Thriving Together: Children thrive when parents and communities thrive.

Pre-school children need the best start they can get. Australia is lagging behind. A movement is emerging to put that right.

11.2% of Australian children aged 15 missed out on Early Childhood Education and Care compared with the OECD average of 6.2% according to today’s Sydney Morning Herald article.

So why should we care?

We should care because we know that children with exposure to formal early learning are more likely to be “school ready” when they transition to primary education.

“‘School readiness’ is a measure of the knowledge, skills and behaviours that enable children to participate and succeed in school. Parents sometimes think that school readiness means being able to read, write and do basic maths before starting school. But this isn’t the case!

School readiness is about the development of the whole child – their social and emotional skills, physical skills, communication skills and cognitive skills.

Children cannot thrive at school if they haven’t developed the skills to manage things like getting along with other children, following instructions, and communicating their needs.

Research shows that children who start school when developmentally ready to learn tend to do better in school – and it sets them up for further success later in life.”

Australian Government

Families living in poverty are less likely to access early learning for a range of reasons. Despite the Australian Government’s subsidies for early childhood education and care, some families cannot afford the out of pocket expenses. Then there is the administrative burden of applying for the subsidy and the practical challenge for families in rural and remote areas to find a good service that is walking distance from their home.

Many unemployed “front line” (normally women) parents consider early learning as an unnecessary luxury and are often unaware of the benefits to the child and to them. We know early learning not only supports “school readiness” but it is also a protective factor for children exposed to adverse childhood experiences and it provides an opportunity for the parent to engage in the workforce and access supports.

Recently, in a bid to ignite a movement, The FrameWork Institute crafted the following statement for people, agencies and investors to get behind. The statement reads:

"When we support development in early years, we pave the way for health and well-being now and throughout life.

But not all communities and families have what they need to support children’s development in this way. This is one reason we see such major differences in the health of Australians across the country.

We need to make sure every family and community has what kids need to thrive and be healthy. This means things like high quality childcare, chances for children to develop relationships with supportive adults, and safe places to play and learn.

Supporting every child means supporting each child according to their needs. This is how we create a healthier Australia for all children."

Healthy Australia hosted a webinar as the impact of COVID-19 was beginning to be felt by the Early Childhood Education and Care sector. One of the serious concerns emerging for Educators was the rising risk to children and the role of the sector in child protection. Educators stated they were able to identify families who were struggling but felt they did not have the capacity of the capability to engage and support families as they would like.

The feedback from the sector was clear. We need to raise awareness in the community; to promote the benefit of early learning to families living in poverty; to break down the barriers to early learning; and to create a wrap around interagency response to support the “front line” parent so that their child can thrive, and not just survive.

From this conversation a movement was formed called “Thriving Together”. This movement attracted grant funding from the Waratah Education Foundation to test the reality of creating a eco-system around an early childhood education and care centre that would address the needs highlighted but the sector. The Thriving Together movement is joined by a range of agencies including Child Abuse Prevention Services, New School of Arts, Resilience Café, Primary Care and Community Services, HubHello, Healthy Australia, Disruptors Co. and FAMS.

The idea has incubated now for 6 months and we have finally landed on a program design that we will run in South Grafton on 13 October 2020 for 8 weeks. This prototype will provide valuable lessons on what worked well and what did not work well. The desired outcome of this work will be to design a robust program to pilot to demonstrate health, social and economic benefit. We aim to make the case based on hard evidence to scale the program over time.

As the model design emerged it was clear that the evidence surrounding the prevention, screening and treatment of adverse childhood experiences would be core to the movement. We know that children exposed to 4 or more adverse childhood experiences are much more likely to have adverse health, social and economic outcomes. So why wouldn’t we develop strategies that will reduce exposure and treat those exposed to adverse childhood experiences?

We must do better. And we must support the sector to do the work they do by creating a wrap around eco-system designed specifically to help our children thrive. We can achieve this if we choose to work together.

To engage the wider system and to learn from a range of experts we are hosting a webinar on the 25 November 2020. The webinar will explore the evidence surrounding adverse childhood experiences and the art of collective engagement to deliver results. To register for the webinar click on this link.

We would love to engage as many people as possible in the conversation and to enrol people, agencies and social investors in the movement. So please don't hesitate to comment, register for the webinar or message me direct.

We have a real opportunity to make a difference.