18 March 2026

In this episode, Kaurna Elder Kauwana Tamaru and Family Day Care Service Manager Liz Whitbread share insights on their collaborative "Walking Alongside" project, helping educators to embed Kaurna language and culture into their services. Hear stories about how they are connecting connecting children, educators, and families with Country, the ripple effect of knowledge sharing, and practical advice for educators wanting to engage respectfully with Aboriginal culture.

Show Notes

Learn more about Family Day Care: www.education.sa.gov.au/family-day-care

Gowrie SA: www.gowriesa.org.au

Reconciliation Australia: https://reconciliationsa.org.au/

First Languages Australia – 50 Words Project: https://www.firstlanguages.org.au/50words

Transcript

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach – a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education, and today we're talking about our very smallest learners in a very special way. We're talking about Family Day Care SA and the way in which they've engaged with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives. Important, I think to throw to one of our guests Kauwana Tamaru to welcome us to country.

Uncle Tamaru: Ngaitalya Thanks for the introduction. It's good to be on this place today and I like hearing your language 'cause even though you made a mistake, I still wanna walk with you. A long time ago, the Germans first wrote my Wind Kaurna language, and the K is a G phonetic. So when you say ‘car’ or whatever you said, it's actually Kauwana. But that’s alright.

Dale Atkinson: I had a go. I had a go.

Uncle Tamaru: That's right. And, and this is what Family Day Care is all about, is that they're not paralysed by fear. They want to give it a shot. So even though they may mispronounce it, I still wanna walk side by side with 'em, and move forward together, because you know, white fella says schedule and schedule, either, either, it doesn't matter. It's just you know a learning curve.

As a Kaurna elder, I'd like to open this meeting by doing a Welcome to Country and I'd like to welcome you because of my applicable ancestors, King Rodney and Mary Monarto. Now, fortunately for me, I'm sitting next to a beautiful Family Day Care person that I've walked Country with, I've eaten on Country with, and I've celebrated my birthday with. So if she's in my presence, my language changes. When I look at her as a non-aboriginal woman, I look at her as my, my dearest sister, and I'll address her first by saying [in Kaurna language].

On behalf of my Elders past and present, I proudly welcome you all to my beautiful native title Kaurna Country, and I welcome you today in the spirit of happiness because we're talking about the achievements of what we're doing at Family Day Care, and more importantly, we're gonna talk more about not being paralysed by fear.

Dale Atkinson: Not being paralysed by fear. Sounds good to me. Thank you, Uncle Tamaru. We might start a bit, for those who don't know, Liz, I might throw to Liz Whitbread, who's the Service Manager of Family Day Care programs. For those who don’t know what Family Day is, perhaps you could explain a little bit about how the program works.

Liz Whitbread: Sure. Niina Marni Dale and thank you for inviting us to this podcast today. Family Day Care programs have been around for 50 years. We celebrated our 50th year last year, which was really exciting and there's been many changes across all aspects of early childhood, which a lot of you would already know. The Department for Education is the approved provider for Family Day Care and we provide care for children, predominantly from zero until 13. We can provide care for children over the age of 13 in our respite care program. We provide care in really small settings, in a registered educator's home, so their home is approved to provide care from. And we have a maximum of seven children at any one time, with four children that are no more than under school age. So it's a really individualised program. We, our aim really for Family Day Care is to provide really good quality education and care to children that don't normally fit within the normal structures of a childcare centre or other early childhood settings. And we want our educators to be successful in their small businesses. So that's pretty much just a little bit about us. We have 230 educators within our program. We support and care for…

Uncle Tamaru: awesome educators.

Liz Whitbread: We support and care for 1200 families and look after approximately 1700 children. So that's a really big chunk. We are across all of South Australia as well, so we have educators in Port Lincoln, Wudinna, Roxby, down to Mount Gambier and the Riverland and all in between.

Dale Atkinson: And we're talking today about the Walking Alongside project aspect of the Family Day Care offering. Now the chrysalis of this was, perhaps educators looking for a way in to engaging with Kaurna culture and how that could be embedded within their practice and their teaching. How did it develop? How did this idea come?

Liz Whitbread: So it's part of our approved learning frameworks. It talks about embedding Aboriginal perspectives into the program and it was about educators asking, how do we do this? So we had coordinators that were curious and trying to actually explore how can we do this simply, easily, and confidently. So it was about reaching out and finding out how we can do this.

So we reached out to Gowrie, their inclusion support program and they supported us, introduced us to Uncle and that's where our journey began really. So it started really small with just one coordinator asking some questions, and it's turned into something that's really starting to become more of an embedded part of our program.

Dale Atkinson: So Uncle Tamaru, how did you feel when you were approached in this way? What was your initial reaction?

Uncle Tamaru: Well, I was quite humbled to find out that there's non-Aboriginal people out there wanting to embed our culture within society. At Gowrie SA, I'm the Aboriginal advisor and coordinator of programs there. We run a six-week basic Kaurna language course, which is where one of the Family Day Care leaders came. She loved it. We empower them to give it a go and not be paralysed by fear, and she took it back and gave it to leadership who shared it with others, which now formed into a program where I come and teach Kaurna art and we teach language to people across the board.

And you know what I love about Family Day Care is there are a lot of new Australians delivering these programs from their homes. So we're not only teaching the kids, we're teaching the families and you know, they're giving it a shot. And when you work with new Australians that come from a rich culture, let it be Indian or African, they ‘get’ our culture as well because cultures are very similar, and so it makes 'em feel more comfortable delivering the programs.

Now, specifically what I love about Family Day Care is they want to do it correctly. They don't want to do it half-hearted. They sent their leaders to come and learn how to pronounce it, how to learn language. We call it TRT, truth telling. So same with when you did the opening, you addressed me as Aboriginal, which is what the staff are learning. I'm not Indigenous, I'm not First Nations, I'm Aboriginal. Now part of the TRT exercise is, in South Australia we have the highest Torres Strait Islander man called Awa Eddie Peters. He's instructed the Kaurna Board and the Kaurna community to articulate he is Zenadth Kes. So Torres Strait is an archipelago of islands. Well, the people on the physical island are Zenadth Kes. So why do we not acknowledge the Zenadth Kes people of the Torres Strait? So this is called truth telling. So what I love about Family Day Care is they're open to TRT, to truth telling, and we teach the kids the truth.

So the truth could be, you know, years ago we called a long wind instrument yidaki, but today you call it didgeridoo. Well, what's the point in us teaching if you're not listening? We say we don't! Alright, so it's called a yidaki. So, you make language and culture learning fun, and the kids go, oh, are we doing Kaurna today, are we doing Kaurna today? Because it's about having fun. And you know, if we're all gonna tell the truth at the end of the day, no matter what language you learn, you always learn naughty language as well, and we teach 'em naughty language. But to a zero to 5-year-old, we say, kud-na-ward-li, kud-na-ward-li, to them that's naughty because it's toilet, toilet. But it's the daily use of language, is what these children are learning. So when a child at Family Day Care sees me and I'm in the room, he puts his hand up, says “Uncle, can I go the kudna wardli?” Well, it's so much better than “Uncle, can I go to toilet?” So, this is part of their learning and they're embracing it and they're actually embedding it. So this is what it's all about.

Dale Atkinson: And what's the process been like of working with Liz and her team, in developing and embedding this? How has that worked?

Uncle Tamaru: We do a lot of professional development, the staff first, and certainly with senior leader. And then we roll out the programs to what they need. So we don't enforce what we think they need. We, we ask them what they need, and that's the way we deliver the program. Once the staff, especially senior leadership, know about what's going on, we can roll out the right programs for the right areas and it, it's working really well.

Liz Whitbread: I'd like to just add on that too. So we started off really slowly and that was just with Uncle meeting one of our educators and working solely with her. And then we started to introduce Uncle coming out onto Country and children and educators coming on excursions and meeting him at parks and places like that. So that was a really great way of learning about plants, about Country, about the things around them, and that is what our educators have taken probably the most. So when they go out on Country to, on their excursions, walks, play sessions, they are respecting the environment a lot differently than what they used to do before. They will reference some plants that they have heard Uncle talk about. So they are learning. It's slow. It's, it's getting them to do it where they are at their level. It's not an expectation, but it's working with them to be, you know, to give them confidence to be able to go out and talk about things, say Niina marni, Marni ai, you know.

Uncle Tamaru: Male trees, female trees, trees, lolly trees, medicine trees, the kids, they embrace it.

Liz Whitbread: Yeah.

Uncle Tamaru: And then most times the staff will take a bush tucker tree and put, grow in their garden. So it's quite powerful.

Liz Whitbread: And children, sorry, children take that home to their families, and then their families are also learning. So, it's, you know, starting with the smallest generation to teach their families, teach their parents, teach their grandparents, you know? Just little things.

Uncle Tamaru: It's the ripple effect.

Dale Atkinson: Oh, incredible knowledge transfer in that, isn't there?

Uncle Tamaru: Well, well, that's right. So, my, you know, my family embedded knowledge to me, and I embedded it to the younger kids today, like, you know. Aboriginal people as a community, we never say we own Country, we're custodians for our kids, so we need to teach these new kids how to look after her. You know, my country's a bit sad at the moment. We've got algal bloom, we've got, you know, bugs in the cane toads, and we've got all sorts of weird stuff going on. We need to look after it, like we did it. So, you know, we, we even share things like cultural burning with the kids, cold burning, we talk about bush tuck and medicine trees. The kids are loving it.

Dale Atkinson: Now apparently Uncle, Family Day Care stole one of your catchphrases to name this this project, the Walking Alongside Project. Can you tell us why the concept of walking alongside is so important in this context?

Uncle Tamaru: Well, they didn't steal it. They borrowed it. That's what happens in Australia. The walking side-by-side is the Family Day Care community and the Kaurna community walk together to share language and culture. And it's been quite powerful over the time where I share my language in baby steps and we move forward. And it was so powerful that Family Day Care South Australia, we took it to a Family Day Care conference in Melbourne, and we had, we were like packed in the whole room, people there listening on how to embed Aboriginal culture within their centres, and you know, it's hard. So, I think, you know, I'm gonna brag and I'm gonna say I think South Australia Family Day Care and ourselves, we’re leaders in this action of how to do it, because they are not paralysed by fear. They give it a go, and they truly really do wanna walk side-by-side. They don't want to offend me, they don't want to upset me, they want to get it right and they wanna get it right for the kids. So, you know, unpacking that sort of statement is, that's what walking side-by-side's all about.

You know, certainly Liz and certainly all the other people within the organisation, they, they, they agree. They don't want to walk in front of me, and they don't want to do it their way. They want to do it our way. And that's what it's about. This is what we call true reconciliation, and that's my catchphrase is side-by-side because I think as a nation, that's what we need to do.

Dale Atkinson: And how important has it been to engage with the kids and the FDC educators outside of the home environment, the care environment, and out in nature, how important has that been?

Uncle Tamaru: Well, I believe it's paramount because the, you know, because everybody; in your culture, you are a visual culture. We can sit in the classroom, talk about it, but you can't visually hand, touch, feel, smell, scrape your knee on the tree, you know, eat dirt like we used to when I was a kid. Now, you know, schools are on AstroTurf and they're inside in the air conditioning, they're on their, you know, on their tablets looking at a gum tree. Well you go out in the bush and look at a gum tree and, and it, it's quite powerful to see and, and really listen to the ripple of the child talking to Mum and Dad; that's a male tree, and explaining why it's a male tree. A lot, a lot of kids don't learn that stuff.

Liz Whitbread: Educators also work in isolation, so they are working within their home, on their own, with their children. By getting out on Country in a play session, meeting up together allows them to talk to other educators and hear how other educators are talking with their children, gives them confidence, it's that mentoring between, that incidental mentoring and learning as well from each other and also from Uncle, from people who know what they're talking about, so the elders in the community.

Dale Atkinson: And what feedback have you been receiving from, from families and FDC educators so far?

Liz Whitbread: Yeah, so definitely from educators, they're feeling more empowered. They feel more confident. Like I said before, it's a slow process. So, if it just starts with you know, saying Niina marni to children when they arrive, that's a great start. It's a simple start. It's, it's easy to start by just saying hello, greeting them in language and then introducing other things.

Families, we hear from educators that, you know, children are going home and talking about these things and then they're learning, and that's probably the biggest thing that we get from families.

Dale Atkinson: Uncle what's been the highlight for you so far, and where would you like to see this go?

Uncle Tamaru: I actually don't have a highlight because I get humbled every day. So, you know, I can't teach children hindsight, when my father was dispossessed of his culture and my father wasn't allowed to speak his language, and yet I'll walk into a stranger's house, which is a Family Day Care centre, I get greeted in my own language by an Indian lady, I get to sit in a lounge room with seven kids that are speaking my language. It's very humbling. So it's, to me, that's like reconciliation every day, not once a week in the calendar year.

You know, sometimes it puts guilt on me because I put my hand out to get paid for it. I believe every student, every child in South Australia should learn Kaurna language. But it, it's quite powerful and humbling. And I'm a bit, I sometimes sit there and cry, and the kids say to me, “Uncle, why are you crying?” and I'm like, “These are tears of joy listening to you speak my language because the older generation don't speak my language”, you know, and when these kids say it with authority and with knowledge, it's quite powerful. It's hard to explain it sometimes.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it does sound very powerful. Liz, for those educators listening who might want to weigh in, how do they, how do they approach this? What should they be thinking about?

Liz Whitbread: I think they need to just go slowly and at their own pace. Don't, you know, you don't need to know it all at once, and I think that's what happens sometimes, you gather all your information, you gather all your evidence, and you go, okay, I'm going to do all this. And then one little thing happens, and you lose your confidence because you don't wanna get it wrong. So my advice would be to reach out to Gowrie. They have been fantastic, Gowrie SA. And reach out to your elders, you know, seek advice from your elders because they're the people that know.

Uncle Tamaru: The key word there is elders because elders know their culture, know their knowledge, they're not dispossessed of it, like sometimes the Stolen Generation are, they're trying to retain, you know, retain their culture. But work closely with your elders, whether it be male elder or female elder, not all us males are the knowledge keepers of everything. You acquire 'em. So, there are avenues, whether it be via your council or local government to find out who your local elder is in the area. But, you know, reach out like Family Day Care did to Gowrie. They have a vast amount of elders from across the state, whether it be Torres Strait Islander Zenadth Kes, whether it be Pitjantjatjara, whether it be, you know Peramangk people. We've got a big you know, the Reconciliation Action Working Group is a broad group of Aboriginal people.

Dale Atkinson: And we'll have information about the Gowrie SA contacts and other things in the show notes. Might give the final word to you, Uncle. For those who might be feeling anxiety or some reluctance about leaning into this space for whatever reason, what would your message to them be?

Uncle Tamaru: Well, number one, paramount is don't be paralysed by fear. But I think you know, on reflection, you have the oldest living culture in your own backyard. You have a culture that runs for 65,000 years, the language has been spoken on this country for that long. We made mistakes a long time ago. We're making mistakes now, but you gotta give it a go. Get outta your comfort zone, do a couple of language courses. Gowrie run courses where we do a lot of role play, so when you do role play, it's okay to learn the language, but you've gotta learn how to use the language in context. And it's about having fun. We teach it's okay to make a mistake as long as we move forward. Now what they do, when they do a mistake, they leave it on the wall, but they put the correction next to it, and it shows their journey of understanding. And that's what we need to do more of 'cause we're not doing it. All right. They, they make a mistake, they screw it up, they throw it in the bin. Well, no, how are you gonna learn if you're not got the visual stimulant up there? So we need that sort of action, and that's a really powerful thing that Family Day Care do really well.

Liz Whitbread: On that too, we will acknowledge when we do say things wrong. So, if I say a word wrong, so if I say Ngaitalya which is ‘Thank you’? Goodbye?

Uncle Tamaru:  Ngaitalya is ‘my respect’.

Liz Whitbread: Yes.

Uncle Tamaru: And Nutella is that awesome hazelnut chocolate stuff.

Liz Whitbread: We will say, oh, I've said that wrong, so we're actually acknowledging to whoever we are speaking to that, oh, I recognise that I've said that wrong and I'm going to try again.

Uncle Tamaru: That's right.

Liz Whitbread: And that's really important as well.

Dale Atkinson: Well, in recognising that I have made some errors and trying again, can I just say Kauwana. Thank you very much for your time, and Liz, thank you for your time. And I'll leave the last and final words to you both as a message at the wider community.

Liz Whitbread: Ngaitalya.

Uncle Tamaru: Nakutha