Lisa Bryant Consulting

29/05/2026

Watch what you are signing up to.

I wanted to share a quick caution after recently seeing an agreement with an HR firm that some preschools have signed in NSW.

I am not naming the firm, and this is not legal advice. But I do think it is worth giving directors and committees a friendly heads-up, because some of the clauses in the agreement may have consequences that are not obvious when you are just trying to get HR support in place.

The agreement I saw was for a monthly HR retainer. On the surface, it looked simple enough: a monthly fee, access to HR advice, and support when needed. But when I read the detail, there were a few things that concerned me.
Before signing any HR retainer agreement, please check whether it includes clauses like these:

• Direct debit authority for more than the monthly fee
Some agreements authorise the provider, through a payment platform, to debit the service’s bank account for amounts that are ‘separately communicated’ to you. That may sound harmless, but it could mean the authority is not limited to the ordinary monthly retainer. If there is ever a disagreement about extra charges, the practical risk is that the money may be taken first and disputed later. (A direct credit is when the service chooses to send money to someone else – for example, by making a bank transfer or paying an invoice. The preschool controls when the payment is made and how much is paid. A direct debit is different. It gives another organisation permission to take money from the preschool’s bank account, usually on agreed dates or for agreed amounts. This can be convenient, but it also means the service has handed over some control. If the agreement is broadly worded, the provider may be able to debit amounts beyond the regular monthly fee, leaving the serviceto notice, question and dispute the payment afterwards.)

• Extra fees for work outside the retainer
Check very carefully what is actually included in the monthly fee. Some agreements say that additional services will be charged separately, often at an hourly rate. This may include things like workplace investigations, Fair Work matters, training, onsite visits, or anything considered outside ‘reasonable use’.

• Fixed 12-month terms
Some agreements are not month-to-month, even if they are paid monthly. They may lock the preschool in for a full 12 months.

• Automatic renewal for another 12 months
Watch for clauses that renew the agreement automatically unless you give notice a few months in advance. This can mean a service accidentally rolls into another full year.

• Notice periods that are easy to miss
Some agreements require notice of cancellation well before the end of the term – for example, 60 days before renewal. This is the kind of date that can easily be missed by a busy director or a changing committee.

• Exit fees if you leave early
Some agreements require the service to pay a percentage of the remaining fees if it wants to leave before the end of the term the agreement. This can be expensive, even if the service is unhappy with the support.

• Annual fee increases
Check whether the agreement allows automatic annual increases, and how those increases are calculated.

• Broad indemnities
Some agreements place a lot of responsibility back on the service if something goes wrong, even where the preschool has been relying on the service’s advice.

• Limits on the provider’s liability
Some agreements limit how much the provider can be responsible for if their advice causes a problem. This can matter a lot when the advice relates to employment law, compliance, termination, or serious workplace issues.

• Use of the service’s name or logo
Check whether the provider can use your preschool’s name or logo in their marketing unless you object. Many services would not expect this to be included in an HR agreement.

All of this sounds like common sense but people are signing agreements with this firm that have a lot of red flags in it. Read everything carefully before you sign up. to anything.

30/04/2026

As a consultant (as opposed to an advocate) I often need to be silent on political matters. But this one is too important. (When the link asks you if you want to read in substack just say no and you will get to the text.)

The closure of 40 G8 centres should force a reckoning about profit, quality and trust.

30/03/2026

Governance Training

At this time of year I run a lot of governance training sessions for preschools and long day care centres that are community run.

Essentially they are a professional development session for committees about what their roles are and what they are legally responsible for.

Increasingly I’m getting concerned about the loss of knowledge in our communities in general about how not for profit organisations are supposed to run.

When our services were set up, a lot of organisations in our communities ran as associations or co-ops. CWAs, life saving organisations, soccer clubs, netball clubs. The local community progress association.

Nowadays, few of these still operate through a community based model. Because of this a lot of the knowledge about how committees should function is no longer general knowledge in communities. This is sad but it’s also scary. When things go wrong for services it can be catastrophic, especially in small close knit communities.

Some preschools get me to run annual governance sessions for them so their committee is always on top of things. For others it will only be once every few years when major turnover has happened.

But the fact they keep booking me tells me what I deliver works both for the directors, admin staff and the committee members!

It’s an easy investment in making sure your organisation runs properly.

25/02/2026

Director? Feeling overwhelmed?

Psst. Wanna know a secret? You are not alone!

Every director I am in contact with is feeling the same way. Whether they are in the first year as a director or a Nominated Supervisor or their 40th.

This year somehow feels harder.

The role has been getting harder for some time now. I regularly tell directors of small services that they can no longer be teaching directors trying to cram their director responsibilities into two or three days. Therein lies the way to a nervous breakdown.

But this year has bought with it an avalanche of regulatory change in response to last year’s safety exposures by the media and the high profile pa******le cases in education and care services.

Interpreting these regulatory changes and putting them into practice falls on directors. Somehow you have to find the time to do this on top of your normal already hectic schedules.

We know that more children needing inclusion support are arriving in our centres each year. All need funding applications to programs that are in urgent need of reform. These applications often fall to directors.

Funding systems get more complicated each year. Directors try to decipher them.

Families are understandably more nervous about formal care. Directors need to reassure them at all stages of the enrolment process.

There are more spot checks. More fun for directors.

Staff members need more support because so much feels uncertain… can they wear their smart watch so they can get the message about their child’s asthma at school or not?

The director tries to be all things to all people. If she works for a corporate or private equity chain she is being pressured to increase occupancy, to cut costs. If she works for a small committee run service she is having to teach the committee their job.

So if it feels tougher this year, it probably is.

Do I have any answers? Probably not. Other than what works for me when things get tough.

Prioritise relationships. These matter more than any bits of paper.

Prioritise what’s really important over the urgent. Will the world really end if you haven’t gotten every staff member a Gekko account by today?

Write lists. If it is on a list it won’t jump into your head at 3am.

Remember no matter how committed you are to your job, it is, in the end a job. An important, beautiful one, but not one worth losing yourself for.

Remember you matter. There is room in early education and care, to care for directors too.

29/01/2026

Language matters!

Do you use compliance language or experience respecting language in newsletters, conversations, posts?

What “compliance language” sounds like

Compliance language comes from regulatory, institutional, or risk-management settings. It’s about checking, correcting, or ensuring adherence.

In early education and care, it often shows up as:
• “We require parents to…”
• “You’ll need to make sure you…”
• “Policy says…” (used as a conversational full stop)
• “We can’t allow…” (without explanation or empathy)
• “Best practice is…” (implying deviation is inferior)
• “Have you tried…?” when the subtext is “you should”

It positions the (mostly) mother as:
• someone to be managed
• someone whose choices need monitoring
• someone who is either doing it right or wrong

Even when well-intentioned, it can feel infantilising.

What “experience-respecting” language sounds like

Language that respects experience starts from a different assumption:

This adult has lived with this child, day and night, for years – not just during service hours.

So the tone shifts from enforcement to collaboration.

Examples:
• “From what you’re seeing at home…”
• “You know her rhythms better than anyone – does this fit?”
• “Here’s what we’ve noticed – curious what you think.”
• “Some families find this helpful, others don’t.”
• “There are a few ways to approach this – we can talk it through.”

This kind of language:
• acknowledges parental expertise
• invites dialogue rather than correction
• allows difference without judgement

It doesn’t abandon regs and policies – it humanises them.

Why this matters for mothers

For many mothers, especially in the 0–5 years:
• they are already under intense scrutiny
• they are constantly measuring themselves against advice
• they are used to being told what they “should” be doing

Compliance-heavy language:
• reinforces self-doubt
• increases defensiveness or withdrawal
• subtly shifts power away from mothers
Experience-respecting language:
• restores confidence
• reduces shame
• builds genuine partnership
And importantly: it costs nothing.

This is not about ignoring regulation

To be clear, I’m not suggesting services:
• ignore policy
• blur safety boundaries
• pretend regulations don’t exist

Rather, it’s about how requirements are communicated.

Compare:
• “We require hats every day.”
vs
• “We’re really strict about hats because of UV exposure – let’s work out what’s easiest for you.”

Same rule. Totally different experience.

02/12/2025

How often do you update your constitution?

I have spent a lot of time this year updating constitutions for NFP education and care services. Some have been seriously outdated!

21/11/2025

I write a newsletter for the education and care sector. It’s mostly an advocacy newsletter and the opinions I express as an advocate often get in the way of my work as a consultant!

coz no one has got time for this s**t on their own.

05/11/2025

Collective knowledge lost?

Are we losing some of our collective historical knowledge about how community management, especially stand alone community management works over the years?

It feels to me as if we are. Things that I think everyone in community based services once knew are now specialist knowledge as the proportion of community based education and care services as a whole shrinks, as the peak organisations who once were peaks for community based services alone have vanished or been forced to diversify, as directors come into leadership roles in community based services from for-profit services.

So where do directors and management committees get that knowledge? Get that support?

That’s one of the services I’ve always offered. From structured governance training, coaching, or use it as needed consultation over the phone services I can help. I can run AGMs or special general meetings, revise constitutions, work on restructures, advise on succession plans… regain charitable status, delegation charts, lease renegotiation, basically help community based services with the specialist knowledge that is needed.

Contact me to discuss what you need and how I might be able to help today.

02/11/2025

This explains exactly why having great governance and clear delegations is so important in community based services.

Need help? Contact me. I am a governance and all things community based expert!

A woman who used credit cards from the childcare centre where she worked to purchase personal clothes and cosmetics has been sentenced to jail.

21/10/2025

After years of tracking the movements of corporate and private equity early education providers its a relief to see this being done by others. I’ll paste the story in the comments.

Foreign-owned childcare providers operate over 480 centres nationally, raking in billions in revenue and generous taxpayer funded childcare subsidies and grants.