Empowered Educators - Toowoomba 2025

Join us for a full day of workshopping fun with Chris and Sandi Phoenix!

Two Streams - Choose Your Path

This year, Empowered Educators returns with two tailored streams, ensuring every participant experiences meaningful professional growth.

Stream 1. Foundations for Educators: Designed for those new to the Empowered Educators approach, this stream will guide participants through The Phoenix Cups framework with Chris Phoenix in the morning, followed by an Educator Toolkit for Behaviour session in the afternoon, delivered by Sandi Phoenix.

Stream 2. Empowered Educators: The Next Level (Advanced): Exclusively for those who attended last year’s event OR have completed both Educator Wellbeing and Educator Toolkit for Behaviour workshops in the past two years. This is not a repeat of last year’s content, it is a deeper dive into applied wellbeing strategies for educators ready to take their practice to the next level. 

More details…

Stream 1 - The Foundation Program Overview

• Gain insights into children's behaviour and evidence based ways to guide and support children's behaivoural, social, and emotional learning.
• Understand how to use the Phoenix Cups Framework to meet the emotional and psychological needs of everyone in the community, enhancing mental health and wellbeing.
• Workshop practical strategies for supportive environments for both educator wellbeing and children's wellbeing.
  

Morning Session: Educator Wellbeing with Chris Phoenix

Chris will provide the perfect combination of education and entertainment all rolled into one interactive and fun workshop.

You can expect laughs, games, hypnosis (yep, we said it), philosophy, as well as a proven formula for wellbeing that will not only help you on your own happiness journey, but will help you interact with your colleagues and peers, as you will be able to identify their needs as well!

Find out how balanced mental health and wellbeing can be accomplished through mindful decision making and tactical planning to identify and meet your basic life needs.

Afternoon Session: Educator Toolkit for Behaviour with Sandi Phoenix

Learn new ways of thinking about, responding to, and planning for children's behaviour.

In this workshop you will explore:

• connected relationships with children.
• interpreting behavioural indicators as manifestations of unmet needs.
• respond thoughtfully to the complexity and ever-evolving nature of a child's social and behavioural learning journey.
• Learn a shared language around a model of human needs.

You will leave this day with a comprehensive knowledge about what motivates children's behaviour, and a framework to develop strategies to respond to behaviour that can be immediately implemented in to your program. 

 Stream 2 - Advanced Program Overview

Morning Session: Developing Wellbeing Plans with Sandi Phoenix

Traditional behaviour management plans focus on controlling children’s actions, but what if we replaced them with Wellbeing Plans that nurtured their growth? This interactive session, facilitated by Sandi Phoenix, will guide educators through a solution-focused, strengths-based approach to supporting children and learning environments. 

Case Study Collaboration - Bring real-life scenarios to your table and engage in facilitated discussions to develop wellbeing plans tailored to individual children or your learning environment.

Identifying Behaviours That Challenge us - Define the behaviours that present difficulties and explore the underlying needs.

Skill to Fill™ Learning Goals Shift from focusing on behaviour modification to teaching skills, guided by the EYLF. 

Strategic Teaching Approaches - Learn evidence-based teaching strategies grounded in neuroscience, psychology, positive psychology, and trauma-informed practice.

By the end of this session, participants will have co-created practical, implementable wellbeing plans designed to support children holistically.

Afternoon Session: Creating a Culture of Wellbeing with Chris Phoenix

Sustainable wellbeing starts with the educator but extends to the service, staff, families, and community. Chris Phoenix will lead this powerful session on embedding wellbeing into service culture.

Personal Wellbeing Plan Development - Design a tailored wellbeing plan for yourself, ensuring you have the tools to sustain your own energy and passion in the workplace.

Service-Wide Wellbeing Strategies - Move beyond individual self-care to create a holistic wellbeing strategy for your service.

Leadership for Wellbeing - For those in leadership roles, explore how to embed wellbeing at an organisational level, ensuring that workplace culture supports and nurtures educators, families, and children.

The day will be co-facilitated by Sandi Phoenix and Chris Phoenix, together with Phoenix Support for Educators facilitators who will support the advanced stream in their workshopping sessions. 

Educators will walk away with clear action plans that they can take back to their settings, ensuring that wellbeing remains a priority for all.

This Empowered Educators event is more than just professional development - it is a transformative experience designed to challenge, inspire, and empower. Whether you’re new to the approach or ready to deepen your practice, there’s a stream for you. Secure your place now!

Kindy Uplift:

This workshop relates to the following priority areas...

1. Culturally safe, inclusive and responsive kindergarten programs - b. Equity and Access for all.
2. Social and emotional learning.

What else is Included:

• 2x 1 Hour Live online check ins with Chris and Sandi Phoenix. Dates to be scheduled in term 3 and term 4.