rock the boat, like I think they think that the education department will punish them, for you know making noise and asking questions, they're your governing body. You know they're a government agency. That is their job is to help people do things legally. So there is nothing wrong with you asking questions and in fact you should be applauded for asking those questions instead of just having a crack and not actually knowing where you fit. So anyway, long story, short call. We had way more success calling than emailing. But then also ask them to follow up with an email summarizing what you said, or send them an email and saying, just summarizing our phone call. So there's an email trail. You need evidence. If poop ever hits a fan, you need to be able to show your documentation trail to prove that you've done your due diligence.
Speaker 3:And I think the other really important part of this conversation is that you sort of have to flex that muscle and train that muscle to have hard conversations. Yes, Put yourself out of your comfort zone. I say this completely within the knowledge that I was not the one making these phone calls. It was Nikki.
Speaker 1:I had your support. I had a cheerleader.
Speaker 3:Full transparency. But we've all learned over the course of running a business that you need to be comfortable in putting yourself out there, having phone calls, asking questions and being prepared to hear things that you don't want to hear, because, surprisingly, questions and being prepared to hear things that you don't want to hear because, surprisingly, most of the time we don't hear anything. That makes it a complete no. Yes, don't think we've come to the point where it's been a hard no, no, it's always been a. Well, how do we and they can help us to find solutions as well, and you might actually be part of the bigger grand scheme of changing what happens for other people when they call up, because we're solidifying that information and showing them that this is a really big, important industry that's coming up. People want this and they need to start making some decisions and having consultations with us as an industry to work out what to do with us moving forward, so that it isn't as grey.
Speaker 1:Hear, hear Absolutely, and I think this is where it's really important. By staying quiet and, you know, guessing at things, we're not changing anything and actually it makes us look like cowboys and cowgirls. You know when you hear oh, they're running an illegal childcare service. That was obviously never their intention, never. It was to provide a service that parents were crying out for, really want, and the people I know that have been closed down have been running spectacular programs, beautiful. Their problem is at the moment there is nowhere for them to fit in that particular structure of their program. So I've seen some starting to do online courses. I've seen some just completely add and subtract programs, run different hours, run different days. So please know it's not always a no, it's a how can we do things differently and still do what we want to do? It just might look a bit different.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. We hope that those top tips for setting up a business that's legal have come in handy. We talked about knowing your industry, making sure you understand where you fit, understand what your business structure is and what you're trying to provide, and having a really good look at any legislation that applies to that, then making contact with those departments, asking the questions you can call anonymously if you have to and recording all of that information down so that you've got a record of the conversations and the decisions that have been made so that you can sleep at night and know that your business is completely legal.
Speaker 1:And therefore your insurance will cover you. You know we're all here for children and if you're not running legally, then you're not covered and so you're actually could potentially harm children. So please think of that and please make sure you're legal. If you want any help with that, then obviously our Wild Business course has all of this. It's an entire module all about making sure you're legal, whether that's this section of it which is speaking to government agencies, whether it's insurance, whether it's permits making sure you're in the right zoning. I think that's probably another topic for another podcast, but of course, you can also just hire us for a consult. Just shoot us an email at hello at wildlingsforestschoolcom and we can. If you've got a really specific question, we can just help you out with that. Good luck. We know that everyone has the best intentions, and I think this is where we talk about this quite often, where sometimes your intentions don't equal your impact. So really arm yourself with knowledge, arm yourself with knowledge so that your impact matches your intentions.
Speaker 2:Until next week stay well, Stay well.