Gillian Kirk is a lecturer and researcher at Edith Cowan University. She mainly lectures in play and pedagogy, family and community partnerships and contemporary early childhood issues in the early childhood program. Gillian’s research interests are varied having conducted studies on young children’s social and emotional development, the implementation of the National Quality Standard in schools, innovation projects in schools and retention of students at university. A sense of belonging, and the need for belonging, has been a unifying theme underpinning many of the research topics and remains a key interest in her studies.