Description
About the Presenters:
Myra Geddes oversees Goodstart’s social impact strategy, policy, measurement, research and evaluation and social inclusion programs and initiatives. Myra and her team amplify the delivery of Goodstart’s social purpose and impact across the country. Myra brings significant experience to Goodstart, as a driving force of social policy and reform that has helped transform and improve the quality of life of Australians. She has been the senior social policy advisor to two Australian prime ministers and has worked across early childhood education and care, schools, community services and health policy at state and national levels. Myra’s career began as a teacher in the northern suburbs of Brisbane. She is deeply committed to supporting those working closest with children and is a passionate believer in the power of early learning to transform children’s lives. Myra co-wrote Preschool – Two Years are Better Than One with Dr Stacey Fox at the Mitchell Institute which aimed to help compel Australia to pursue a national commitment to ensuring all three-year-olds have access to high-quality early childhood education by offering a second year of preschool.
Sandi Wong is an Associate Professor at Macquarie University, and a Research Fellow with Goodstart Early Learning. Sandie has worked as an academic, manager, researcher, evaluator, educator, consultant and nurse, within a range of early childhood, academic and health organisations. Sandie is committed to working in collaborative, strengths-based ways, with academics from a range of disciplines, early childhood organisations and practitioners, and governments, to lead and support high quality research, evaluation and practitioner enquiry, that contributes to best practice in early childhood. Her current work investigates: early childhood practices (including inter-professional practice); workforce issues (including educator time-use); educator well-being; and the history of early childhood internationally. Sandie is on the Editorial Committee of the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood.
