Involve others

When people are truly involved in something, they are more likely to become passionate about the topic. We encourage widening your team of involvement as much as possible, as this should increase your influence and enable more traction. In our experience, childcare staff relish in a title, this could be the perfect opportunity to delegate to your Champions.

Address feelings

It is very important to consider how individuals (employees and parents) feel about the changes you make within your setting. Open communication is encouraged throughout to allow individuals to express their opinions and reasoning. Often people’s negative views are emotive rather than rational, or they may be triggered by an event in that person’s history. Therefore, it is important that opinions are met with understanding and sensitivity, and that all conflicts are resolved in a calm and open manner.

Follow through, but be flexible

Climate change is a large and complex issue, and whilst we all hope to produce positive results as quick as possible, it will often be difficult to achieve the ‘best’ solution instantly. Instead it is important to stay focussed, persevere and continually take the necessary steps (big or small) towards the solution.

Stay positive, work on your failures but celebrate your successes

Part of persevering is to stay positive throughout your failures. Change takes time, you may need several attempts at a topic before it is a success. If it was easy, previous generations would have already stopped the climate crisis, but everything you do is a positive step in the right direction. If something doesn’t work, change it and try again. Importantly, when you do have successes, share and celebrate them. Bake a cake, have a party, mention it in newsletters or on a Facebook post! Decide on your celebrations with your nursery staff and children, so that you can celebrate in a way that you’ll all enjoy!