Communication can make or break a relationship - personal, professional and anything in between.
The way people communicate is often the foundation of the ongoing relationship, and when it comes to working with children and families, the quality of communication is paramount.
Working with children means that educators and leaders are often needing to walk a fine line between sharing too much information and not sharing enough, while also juggling conversations and communications which are sensitive, timely, or need a little extra attention paid to them.
Thankfully LineLeader has a number of tools, tips, and techniques to help.
Make it meaningful
Quality Area 6 of the National Quality Standard (NQS) focuses on building meaningful relationships with families - something which can, at times, be complex.
It’s not always easy talking with busy families or establishing relationships with a diverse range of people. Sometimes it can feel like you’re the only one making the effort, and that families don’t want to be involved.
Although it may feel that way, research and best practice shows that the secret is in understanding that each family is an individual unit, with different wants, needs, and demands on their time.
This understanding, as well as being determined, and creative, is the key to creating and maintaining a successful and supportive relationship.
Learn what works best for each family, learn which families need a little more, and take their preferences into account.
Get them involved
Effective communication and being solutions-focused are key to building respectful, collaborative relationships with families. Families who feel valued and engaged are more likely to contribute meaningfully to decision-making in your service, including about their child’s learning and development.
When trying to craft a reciprocal relationship, and build two way communication, it’s important for providers to consider how families feel most supported, included, and empowered to share their time and thoughts.
Some things to consider in this space are the language/s your families speak, their levels of literacy, the context of their working lives, and what types of messages leave them, and their children, feeling heard, seen and valued.
During this reflection, consider how the beliefs and unconscious biases held by leaders and educators may influence this space. For example, it may be difficult for a manager who sleeps next to their phone and who is very responsive to social media to understand the context of a parent who does fly in/fly out work and who operates machinery without their phone by their side.
Thankfully LineLeader has some built in functionality to address these considerations. Services may wish to implement some of the following strategies:
Automate some of your communications
Part of keeping your communications personal means knowing when to tap in and when to tap out. What this means is understanding the situations that require you to write up a specific email, for a specific situation, with a specific recipient. That said, there are probably more than a few situations where some of your existing messaging is applicable to multiple sets of parents.
This is where Drip Campaigns come in. Drip campaigns allow you to create a series of related emails that are sent based on specific criteria. This ensures you can spend more of your time focused on those extra special messages that need a little more of a personal touch.
But remember, just because you’re automating some of your messaging doesn’t mean it has to be robotic! It’s still you as the face of these messages and in most cases you’re the one who wrote the message.
Segment your audience
Segmenting means you’re grouping people together by a common characteristic. Some of these characteristics can include Lead Status, Age, Classroom, and Waitlist by Reason. The importance of segments is that they allow you to send the appropriate message to the appropriate group of people. More importantly, segments allow you to message at scale.
This is a key component to your marketing efforts as a childcare centre or early education provider. By grouping parents together, you can message them quickly with the appropriate messaging, all at once. This means less individual copy-paste when you have to send the same message to a dozen parents, and it means more time spent personalising your messaging where needed to select parents.
Take advantage of multiple channels for communication
It wasn’t too long ago your only options for reaching out to parents were a phone call or ‘snail mail.’ Today your ability to communicate effectively with parents has never been more varied.
While there will always be a time and place for a personal phone call, not every communication requires such a hands-on approach. Text messages, personal emails, and automated emails, all offer varying degrees of engagement from recipients.
Recognising what channel is appropriate for each type of parent engagement is something that will bolster the effectiveness of your communications and continually build credibility with parents.
Would you like to know more? Visit our website for additional tips on how to communicate effectively with parents.
