Speaker

 Physical health and wellbeing in the context of the AEDC refers to how children are arriving at school and their physical independence and readiness for the day, as well as their proficiency in activities and tasks using gross and fine motor skills.

The physical health and wellbeing domain includes these three subdomains, including: physical readiness for the school day, physical independence, gross and fine motor skills.

Growth and development, the physical health and wellbeing domain enables children to: come to school, well fed, be rested and physically comfortable, independently practice activities, such as: maintaining good hygiene, eating, removing clothing as requirements of the day, develop their fine motor skills and dexterity to engage with writing, drawing, and information technology, enhance gross motor skills by improving coordination and strength through activities like running, jumping and climbing, develop healthy habits by establishing routines for exercise, nutrition and sleep that contribute to overall wellbeing, improve self-care skills by gaining independence in managing personal needs such as dressing, toileting and grooming.

Children's development in the physical health and wellbeing domain is embedded in practices aimed at meeting the Early Years Learning Framework Outcome 3. Development in this domain is supported by National Quality standard Quality Areas 1, 2, 3 and 6.

To enhance development in the physical health and wellbeing domain, educators and carers can: plan physical activities that support the development of fundamental movement skills, encourage children practice how to pack and unpack their lunchbox, plan musical experiences that involve movement such as body percussion, songs with actions, and responding to music through movement, provide a range of manipulative experiences to help strengthen children's fine motor skills, for example, using scissors or modeling clay.

Children maximize opportunities to practice emerging skills and learn new skills when their physical and health needs are met.

For more information, including reflective questions and ideas on how to foster physical health and wellbeing, download the AEDC domain guide for physical health and wellbeing or visit the department's AEDC webpage to access the other domain videos in the series.

[End of transcript]

Speaker

 Social competence refers to a set of abilities that enable children to independently navigate their social world, to interact with peers and adults, to form friendships, and to understand the needs of others. The social competence domain includes four subdomains including: overall social competence, responsibility and respect, approaches to learning, readiness to explore new things.

Growth and development in the social competence enables children to be self-confident to engage with new situations and learning experiences, have a secure sense of self that gives them a feeling of safety and belonging, interact respectfully, get along with their peers and engage with cooperative learning.

Children's development in the social competence domain are embedded in practices aimed at meeting the Early Years Learning Framework Outcomes 1, 2, 3 and 4. Development in this domain is supported by National Quality Standard Quality Areas 1, 5, 6 and 7.

To enhance development in the social competence domain, educators and carers can: prompt and support children to understand and follow daily routines and game rules, give children tasks or responsibilities that encourage them to help out during activities, provide imaginative and dramatic play opportunities for children to practice their social skills, read stories that explore social conflict and resolution, ask children to explain the rules of a game to each other.

When children feel secure in their environment, their learning is optimized as they become curious, ready to try new things and are open to forming relationships with their peers.

For more information, including reflective questions and ideas on how to foster social competence, download the AEDC domain guide for social competence or visit the department's AEDC webpage to access the other domain videos in the series.

[End of transcript]

Speaker

 The communication skills and general knowledge domain does not include any sub-domains. It measures children's expressive and receptive language skills and their ability to take part in imaginative play and show knowledge about the world.

Growth and development in the communication skills and general knowledge domain enables children to: express their needs, interact successfully and demonstrate their knowledge, have the background and prior knowledge required to actively engage in learning experiences, enhance vocabulary and language comprehension by building a strong foundation in language to communicate more effectively, strengthen cultural awareness by understanding and appreciating diverse perspectives and traditions, foster curiosity and inquiry by asking questions and seeking information to expand their knowledge.

Children's development in the communication skills and general knowledge domain is embedded in practices aimed at meeting Early Years Learning Framework Outcomes 4 and 5. Development in this domain is supported by National Quality Standard Quality Areas 1, 3, 5, 6 and 7.

To enhance development in the communication skills and general knowledge domain, educators and carers can: use routines as an opportunity to interact with the children around topics of interest or what is occurring, ask open-ended questions about the characters, setting and plot when reading books, engage children in child-led discussions or conversations, for example, ask probing questions and encourage them to reply, listen to children, follow their lead and talk about the things they share, use familiar books as prompts for children to create their own stories.

Communication skills and general knowledge supports children to communicate their thoughts, beliefs and feelings and enables them to better have their needs met, making the most of learning opportunities.

For more information, including reflective questions and ideas on how to foster communication skills and general knowledge, download the AEDC domain guide for communication skills and general knowledge or visit the department's AEDC webpage to access the other domain videos in the series.

[End of transcript]

Speaker

The language and cognitive skills (school-based) domain refers to skills that children need to enable, then learn concepts and apply those skills before they can engage with more formal literacy and numeracy. The language and cognitive skills (school-based) domain includes four subdomain indicators; children's basic literacy; advanced literacy; basic numeracy; interest in literacy, numeracy and memory.

Growth and development in the language and cognitive skills (school-based) enables children to view themselves as competent learners and they approach learning with curiosity and enthusiasm, have the cognitive skills that supports children's learning which include memory, problem solving and creative thinking, develop effective communication skills by expressing thoughts, ideas and emotions clearly and confidently, foster adaptability by adjusting to new situations and learning environments with ease.

Children's development in the language and cognitive skills domain are embedded in practices aimed at meeting Early Years Learning Framework Outcomes 4 and 5. Development in this domain is supported by National Quality Standard Quality Areas 1, 3, 5, 6 and 7.

To enhance development in the language and cognitive skills domain, educators and carers can; encourage children to think critically by providing opportunities to solve problems, encourage children to tell and retell stories, to build vocabulary and memory, share and enjoy books together, talking about what is happening in the story, plan learning experiences that develop children's memory and creative thinking skills, compare things of different sizes or compare similar objects by using numbers and comparative language like 'big', 'small' and 'medium'.

Language and cognitive skills provide the foundation for children to be curious and interested in stories and books and have a foundational understanding of shape, category, time and number as they begin their formal learning journey.

For more information, including reflective questions and ideas on how to foster language and cognitive skills, download the AEDC domain guide for language and cognitive skills or visit the department's AEDC webpage to access the other domain videos in the series.

[End of transcript]

Speaker

Emotional maturity refers to a set of abilities that enable children to understand and manage how they respond when faced with situations that elicit an emotional reaction, including children's consideration of others, concentration and patience. In this domain, the AEDC measures these subdomain indicators: pro-social and helping behaviour, anxious and fearful behaviour, aggressive behaviour, hyperactivity and inattention.

Growth and development in the emotional maturity enables children to manage the demands of social and learning environments, understand different feelings and express their emotions in socially acceptable ways, develop constructive emotional responses and build resilience, recover from disappointment or sadness, concentrate on play and learning tasks, form positive relationships by building and maintaining healthy relationships with peers and adults.

Children's development in the emotional maturity domain is embedded in practices aimed at meeting Early Years Learning Framework Outcomes 1, 2 and 3. Development in this domain is supported by National Quality Standard Quality Areas 1, 5 and 6.

To enhance development in the emotional maturity domain, educators and carers can: teach children the language to use when describing their feelings, model how they manage their own feelings by thinking aloud, play games where children have to wait for their turn to participate, give children explicit tasks around an area of interest and encourage them to finish the task.

Children who display emotional maturity can persevere, self-regulate and are resilient enough to maintain focus on a task regardless of the challenge. Their learning is more effective as children are calm and focused to learn new information, integrate information, and apply information to new contexts.

For more information, including reflective questions and ideas on how to foster emotional maturity, download the AEDC domain guide for emotional maturity or visit the department's webpage to access the other domain videos in the series.

[End of transcript]

['Responding to the 2024 Australian Early Development Census – closing the equity gap']

Toni Kember, Director Early Learners and the NSW representative on the AEDC National Committee

Welcome everyone.

My name is Toni Kember and I'm Director Early Learners and the NSW representative on the AEDC National Committee.

I'm joining today's meeting from Dharug Land. I would like to acknowledge the lands where each of you are joining us from, acknowledge the elders who have held this land sacred, protecting the land and living in harmony with it.

This land always was and always will be Aboriginal land. I look forward to today's session. I'm responding to 2024 AEDC closing the gap, closing the equity gap by Professor Sharon Goldfeld.

Today's session will be recorded. The recording will be shared with you and for those who have registered for this webinar for the next 2 months, you'll receive an email when the recording is released.

Because we're recording, you will have noticed that your microphone and video functions have been disabled during this webinar. Please use the chat function to ask your questions. You can also see and vote on other people's questions, which you would like answered using the thumbs up button.

We will post information and relevant links in the chat and you can submit any questions on the chat through the session. Question today. Please reach out to our email, aedc@dt.nsw.edu.au.

At the bottom of your screen, the option to turn on live transcripts can be actioned if you decide to activate it, you'll be able to move the box to a space that suits you and even change the size of the font.

Now let me begin by introducing our guest speaker today, Sharon Goldfeld. Professor Sharon Goldfield is the Director of the Centre for Community Child Health at the Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne. She has built her career as a policy-focused public health and paediatric practitioner and researcher. Her research interests are made up of complementary synergies and cross disciplinary streams of work focused on investigating, testing and translating sustainable policy relevant solutions that eliminate inequities for Australia's children.

She's the authority on child health equity and policy and has led national research that has revolutionised data and metrics in Australia directly influencing national and state policy and early childhood health, education and social care. In 2024, Professor Goldfield was appointed as the Member of Order of Australia for her service to paediatric medicine and public health research.

Her contributions have been recognised with numerous awards, including the inaugural 2020 University of Melbourne, Marley's Medal in STEM for outstanding achievement and research impact.

In today's session, AEDC NSW 2024 data shows that there was an increase in vulnerabilities in emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills, school based, social competence domain and the communication skills and general knowledge domain measured.

In June 2025, we had Sharon at our NSW symposium where she spoke about beyond the silver bullet closing the equity gap for children within a generation. It was a very exciting session. I really enjoyed it Sharon, so I'm really looking forward to today's session as well. I note that in today's session you'll explore further some of the implications of the AEDC data and provide some practical steps stakeholders could consider in their context of practice. This is going to be an exciting hour, so I hope everyone is ready to sit back and listen and engage with the chance through questions with Sharon session.

Sharon Goldfeld, Director of the Centre for Community Child Health at the Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne

Thanks so much, Toni, and gosh, there's nothing like build up like that, right? You really hear your bio read out, you are so embarrassing. And let me just try and do that, you know, wonderful thing of sharing slides and kind of hoping for the best, Toni.

Now I can't actually see anyone now.

OK, Toni, I can see you slides are up all good.

Toni

Your slides are up. You're good to go. Yes.

Sharon

Yes. OK. Well, thank you, for joining us this afternoon. And I would just want to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land that I'm on, which is the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging and in particular pay my respects to any First Nations people here with us today. It is absolutely freezing here in Melbourne, so I hope it's warmer for you in New South Wales. It's like the coldest day in 80 years or something.

So I want to do a couple of things. I'm just going to give you a heads up that some of the stuff I'm going to be sharing with you today is similar to what I talked about at the symposium, but I think will make different sense. Earlier this year, just hang on one sec. I'm just going to cough for one minute.

It always happens doesn't just when you start talking, so I'm gonna start with this really cute slide while I also have a coughing fit and I hope this all works too.

Rochelle O'Connor

The sound isn't sharing, Sharon.

Toni

Yes, we don't have sound.

Sharon

Oh. OK, bear with me. One moment I'm going to stop sharing and then start again. It was my my mayor corpa. I made the mistake of not doing this. Even though we went through, this just goes to show you I have like the memory.

Toni

That's OK.

Sharon

Let's try this again, because it's so cute. You have to start from the beginning. Better.

[A video of children holding signs with questions]

What makes you feel happy? What makes you feel happy? Henry? Chocolate. Sorry. A lollipop, cauliflower. Cauliflower makes you happy?

Doing art, going to the pools, playing with my sister. I love jumping on my trampoline. My favourite one I love going to ballet and I love please creepy happy with my with my sister Leanna.

Playing soccer, scoring goals, playing games, playing the hockey game, playing with my family and friends, we build trucks, all the friends in my kinder are kind to me, and I like that. That makes me happy.

[Video ends]

So I hope you enjoyed that. I always like to start these with just reminding us why we're doing what we're doing and that is to centering on the child and the children themselves. But we've spent a lot of time thinking about how you bring the voice of the child into the work we do. So I think it's always fun to start with the voice of the child.

And I want to bring the voice of the child in this kind of sense of urgency that I know you feel as well in this poem from Gabriella Mistral, who's a Nobel Prize winning poet. And she says, 'Many things we need can wait. The child cannot. Now is the time his bones are being formed. His blood is being made. His mind is being developed. To him, we cannot say tomorrow his name is today.'

So now we've kind of set the scene of both anchoring our thinking around children and this sense of urgency. And then I want to just sort of bring 2 other kind of ways of thinking, if you like, 2 truths to the table.

One is the kind of importance of the end of one many of you around this table may yourselves be practitioners or educators, and so the end of one remains important. I myself and still practising paediatrician. I think it's after lunchish. So my specialisation is poo.

So we can have a chat about that later if you like, but I also want to give us the challenge of how do we keep populations of children healthy and learning and developing well. And we need to hold both of those sorts of things in some of the things we're going to be talking about today.

The other kind of ideas I want to put on the table is this idea of equity and how we actually deliver more equitable services, equitable programmes and equitable policies. So you're like if it in this sort of world of equality where everyone gets the same, you can see we actually get unequal outcomes. And so I've got to kind of work with that don't because in Australia, we think everyone should have a fair go, but a fair go doesn't mean everybody gets the same.

It means that people get according to their need, which is kind of the equity argument. You can see the reality is I'm going to show you some AEDC data. The reality is really, really sort of terrible for us in Australia and something we should be really pushing back on given that we're one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

So I'm going to share with you a series of the Australian Early Development Census results. As Tony mentioned, it's now been going since 2009 and one of my, I guess great privileges has been sort of being part of that journey since its inception. To this day we're the only country in the world that has these sort of data nationally. So it's it's quite extraordinary.

So you can see children developmentally vulnerable on 2 or more, which I really want to talk to you about, which is the purple line at the bottom, and you can see there's sort of uptick in 2024 to 12.5%. I was going to show you the NSW results, but actually the patterns are all the same, so it's kind of cool to just look at the national results.

And you can see it's the highest it's ever been since 2009. So we've got 12.5% of children starting school on average across the country, developmentally vulnerable in 2 or more domains. That is not a good thing. And that is a lot of children. And you can see the other things that have changed over time is that on track has also gone down over that time. So the kids who are kind of, if you like, thriving because they're doing on, you know, on track on all 5 has also gone down over time this year as well. So so we're kind of heading in the wrong direction, even though as a country we still remain one of the richest countries.

But what I really want to lean into is this idea of equity. So I've got 2 graphs in front of you, the one on your left is looking at the difference between children developmentally vulnerable on 2 or more domains between the kids in the most disadvantaged areas versus the least disadvantaged areas of Australia.

So in the most disadvantage of the areas of Australia, we've got 20.3%. That's one in 5 kids turning up to school development to the vulnerable on 2 or more domains. So this is not all well, let's just tinker at the edges to see if we can make a difference. This is a moment of fundamental need for system reform. And you can see the difference between the highest and lowest income areas, but note that still, even in the richest areas, 7.6% of kids are turning up in that way.

The the graph on your right, you won't have seen before because it comes from research we've been doing and it's looking at the teachers saying, gosh, we think this kid may have another problem and/or they need further assessment. And you can see the top green line there is the kids also living in the most disadvantaged areas and that's up at 28%.

So now we've got this kind of huge challenge I you know huge challenge that we need to kind of think about in Australia in what are we going to do that's going to meet their needs. And I'm going to spend the rest of today talking a little bit about that.

But and what I will say to you is this, this period of time and how kids actually start school is pretty much how they keep tracking. And this is some lovely work that was done looking at the relationship between the AEDC results, particularly language and cognitive skills. But you can see the others in terms of Year 3, numeracy and and literacy in Year 3, and like any of you who are educators, the frontline won't go oh, really, how they come in is how they keep tracking. But that is exactly what happens. And so you can see how highly predictive it is depending on how you're coming in now. If you're coming in with 2 or more domains it's a really big, big ask of schools to be able to shift that trajectory.

The other, more recent report, which I thought I'd share with you, is the cost of late intervention. The original report was in 2019 and more recent update in 2024, and you can see the difference between that but ... the huge amounts like $22.3 billion dollars in late intervention costs, now most of those late intervention costs are related to child protection, youth justice, some of the kind of what we would call the more pointy end, but not just now this is the challenge that we've got.

We have to kind of really lean into early intervention because the costs downstream are so high that almost anything we spend upfront will offset those late intervention costs. So this is the best picture I could get of a giant canary. My 3-year old granddaughter is into the Mr Men and Little Miss books, so this is Mr Daydream, which seems appropriate as well. And what you can see what I'm sort of saying here really is this is the biggest giantess canary in the coal mine that we could possibly put forward to say if we do not do something about these children, they will actually lead to what I want to show you in the next slide, which is this life expectancy plateauing that we have seen into 2021–2023. So you can see back in the late 1900s, 1800s, sorry.

Massive improvements in life expectancy. What you can just kind of tell is that more recently that life expectancy has plateaued and there is concerns, in fact, that life expectancy may end up going backwards. It's certainly going backwards in the United States. And part of that is setting out what we do now in the next 10–15 years for the children being born now.

So you'll see I've got a few quotes. I'm kind of a lover of quotes of people other people will say such amazing things. This is from Oliver Wendell Holmes, and he was one of the Supreme Court judges. And he says, 'I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side side of complexity', and I'm asking you to hold that idea in your head as well, because sometimes it's really easy to go and our politicians do this for a whole range of reasons that you can understand. But it's like, let's just do this one thing.

Great. we've announced it and off we go. But actually it's the complexity we need to sit in and that's a really tough place to sit infrom a policy and political point of view, but it's kind of where we need to sit.

So I want to share with you some provocations in on those kind of idea that how do we actually get to more than good intentions. So it's it's all very early to just talk about things. So what do we actually do and I want to give you a sense of what we should do and what we could do.

And just a reminder that during COVID of course we did amazing things that we never in a million years thought we do like we developed a vaccine in 12–18 months, distributed it. We we gave money to people just to keep their jobs like a conservative government did that like.

You would never have thought that, and we housed the homeless. And so we kind of, I think it changes the narrative from not what we can and can't do, but really what we will and won't do because it turns out we can do anything. So, keep that in mind as I go through these slides.

So the first thing is we just cannot ignore the social determinants of health. Many of you will know what that means, but it's essentially the things that are not about health that determine the health of our population and determine the range of outcomes, and that includes things like do you have enough money and do you have somewhere to live?

And this just shows you that only a very small percentage of health inequity is related to health services Western European data. But I particularly like this one mainly because then I can swear in legitimately, I swear quite a bit actually, but legitimately in a talk. And I just love this, 'They're not mentally ill their lives are just shit', and it's just a reminder to us to not focus necessarily on just what's happening for the child. But remember, the family and the community they're in and what's happening for their lives will make a huge difference to that child's development.

And so we've been doing some work on this thing called changing children's chances, which is trying to conceptualise these kind of social determinants lenses. And it turns out, if you think about all of these things like respectors and geography and health conditions, etcetera, and you can say, well, if what about if that all constitutes disadvantage? And what if we said let's just get rid of all that disadvantage and model, what would happen?

It turns out you halve the problems for children, so 2 lessons from that one is disadvantage matters in terms of problems for children number 2 it doesn't solve everything. So it's really important to manage all of those expectations.

The next thing is there's things that you're all familiar, which which is the kind of ecological frameworks that we talk about. This is particularly on children with additional needs because it seems important for today's talk. But just remembering and you already know this, this kind of systems thinking that children live in families that live in communities that live in society and so you can look at this as wow, that's complicated. Or I look at it kind of like the circles of opportunity in how we make a difference.

The other thing is we and I think this is particularly interesting from a state policy point of view. There's this kind of temptation to just target children living in poor areas. But actually when we've had a look at this and the AEDC has been very helpful data for this and we look at children who live in poor households versus children who live in poor areas.

We find about 30% of children who live in poor households do not live in the poorest areas. So if all we do is just target children living in poor areas, we miss about 30% of kids. And so the challenge then is what do we do universally that's going to make a difference? And yes, how do we target in these areas that have more poor children in them?

And then getting onto this idea of this, no silver bullets, the sort of stuff that Oliver Wendell Holmes was talking about. There really aren't any silver bullets. And this is our version of this idea of stacking interventions. But you can see when you have a look at all of these things, you'd look at this and go. Hang on. Aren't these sort of all all kind of available for families?

And you're absolutely right in some shape or form, most of these are, but they tend not to be delivered in this kind of stacked way and they tend not to be delivered equitably. So families that most need all of this stack are not really getting it and just pulling out for that is going to be relevant to our policy conversation later is this opportunity to really strengthen universal systems and we this is kind of a version of proportionate universalism, which is kind of universal services that delivered with the intensity and reach necessary to meet the needs of the population and look at our extraordinary universal systems so that AECC kindergarten and preschools and schools.

And I know it's kindergarten in school for for you guys. Antenatal care and child and family health services and the nurses in particular primary care and parent supports that is all part of our universal ecosystem which to date tends to be delivered fairly and equitably.

In other words, as is most universal personal systems you get disproportionate uptake by the middle class, and so the question is, how do these systems move from a kind of seek and refer mentality, which I found a problem and off you go to a seek and respond mentality, particularly for those families with additional needs? And then there's this idea of course of this is a pressure cooker for those of you who don't know, I didn't get sponsored by Russell Hobbs, but it is a pressure cooker and it does slow system. It does slow food fast and I guess my provocation is how do we do slow system change fast? Every year babies are born into adversity. Every 3 years we see pretty ordinary AEDC results.

So how do we get better at system change so that we don't have to wait 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, to see those inequitable outcomes change and and if any, any kind of group needs it will certainly be our First Nations families where closing the gap has really not closed the gap at all.

So I want to kind of anchor this in the kind of where we are policy wise, because I think that's a really important point in time. I'm going to give you a federal perspective. You will of course understand your NSW perspective much better than me, but I'm kind of drawing the work of kingdom talks about this idea of how do we keep the policy window open for children particularly long enough to actually make a difference.

As we know policy windows open, close and before you know it, you're sort of, you know, on the downhill of a policy funding commitment. But the first thing he talks about this idea of recognition of the problem, which is really data and of course the AEDC is the power excellence example, the second is the identification of the solution through policy, which is really the evidence and many of you know the evidence, and I'm going to talk to you about the evidence.

We actually have more evidence than we know what to do with. What we don't have is the ability to bring it together at scale. And the third thing is this idea of the political imperatives, like somebody politically has got to care and they've got to care enough to deliver funded policies so caring to deliver policies that have no money doesn't really get very far. But the idea if all these 3 comes to the things come together we can actually open the policy window for children. And I think that's where we are right now in Australia.

These are the sort of national kind of policies that are going on and really interesting stuff about some of them because they're funded. So you've got the investment dialogue for Australia's children, money thriving kids, money building, early education fund money. So the others are kind of enabling policies, but these are actual policies on the table, actual money. Extraordinary, extraordinary moment in time, and certainly in my career. I've never seen that much money on the table. So I'm going to sort of get you to think outside the square a little bit and maybe think about your own circumstances, but I want to bring this all back down to data. I am a kind of fully disclosed data nerd. And so I want to share with you some of that and I want to do it around the idea of how do we get the right.

Data in the right hands of the right people at the right time. And to do that, I'm going to lean on James Baldwin, a very famous African American poet and writer. And he says not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. And so this idea of data is really about galvanising change. So to do that, we've developed a data logic model to try and drive equitable systems.

They're going to walk us through the whole model to help us understand what do we need to do if we actually want to use the data at the right time, the right sort of data to actually know whether or not we've made a difference. And this has got a a little bit of a kind of place based kind of edge to it, but not just place based and you can see it's all about if we want to prioritise efforts, what do we need? If we want to get the direction of the efforts, what do we need? If we want evidence for actions to take, what do we need. If we want actionable data, what do we need? If we want shared improvement goals, what do we need? And if we want estimate benefit. What do we need? So I'm gonna go through each of these.

So let's start with population data lag indicators that help us prioritise effort, and we often use these outcomes. It's very challenging really because it's very hard to move these, but these are the things that are important to help us work out what do we is it do we have a problem in our schools. Do we have a problem in the early years of the AEDC? Do we have a problem with what's happening in antenatal care? So what's happening for women in the antenatal period? So these outcome indicators are really helpful to work us. How do we want to prioritise effort, particularly in place? But then of course, we need map data, which is where the AEDC rides in on its wild white horse.

Because map data tell us not what we want to prioritise, but where we might want to prioritise effort. And as there's more and more interest in place, it gives you this kind of granularity to say what can we learn about these different data at the place level that tells us where we might prioritise effort.

So we need both these data. We need the LAG data and we also need the map data because that tells us where we might prioritise effort.

But we also need to know what we think can change these outcomes. So this is the evidence that I spoke about earlier. And as I said, this is a revisit of some of the stuff you've seen earlier. So feel free to do your emails if you've seen this beforehand. And just another quote by Mencken, who was a kind of 20th century philosopher and he says, 'For every complex problem there is a simple solution and it is wrong'.

And so I put all these ideas on the table as a kind of collective for you to think about. And the other thing to think about is what's the mindset you want to bring to this. And we've sort of used this idea of radical pragmatism. Kind of what we did during COVID. Like we didn't really have an idea. And then we kind of went, Oh my God, well, we just kind of have to experiment. And so I just draw your attention to that bit of this definition about a willingness to try whatever works guided by an experimental mindset and a commitment to empiricism and measuring results.

In other words, let's be brave. Let's give things a go. Let's not wait for perfect to be the enemy of the good, but let's measure as we're going, so we know how we're going. So we had the opportunity to think about all of this during COVID as we did in ... as you know in Melbourne, we're the most locked down city in the world. We have lots of time on our hands and and so we came up with these kind of 5 areas that we think and other areas maybe for action to help us reimagine a more equitable future for Australia's children. And you can see underpinned our data and indicators and we suggest could either be national or in place. Now there's a whole lot of stuff we've done in these areas. I'm going to sort of use examples of this, so don't feel like you're thinking, 'Oh my God', just going to be here for the next 3 years.

So let me start with this kind of radical idea. This is a social determinant, of course, is addressing financial instability, giving people actual money. And I think sometimes we forget about how important money is to help families. Two things I want to share with you. One is this idea trial that's going on actually in Queensland called healthier, wealthier families. But a pilot that went on in Melbourne, which is very simple, let's use a non stigmatising health service like a child and family health service to ask families if they're at risk of being in poverty and do a warm referral to a financial well being provided to help them get number one. Better financial management number 2 better bundling number 3.

The entitlements they're not getting. Turns out this delivers over $6000 per year more into people's homes just on what they're entitled to plus other bundling and one-offs. So this trial is going to happen, but it's just one of those ones where it's really fantastic because it's not about giving people other money. It's actually the money they're entitled to. The second is the modelling we've done, which is what happens when you give people money and model it, and what it does from an equity point of view improves parent mental health, child social like it does all the things you would expect it to. It's not a panacea. It's not give people money eliminating equities, but it definitely is part of the story.

The second is the role of early childhood education and care and schools, so I just wondered just once again remind us all on the left is health. This is this kind of epiphanous moment I had when I worked in the Education department. On the left is like our healthcare exposure. So I'm a paediatrician. I say I'm making, I don't know, once every 6 months.

On the right is ECC in schools, and in particular schools 5 days a week, 7 hours a day, 40 weeks a year. Up to 13 years of their lives. What an extraordinary exposure platform. And obviously for preschools and ECC, there's a version of that. So we've been working about this idea of reinventing Australian schools, somewhat provocatively, saying schools are no longer fit for purpose. I've been doing this with Pasi Sahlberg, who's a Finnish educator, and I feel like we're a bit like, you know, one of those jokes, a paediatrician and educator, walk into a bar and we've been some fun stuff. You're from NSW, so of course recognise this is the beautiful Sydney Opera House.

And had this great session at the Sydney Opera House. It was the Sydney Opera House's birthday. You might remember that from a couple of years ago now I think. And so we sang happy birthday to the Opera House. And so I have officially now sung at the Opera House. And if you knew how bad my singing was, you'd think that was really funny.

But we've developed a white paper you can see you'll get this. You'll get all these slides, by the way, as a PDF, but if you want to sort of grab that there you, you can sort of download it, but reinventing Australian schools is our kind of go at trying to say we need to be doing much better with the current platform that we call schools. And if it if they were about children thriving, what would they look like if they were a whole of child focused on early intervention partnerships with families, children and communities? Health is a 21st century skill, wellbeing as a central tenet, and we've done the very cheeky thing of not come up with a model, but just a set of principles and said what innovative if platforms could be used, what system would work with us to enable innovation? And that's for a much longer conversation.

The next one is this idea of rethinking service delivery. And again, I'm just going to share this fabulous because, you know, other people can say it much better than me and this is talking about hubs.

['National Child & Family Hubs Network' video plays]

Cassy Bishop –Manager, Cairns & Gordonvale Early Years Centres, The Benevolent Society

My role as a manager is about ensuring that families are able to access all the supports and services that they need in the one place here at our hubs. I think the most important thing for our services, service integration and that's not just about integrating within our service, it's also about building those partnerships to really make the space work for the community. We offer play groups, parenting programs and family support services, another service that we offer at one of our centres is the kindergarten. We can cater for up to 44 children.

Speaker

[A mother, wheelchair user, takes her daughter into school]

I'm a mother of 6 children with special needs. We come here on a regular basis for help with speech pathology, OT behavioural problems, eating problems. The Benevolent Society has been able to help us.

Cassy

I think hubs are important because it provides families especially new and young families with a space to create those social networks with other parents and a space to be able to get the advice or information I guess about parenting that they might otherwise be scrambling for.

Speaker

It's a great place to come for anyone, whether you have special needs, no needs, or just want to socialise, would like some information on your child or yourself. It doesn't matter what sort of help you need, they will provide you with the help that you're looking for.

So what is a child and family hub now? Ironically, I am here today actually at the National Child and Family Hubs Network conference, and so there are hubs here from all over Australia. It's like mind-blowing actually. But the idea of child and family hubs really emerged because we realised two things. First of all, bringing services together regardless of the front door, in a way that makes sense for the local families. It's the way to go. That is kind of best practice and evidence from the UK is telling us that changed outcomes.

And second of all, an opportunity for families to come together and build social connections. Look online you're not going to fall off your chair and go really I've never thought of this. Who would think of bringing services together but actually bringing all the network together regardless at their front door and people have to say this is our way of being. In the same way that we don't question AECC being a platform or preschools being a platform, the schools being a platform. This is just an important platform going forward. And so I'm hoping you're feeling like, wow, there's a whole lot of things we could be doing in this space.

[Video ends]

Sharon

I think I want to talk about prevention, the intervention for mental health, because we know that mental health issues are really a burgeoning area of concern. To start with I just want to revisit this idea of proportionate child and family health system. This is a lovely paper actually, that's just come out in the medical journal of Australia that Anna Price led.

I should have put the reference in there, it's not in there, but this idea of what are all of the families need all of the time in this kind of universal bottom bit or just some of the families need some of the time in that tailored bit. And then what do some of the families need all of the time, which is sustain the sign visiting?

And we did a randomised control trial of sustained nurse and visiting called Right at Home. It's based on the NSW mesh model that many of you will be familiar with and I've done a lot of trials in my life, most of which have shown absolutely no result, like no great trials, beautiful trials, no result. Because when you're doing things at a population level, it's really hard to show impact.

But blow me down. We did. We showed a difference of 2 years and then in 3–5 years. So this is after the intervention. It was a 2 year sustained nurse. I'm visiting. Then we start to show, Oh my goodness, we showed better mental health outcomes for the parents. Better, better parenting.

And then when the kids were 6, this is 4 years after the intervention had stopped. There were differences between those kids who had been in the intervention arm versus the control arm in terms of the mental health and behaviour, their social skills and their executive functioning. It didn't turn them into the sort of kids that have come out of highly educated, highly high income families, but it made a difference, and it's part of that stack and at the moment this is kind of being. This is kind of not everywhere, but it's being rolled out in Queensland, so good on them.

And the other is mental health and primary school. So we've talked about how to respond to the AEDC that we see going backwards, but don't forget we've got to think about. Responding to the AEDC going forwards, which is why reinventing schools becomes so important and why mental health and primary schools, this is thinking about how do we use that universal school platform. And it really emerged because teachers were saying, you know, gosh, we've got all these kids, we don't have a language. We're not sure how to talk about them in terms of mental health point of view.

So mental health and primary school was really about giving mental health literacy to teachers and a sense of what to do next. I thought I had the results in there, but we it basically showed compared to some comparison schools that teachers felt more confident. They knew what how to describe these kids, they knew what to do and part of it is also a mental health worker that was also in the schools, who is actually a teacher, not a psychologist, just to help think about how to manage kids. And you will all know either if you're in ECC or in schools that one of the biggest challenges coming through at the moment are children with behavioural issues.

And then finally, using digital solutions and this is a really important equity issue. But as you would know, this kind of stuff's just taking off at the minute. Two things I want to share with you. One is the Thrive By 5, which is a fantastic project. You can see it is in Victoria, it's in the West Wimmera there. So you can see those 6 local government areas, so huge amount of desert and farming area, lots of inequities, rich farming areas, other poor families and massive amounts of area with very few services and very few children. Much like most of the middle of NSW. And these kids were twice as likely to be starting school developmentally vulnerable than other children.

And then we started something called By 5 and I'm going to come back to the slide in a minute, but By 5 has 3 bits to it, which was, how do we actually get more developmental health literacy into the community? How do we do better case based collaboration, bringing service providers and experts together, like paediatricians, and talk about kids.

And then this idea of collaborative consultation, so paediatrician who might be sitting in Melbourne together with a nurse or JP who's sitting with the family, who can keep looking after the family and the family, no referral needed in terms of Medicare, etcetera, and you can see the rates went down from a 2–3 year wait to a 2–3 week wait.

But this is the blow me down bit these are their AEDC results so you can see from 2017 to I'm sorry 2012 through to 2024. So it was going up and up and up and then 2020, 2024 the results went down. In fact they're better than Victoria and Australia.

Now, I'm not sitting here going well, this is all because of By 5 it's all causal, but it sure ain't coincidental. And so this is an extraordinary thing to see. What's possible to see when you innovate in the digital space? The other digital bit we're doing now is this child and family ehub which we've got a virtual working here, with the national Child Family Hub Network, and as you can see, it's tiered. It's not like let's just spin up an ehub, let's just spin up a website. We all feel good about ourselves. That's not hard to do.

This was co-designed with families who are hard to reach. And so it's got a kind of I can navigate myself kind of local and it's got a local skin on it. So if you go into it you can say, hey, I'm from the city of Wyndham or the City of Fairfield and you can go Oh, this feels like the city of Fairfield. And then you can use a kind of filter to work out if I need some additional support or a chat bot to help you actually look at what early mention you need or an actual navigator to talk to.

And so we've been, we've actually evaluated this and hoping to do some level of scaling because you could imagine the system you can hang off this, which is, oh, I need a parenting programme. What can I do online? Oh, can we develop micro-learning for families so they can actually do some stuff with their children while they're waiting for referral? Oh, how do I actually work out where I can get to with an Uber, etcetera. And so this is what it looks like and a lot of effort taken into thinking about this idea of how do you help parents when they're stuck because that's what parents said to us in the evaluation.

What was really interesting was parents sort of had some health issues, but actually they were able to address the health issues and realised that they actually had social care issues and that just parents were saying they don't want to always bother a service provider. They like to be able to do some of this themselves. We we're looking to get all this translated as well, but even families for whom English was not their first language, they could navigate a lot of this.

And just you know, I of course have to talk about the Raising Children Network and it's availability for everybody and in particular, the Raising Healthy Minds app. So this whole digital ecosystem available to families and our responsibility to think about that equitably, but also think about what that means and the importance of what that means for rural and remote services, sorry areas that will never have all the services they need actually, but they sure could have a lot of them virtually.

And now the next bit of that whole data logic model was the need to access actionable data and indicators. And so we've been spending a lot of time in this idea of lead indicators that tell us something about what we're doing and the outcomes we watch.

And they're timely and they can sort of join the dots for us so that we can actually respond very quickly on the ground. Now, the analogy, the best analogy I can give you is this kind of like as if you were, if you only have outcome measures, it's kind of like you go to a soccer game and you only find out the score at the end of the match, and you can't course correct at all. Imagine what a players would be like if they had no score and they didn't quite know what a score was, and that is what we're asking our services to do. And we would say lead indicators are telling you the score as you're going, so you can course correct who you're going to send to the front line, who you're going to send to the back line.

That's what leading indicators are about. And so it's really joining these dots between we care about these outcome indicators. We want to do some stuff and we think at the moment it's a bit like, you know, it's a bit of a miracle occurs here. And then we try and wait for these outcome indicators and a terribly despondent when nothing happens, whereas in fact this bit in the middle, where the miracle occurs is where lead indicators sit and so that is in fact re-stacking the odds, which is this idea of enabling local partnerships to use actionable data.

Now we've done it on these 5 areas because we said what about if you could get 5 things right? And James Hickman, who you'll know from his preschool work, actually has this idea of how do you build human capital and this idea of the complementarity and continuity of services needed to address disadvantage? So he said, what if we get 5 things right kind of continuously antenatal care, early childhood education, care in early years of school, pretty universal.

And sustained us on visiting parenting programmes because we know they work. And what if we could do that and actually give services what they need to make sense of that in relation to do we have enough of it. So service availability, is it any good? And do people come which you would think would be really easy?

But it is not, and so we've developed 2 bits. How do you actually get the data itself? So we've got some software that sucks the data out. We co-design the data visualisations. We do data capability uplift because many frontline providers do not understand data. And so that's really important. Put it in their hands and empower them and then we benchmark against lead indicators and the lead indicators tell us something about the relationship between that service and an outcome we really care about, of which the AEDC is one of those outcomes, because we're interested in the relationship between those services, those 5 services and child development. But that's not enough, right?

Then it's like, how do you get these data into the hands of people who can then understand continuous improvement? That's the plan, do study act to test things on the ground and then work out whether or not it's working and then share those learnings amongst other services. Because it's only when we act on the data that we're all going to make a difference. And as an example, I'm just keeping an eye on the time as an example, we worked with one childcare centre, actually early childhood education and care, where they're trying to get books into the hands of families. And the first thing they did was just put the books out and then count the books at the end of the day, still 20 books.

The next day, they told the parents about the books, 18 books the next day. They just did this daily. This wasn't like I waited 3 weeks. The next day, they actually took the parents over and said this is where it is. Maybe a few more books and then finally they took a book and gave it to the family. All the books were gone.

But it's only if you do like you might have said, oh, why didn't they think about that from the beginning? But you often don't. And so testing quickly like that allows you to make change. We've been working with a childcare centre in Burke, the only childcare centre in Burke actually, which is interesting. And they found the kids were not getting 15 hours, but one of the reasons why? Because the local bus to pick up the kids and their families came at 2 o'clock when it should have come at 3. So just understanding that makes a huge difference to galvanising the frontline.

So now I want to talk about this idea of shared improvement goals. So it's all very well to get service level data, but we have to listen to families and we have to understand what they want to do. And so this is where these PDSA's now I'm going to make some of you dizzy, but hopefully I'm impressing the heck out of the rest of you with my PowerPoint skills.

So these PDSA's you know, we're changing things, changing things. But the heart of it is how do we have shared improvement goals? So the parents say I want to read to my kids more and the services, how do we help you or the parents say, I want to really have a sense of how do I engage with my children and the services? How do we help you do that? Or the parents say I'm worried about my child's language and the services, how do we help you do that?

So the improvement goals are somewhat slower moving than the PDSA's that are going quite quick because we're going to try this. We're going to try that. And then finally they are related to children's developmental outcomes, which is much slower moving, but I want to give you a sense of the data bits that you need that PDSA data that's related to previously. Those lead indicators are making a difference. You need these improvement goals to help you decide where you're going to go, and then you need to know where is that making a difference to outcomes. Hope you found it. Hope you are not too car sick by now.

One of the things I think it's really important is in particular the shared improvement goals is how do we bring in the voice of children into this. And we've been thinking very long and hard about that, particularly from a service delivery point of view. And that includes our own services, our clinical services and so through a really thorough evidence kind of review, we've come up with this toolkit code co-designed with children themselves on voice of the child.

How do you involve children and young people in research and service provision and that is available and some of the children you saw right at the beginning have been involved in this.

I do want to say and I think this is really important. We've brought the arts in and I'm a big believer of bringing arts clients together, Polyglot is an amazing children's theatre company and they are our researchers, so you can see the different technologies they've used including voice lab, which is this you can see the kid climbs in there and someone talks that it's so cute. But how do you bring the voice of children in using the people who are expert in bringing the voice of children? It's not researchers it's people like Polyglot, so really nice ways of thinking creatively about how we bring people together for the betterment of children outcomes.

And then finally, we need to know whether over time, we've actually made a difference. We can't just, you know, drink our own Kool aid. We want to know whether there's been benefits. And on that note, I want to tell you about GenV, which is the whole of population observatory and test bed. It is in Victoria, but it's kind of a national asset.

This is the picture from the James Webb telescope. I had this unnatural obsession with this telescope because it's just an extraordinary piece of research infrastructure. Giant telescope built in the US with NASA and Canada and Europe. International people send it out into space, 150 failure points, none of them happened, unfolded itself.

Now it's telling us all about where the galaxies and the universe began like. Well, GenV is that for us it is looking helping us look deep into the lives of children and families. It is the Australia's largest and most inclusive child and parent longitudinal cohort, and I hope it will help you think about, I know you got, you got probably sitting there, but we're in New South Wales, what difference does it make? We are developing digital twins for all of these families, so we'll be able to model things in other states. And as you can see, we've got families that are First Nations, non-English speaking, etcetera and it is self society. Everything under the skin, right through to pollution.

And so together we can start thinking about what are the models that might work, what are the stacks we might need that actually deliver benefits for children and their families. So 2 things to end up with, number one is I really want to just mention the opportunities with thriving kids and these opportunities to join up the early years.

It is probably the most pivotal point that we have and you can see there's maternal child health, foundational supports, what it was then thriving kids, now ECC school reforms. How do we join all of that up and you can see that stuff that control I make no correlations between the fat current controller, Mike Butler, but you get where I'm going.

And the final isn't really a message to all of you, which is the burden on good leadership to make the currently unthinkable, thinkable, to make the question the obvious, to make the present systems unavailable as options for the future. The boundaries in our minds create fear about the consequences of crossing over to the undiscovered country, but the possibilities we really need do not lie on this side of our mental fences, and once crossed, these fences will look as foolish in retrospect as the belief of other times now often look to us. And this is by Dom Berwick and he was the guy who actually drove all the improvement in response to the crisis in hospitals because we in hospitals, we're busy killing people and leaving instruments in and chopping off the wrong limb. And I think we're in the same crisis now for children. And I hope you feel both a sense of urgency and a sense of hope.

Thank you very much.

Toni

Thanks Sharon.

As I said at the beginning, it's always exciting to listen to you speak and to hear your research and to have that chance to lean into the national lens and take our state's context into that space. I really liked how you opened with lean into early intervention, the power of starting early. The canary picture was well placed, but that chance to start early and think about how we can firm up the beginning to save out on starting late and then having to go for so much longer with supports and so much longer with engagement when we can actually set up successful independence earlier in the piece. And I also wanted to lean in your love of quotes. I do love a good quote too, they're so powerful.

They really reinforce your message so well, but they resonate so nicely because of the the fact that there are quotes so you can pull them to connect them to another person as well as you. So it creates this real sense of chance to repeat your messaging through others. It's really it's hard sometimes to find the quotes that really send the message. But you did that really nicely throughout. It's fantastic.

Sharon

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Toni

Impressive slide skills on Slide 62, I have to call it out the you know you said are we all getting car sick? No. How good was that? I quite like a good slide deck that has some animations that send a message around.

Sharon

Thank you.

Do you like that? Oh, dear.

Toni

And the deeper understanding for those who are watching it also just checks in that we're all feeling the depth of the research as well. Now I'm going to flick to Mary and say do we have questions Mary. In the chat

Mary Taiwo, NSW AEDC State Coordinator

Ah.

Toni

I didn't turn on the chat at the beginning.

Mary

Yeah. We just have one. Yeah, we just have one that hasn't come up on the chat. But just if Sharon has any ideas on what are some of the things that are existing in New South Wales that might that you think we can leverage or from you did share some initiatives from Victoria, so yeah.

Sharon

So I think NSW a really interesting place. So just from a governance point of view, you've got these really interesting governance frameworks around the local health districts and their ability to sort of deliver locally. And I actually think that's why you did so well during COVID. But the other kind of big policy effort you've got is around brighter beginnings and I think you know, that is definitely a connection between health and education, and there's some really interesting stories with this because, you know, brighter beginnings was about part of what you're doing is doing some developmental screening in the preschools.

And in one area I can't actually remember where it was now is it Illawarra? Maybe not. But anyway, once you start doing screening, guess what you find, you find children with developmental problems. No kidding. But what they did was, you know, the LHD baskers. We can't see a lot. All of these kids, it's like 30–40% of kids were, like screening into this and so they started to re-engineer their groups and all the rest of it. And I think it's a really good example where NSW, because you have this kind of distributed local areas, can just do amazing things very quickly because the LHDs are authorised to do that locally.

The other exciting thing that's going on that I'm aware of, at least in NSW, and you of course know much more, is the kids head to health hubs? I think they're called Medicare something or others now, but anyway, there's a few of them around Central Coast, Illawarra, South Sydney maybe.

And there are Federal Government commitment, but they've got paediatricians and allied health and psychologists in them. And again, this opportunity around hubs and what you're doing in hubs, I think is very, very exciting.

So NSW has always been intriguing to me because often you sort of been a bit behind and then you do amazing things that kind of jump up front of everybody else, but the kind of ability to do something local, to do something that brings health, education, social care together. You know, I've been speaking to your social care people as well, and there's a huge appetite to sort of bring some of these things together. So I think you've got lots of things going on and you know, we look to to you for some of that innovation.

Toni

Thanks Sharon. In the chat to I noticed that one of the participants asked if you could provide a link to the children's voice resources that you referenced.

Sharon

Oh yeah? Well, if you just do voice of the child toolkit, if you just Google that, I'll probably lose you or something if I try to do many things at once, it'll just pop up.

Toni

It'll pop up. All right. Well, I'll get one of my team to Google that and pop the link in because they they've got more screens open.

Sharon

Exactly. I just think if I try and do it, I'll just lose something along the way.

Toni

And then another question in here is the notion of scale is interesting. As a system, we try to capture all schools and students at once. Is there a tension between all-system and place-based solutions?

Sharon

So yes and no. So so I think if you try and do everything everywhere all at once, you're probably going to fail because it's just impossible to do that. But here's my slight provocation in this space. And what if you were prepared to privilege innovation?

So at the moment, and this is particularly in the school space, but I'm sure it's in the preschool space in your space as well, many schools, ECC, they kind of do things despite the system have extraordinary leaders who kind of just go if nobody notices, I'll just do all these amazing things. And then of course that leader leaves and but what if the system was to say we're really interested? You know, let's let's work with 20 services and say to them this is about reinventing stuff, but you don't have to use that. Like here's some principles. What would it look like if you were delivering on those principles?

You could work with whoever you wanted to work with. Open your door to whoever you want to. Like, let's not do more. Let's not ask teachers to do more. You know, we ask teachers to do so much. You know, I'm a developmental paediatrician, but it's like saying look on Tuesday can you be a gastroenterologist, on Friday can you be a neurosurgeon? Here's 2 hours of PD. Off you go. And that's more and more what we're asking teachers to do. It's unsustainable excuses.

Toni

Yeah.

Sharon

It leads to a huge amount of moral distress for the teachers that are training for it all and we're kind of asking them to do so much because we haven't worked out who else needs to come to the table and how that might work, and how do schools work as a collective? And I don't have all the answers to that. I'm not ...

Toni

Hmm.

Sharon

... sitting here trying to do it, but I reckon schools, if they were enabled to innovate, would do it. And then how do we learn and then codify and then scale? So the beauty is we have the local ability for innovation that we have, the system levers for scale and this is the, this is the amazing thing. So to me it's not attention, it's a kind of real benefit, because if we really privileged innovation and we worked out like how we could codify and scale it and not scale it like, oh, everybody now gets a blue box, but like, it turns out, if you do like some relationship stuff in schools, like no one's going to think it's amazing. And this is what it looks like. You could get collaborations of 10 schools go.

Toni

Yeah.

Sharon

Hey, tell me how to do that. I'm going to try this and I'm going to try this and you just this is how scale actually works in the innovation tech world actually as well. So why wouldn't we do that in the human service as well? So it's a bit of a soapbox thing of mine tiny. So I'll stop there.

Toni

No, that's OK. It's good. We have a couple more questions. You mentioned briefly outcomes data from the UK. Are you able to point us in the right direction please?

Sharon

Yes. So the Sure Start evaluation is kind of what I was really talking about. South Sure Start has done 2 evaluations, one immediately around the Sure Start when it first came out was 500 centres, which was back in the late 1990s. And then more recently they did this study where they met and looked at the difference between kids who got high quality Sure Start versus those who got nothing or poor quality Sure Start and these kids like had better education outcomes, better health outcomes. So if you go to the Institute for Family Studies and Google evaluation of Sure Start, all of those will come up or if you follow up with me, I can send you the links. It's all on the national child and family hubs website as well, so if you Google National channel families hubs website, you'll see all of those things there.

Toni

Perfect. Thank you. Sharon, you mentioned that most of the cost of late intervention is in the child protection space. Any suggestions for laying out the costs benefit analysis to child protection?

OOHC out of home care, sorry systems. Yeah, just screening for developmental concerns and providing paediatric clinics where there is no capacity in public health.

Sharon

So this is so interesting. And Dr Karen McLean, who works with me, has done a lot of work in this. And how do we provide the very best healthcare to children who are in the child protection system out of home care? I think it's a great shame on our systems that we're unable to do that. Like it's just really mind-blowing, isn't it, that the children who are actually the most vulnerable, or the ones we're not able to do that, unable to put them at the head of the line, unable to give them the services. But that's what we really need to your point to whoever asked that question. How do we get them cooked in with health services?

Look for those developmental issues and they should be getting the deluxe limo version of health care. And again, I think this is where your LHDS can really kind of lean into this and make a difference because if we can, if we can get those kids on better trajectories, better school engagement, that's different life outcomes for these kids. It's not just all we did, OK, in school it is a different life outcome.

Toni

That's true. The long term benefits are outstanding.

Sharon

I'm just noticing the wonderful Nicole was like putting all these things in. I'm looking at the chat, so well done, Nicole.

Toni

I know I was looking at that too. She's quickly finding what we've got and popping it in there straight away, which is good. I can't see any further questions in the chat. It was such a comprehensive session, Sharon, that, you know, I wrote down notes for things for me to do, not for you to do.

Sharon

Yeah.

Toni

More opportunities, more chances to engage with not just the data, but the understandings. I'll just check the other chat too.

Sharon

Exactly.

And I'll just let you know, Toni, that we've written a paper on this kind of data logic model that we've put into I think it's called children, Children Australia. I don't know if it's going to get accepted, but if it does get published then I'm I'm, you know, Mary knows me very well and can we can get that sent out to everybody as well. I mean it's a provocation paper to say how we can use data, but it moves us away from, we need more data to what data do we need? For what purpose and at what time?

Toni

Yeah, that's powerful because then we're we're using the data effectively, but also we've got purpose behind our, you know, our reasoning for the data. I really like the data you showed actually where you could see the 5, the gradual increase and just the sustainability of the increase as well. So we can use the target to put in place something that holds not just hits high for a second then drops, but holds for longevity. Mary, did you have anything further in the chat that I'm not seeing?

Sharon

Correct.

Mary

No, that's it. Yeah.

Toni

No, I don't want to let Sharon go though. I like listening to her.

Sharon

That's very kind of you. I don't think my children would agree with you, but sure.

Toni

Yeah. It. It has been an excellent hour. I I do reflect to on the benefits we had from your piece for the symposium as well, which was exciting to listen to and to engage with. But even more exciting to have you in person to be able to answer questions and go back and forth this. I appreciate your time and we say a big thank you to you. And we look forward to the paper. I'm excited that there's a paper to provoke more opportunity for engagement. Thank you, Sharon.

Sharon

Thank you so much for inviting me. I really appreciate it and it's nicer this way than I'm recording. One day we'll see each other in person.

Toni

Yeah.

Yes, there'll be another round of data coming. It's OK. And thanks to everyone for participating. Today's session. Much appreciated.

[End of transcript]

['Responding to the 2024 Australian Early Development Census - Building effective connections and partnerships']

Toni Kember, Director Early Learners and the NSW representative on the AEDC National Committee

Welcome. My name is Toni Kember. And I'm the Director for Early Learners and the New South Wales representative on the AEDC National Committee. This morning, I join you from Dharug land, paying my respect to the Aboriginal Elders of this land and the lands where each of you're joining us from. This land always will, always was, and always will be Aboriginal land.

I look forward to today's session on responding to the 2024 Australian Early Development Census – Building effective connections and partnerships, with our 2 presenters, Emily Caska and Rose Raslan.

This session is being recorded, and the recording will be shared with those registered for this webinar. You'll receive an email when the recording is released. You'll notice your microphone has been disabled during this webinar. Please use the Q and A function to ask your questions. You can also see and vote on other people's questions which you would like answered using the thumbs up button.

We'll post information and relevant links in the chat. And you can submit any questions throughout the session.

I'll pause between both speakers, so we can ask Emily specific questions, and then Rose some questions at the end. If you don't get your questions answered today, please reach out to our email, aedc@det.nsw.edu.au.

At the bottom of your screen, the option to turn on live transcripts can be actioned. If you decide to activate, you'll be able to move the box to a space that suits you, and even change the size of the font. Let me introduce our first speaker.

Emily's a dedicated leader, advocate, and innovator, with more than 20 years of experience across Australia's disability, child protection, and community sectors. Renowned for her strategic vision and inclusive, people-centred leadership, Emily has held senior roles both in Australia and internationally, driving systemic change and social impact.

In November, Emily was appointed chief, oh, sorry, November 2024, Emily was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Playgroup New South Wales, where she leads statewide initiatives to strengthen advocacy, expand reach, and enhance early learning and family support programmes that connect and empower communities. Before joining Playgroup New South Wales, she served as CEO of Down Syndrome New South Wales, where she founded the Down Syndrome Institute, Australia's first dedicated centre for research, collaboration, and innovation, in supporting people with Down syndrome.

Emily has also held leadership and advisory positions, including policy director at National Disability Services, Deputy CEO of the Australian Chambers of Commerce in Hong Kong, and several roles focused on social policy, inclusion, and community well-being. Emily's leadership is deeply informed by lived experience. As a sibling to a sister with severe intellectual disability and a mother who has seen the benefits of Playgroup, Emily is a passionate advocate for accessibility, equity, and systems that empower people and communities to thrive.

In today's session, AEDC New South Wales 2024 data shows that there was an increase in vulnerability in emotional maturity, language, and cognitive skills, social competence domain, and the communication skills and general knowledge domain measured. In this morning's session, Emily will present on playgroups, connections, evidence and research on power of play, school readiness, and other key factors for response and improvement. I'm now gonna ask Emily to turn on her camera, turn on her microphone, and join us on screen to begin her session. Thanks, Emily.

Emily Caska – Chief Executive Officer, Playgroup NSW

Thank you, Toni, for that very nice introduction. You made me sound far more amazing than I'm sure my 11-year-old would describe me, having rolled him out of bed this morning at 8:30. And thank you, everyone, for joining. I'm so excited to have been asked to present on AEDC, because A, it's actually given us, as an organisation, a really nice point of reflection about what is this data telling us.

I think we all know that AEDC is a really great diagnostic tool. And as I'll go into today, I think we know where the results landed this year, comparative to last. And whilst there is, obviously, some backward trends that none of us want to see there, I think that there is such an opportunity for us to really calibrate as a broader early years ecosystem. And I think that that's where playgroups really start to come to the fore, which I'm really excited to share with you all today. And hence the title of my presentation, and it's something that's close to our heart here at Playgroup New South Wales, is that this is really about leaving no child behind, particularly equity cohorts, because we've seen that come through in the data. But also there's been some interesting things to learn from the data as well, I think, around some of the remote and very remote findings as well.

So just seeing which clicker for me is going to work in shifting the slides. This seem to shift. There we go. So before I kick off, I would like to very warmly acknowledge the lands on which we are meeting and the lands from which you're all joining us from, in particular thank you to any Aboriginal people joining us on this call. At Playgroup New South Wales, we're really proud to continue through the traditions of the longest-serving generation on Earth. And we're really proud to carry through those traditions of connection to play, to Country, to culture, to family, to storytelling, and to that real 'it takes a village approach', once was, always will be Aboriginal land. And I pay my respects to Elders past, present, and emerging. And a great little photo there from our supported Aboriginal playgroup down at our integrated hub in Wagga.

So quickly setting the scene, what am I here to talk to you about? Because I'm going to admit, I looked at all the wonderful speakers that you guys have had before. And I am not a researcher, I'm not a data nerd, I'm not an analyst, I'm not a clever, clever professor, but I am very passionate about the early years. And so, today, I guess, in essence, this is the structure, but I really want to talk to you about the first 2,000 days, and why that biological architecture is so important.

And I think we're seeing these flow-on effects in some of the AEDC data. And I'd like to also look at what is the data signalling to us about the first 2,000 days, because the AEDC is just a lag indicator, right? And also, obviously, given that I'm from Playgroup New South Wales, I think some insights on where do playgroups sit, or where should we sit, within that broader early childhood system, so that, hopefully, in AEDC results to come, we can see some shifts in the right direction.

So a very quick one, 'cause it's always in at the slides, but I do think it's helpful context. Our why is really simple here at Playgroup New South Wales. We've been around proudly for 53 years. And our right why is really about every child, every family, every community thrives in the first 2,000 days. And I think, already, you can see that's probably in synergy with what all you want in your various roles, what AEDC is also telling us that we want.

At New South Wales, we are really proud, I think, to play 4 key roles. I'll admit, when I came into the role here as CEO 14 months ago, I think a lot of people said, 'Oh, playgroups, they're so lovely, they're so cute, they're just such a nice to have.' And if anything, these past 14 months has really galvanised my view that playgroups are the essential infrastructure in the first 2,000 days, and probably particularly so in the first 1,000 days.

Playgroups are evidence-based, they are research-backed, they are intentional. Playgroups are preventative, they are early intervention, they are protection. And so here at Playgroup New South Wales, we have the pleasure not just of running playgroups, as our name would lend, so we do a range of supported and community playgroups across the state, but we also run peer support groups, we have a whole parent capacity hub, and we also act as a peak body in terms of trying to influence and shape the system within which we operate.

We are really proud to operate or auspice over 700 playgroups every single week across New South Wales in 99% of postcodes. And we reach around 76,000 families a year throughout the 4 pillars that we operate. And we are powered by an incredible team of around 90 staff and a whopping 650 volunteers out there across New South Wales. And we absolutely couldn't do this work without them.

I won't go into this in detail, but those of you who may know me and have worked with me, is, I always also like to think about, what's the problem we're solving? 'Cause if we're not solving a problem in anything that we do, we shouldn't really be here. And so at Playgroup New South Wales, we've been really trying to look at what is our identity statement, what is our value proposition to the market as both Playgroup New South Wales and playgroups themselves? And what are the problems in the early year space, and those problem points that either parents, government, the sector, communities are facing that we can either solve ourselves or garner and collaborate across the sector to find solutions in a bit more of a prevention logic way rather than always trying to be reactive?

['Why the first 2,000 days matter']

So to kick off on the first and I think the most exciting thing, and many of you will be across this, why do the first 2,000 days matter? And I think it's probably no surprise to you that this is the biologically urgent period for children, for all children. And so when we are looking at AEDC data sets, by the time they get to school, and I've seen it in some of the narrative, it's a bit too late. And the AEDC report itself says that. It does say that once children fall behind, gaps start early and stay most constantly after 8. So it is very hard to rectify what we might have missed in those first 2,000 days after the age of 8. And as many of you know, a very quick lesson in biology, again, my precursor, I'm not a lecturer or a doctor in any way, but about 80 to 85% of all brain volume is developed by 3, and 90% by 5.

So this is all happening before kids are even entering school. And it is such a formative year for those neural connections formed at a wildly, wildly rate. It's the foundation of all executive functions. It's such a peak time for plasticity and synaptic density. But then what we also see is those synapses prune. So it's only through experience and experiences and relations and connection, hence the topic today, in those first 2,000 days that keeps those synapses going. Otherwise, it's effectively a case of use it or lose it in the brain in those first 2,000 days.

The flip-side of it is, and we're seeing that in these results, if we don't get it right in the first 2,000 days, it is also that peak vulnerability period for all children, for all humans.

Our stress response systems are calibrated in these first years. Our attachment security is such a strong predictor of our latest self-regulation, and that is all formed in that 0–5 window. Also, which AEDC shows, and I'm sure all of you have seen a lot of the research around this, is that we have really good predictive developmental trajectories now from the first 2,000 days across education, across mental health, across workforce participation, across disease, social cohesion.

So we know that when we get it right, the trajectory looks much better than when we don't. And again, all just in this tiny little window of the first 2,000 days. And as I said, gap self-correction after the age of 8 very unlikely, which the AEDC points out, or at least a lot more difficult, time-intensive, cost-intensive. And I think the other point to note is, what's the other key factor in the first 2,000 days, that there is an adult or a caregiver or a parent involved.

So equally so, their health, their engagement, their capability, their capacity naturally has an immediate impact on the child as well. Children do not live and develop, and grow and attach in isolation. And so I think that's why, at Playgroup New South Wales, we've also got these complementary streams of parent capacity and peer support, because we know that playgroups alone aren't the only mechanism through which we can and should be supporting parents as well in this critical window. And it also, in that, I say a focus for us is all parents.

So yes, traditionally, the playgroup model has probably been very well attended by mums, and in part, grandmothers. But we are really wanting to strategically ask, 'Who's not coming? How do we engage dads, grandfathers, foster carers, kinship carers, and others?'

Again, not to go into too much detail, but also some work we've been doing internally is, the first 2,000 days blanket is very lovely, and I think we all understand it, but there is also cause for differentiation, especially for playgroups, because we do know that we tend to have a stronger prevalence in the first 1,000 days.

And so for us, in terms of that evidence-based and intentional approach to playgroups, whilst, yes, it is fun and child-led and play-based, I think it's important for us also as an organisation and anyone working with children in the first 2,000 days to understand that there are actually some differences between the first 1,000 and the second 1,000 days. But time doesn't allow me to go into that. But we've got some articles we can share. And there's just a quick-grab table, 'cause I know that we'll share the slides afterwards on that.

So I think, why does this matter, to bring it back to, obviously, to the AEDC, is that, like Toni said at the start, AEDC shows increases in vulnerability in the following areas, which is emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills, social competence, communication and general knowledge. And what I've just shown you is probably no surprise, those domains are primarily consolidated within this first 2,000-day window. And the foundations very much are built in the first 1,000 days, which, again, like I've said, is where playgroups, we really do tend to come to the fore.

So as we've seen in the data, which we've all been poring over, the comparison between 2021 and 2024, what we can see, if you really look at that high level of what I've really assessed, is those domains of increased in vulnerability, to me, they are relationally mediated, they're experience-dependent, they are highly sensitive to stress, and they are dependent on conversational and peer interaction.

And again, what we take from that at Playgroup New South Wales, to translate that into our practices, is that all of these things are very much consolidated in the second 2,000 days, but that neurological scaffolding in that first 1,000 days is so important, and is clearly having an effect on these. And that we can see that relational, emotional behavioural domains are appearing more vulnerable in this latest AEDC dataset, while physical growth has appeared to be more resilient in some of the trends that have come up between 2021 and 2024.

And like I said before, we can't take away that in the first 2,000 days, and a lot of this foundational stuff, it is the parents and the caregivers that really are this primary little neurological bubble environment for children. And so they play such a key role in this developmental architecture of our children. And I think we just can't forget, in all of this, 'cause I do tend to see the discussions around child development and formal care settings, and what we can do to intervene, I think we really do also need to look at parent support and parent capacity, and what modern parenting might be also doing to impact these results.

So onto the power of play, and obviously, the power of playgroup. Again, probably preaching to the converted here, but I do think this is something I tend to have to tell a lot of governments and ministers, that play is not just fun, and it is very fun, but it is also such a beneficial, evidence-based, research-backed. It's relational, it's neurologically foundational, it's language-activating. What's really unique about it is, it's parent- and caregiver-engaged. It is shown by research to be stress-reducing. It strengthens attachment and co-regulation. It builds confidence and skills. And when you really, again, break it down, which, I won't go through all of these in detail, if you look at those domains in the AEDC 2024 data that have shown some increases in vulnerability, you can make direct correlations with, well, A, where could play play a role in increasing that resilience, and also where maybe has it fallen off?

So social competence, and we're trying to do that here at Playgroup New South Wales, and those of you working in the early years, but also in the school environment, are there ways that we can now use play to build up some resilience around social competence, by doing turn-taking or shared-goal play, and imaginative play, communication skills, and general knowledge? Or how can we actually move the needle in a play environment through narrative play, symbolic play, shared attention skills, and things like that? And I think it's really good for us as an organisation to really break this down, because then this is helping us give a bit of a better playbook to our facilitators and volunteers on what we really wanna focus on in our play sessions, as well as to parents in that early home learning environment.

I think the other part as well that we are potentially finding as a playgroup sector, because we are not in one single portfolio area, we're not part of just the Department of Education, like ECEC and others are. We get funded through health, disability, community, federal, state levels, philanthropy, which is wonderful in some ways, but playgroups are seen as an asset in all of those. But sometimes the downside, or the flipside, that we see in a macro policy context is, we're never the top rung in terms of policy considerations or where we actually fit in the ecosystem. And so I think I just wanted to highlight that in these early years, I think, often, because of, obviously, the latest policy debates and coverage, ECEC is often what we think, 'Well, if we increase ECEC, that's where child development happens before school.'

But also I just wanted to point out that there is so much play in development happening before that school age. And I think that it would be remiss of us in light of the AEDC results to not look at how do we move some levers and provide supports in all of these spaces, not just the formal early childhood education and care settings? 'Cause as you can see there, whether it be by choice or by lack of choice, families are engaging in a range of environments, including playgroups, but also in their own home learning environments within their own families and other informal learning experiences, as well as, or maybe not as well as, early childhood education settings.

And also though, what we've seen parallel to this, though, is that playgroup attendance has been in decline since the pandemic, and we've seen a particular decline in community playgroups. And I just wanted to focus on that, 'cause, obviously, it's a passion area of ours, but I think, I don't have the data to support it yet, but I think it's a good conversation for today, but is this having an impact? And are we seeing some of the impacts of this in this AEDC data? And what we do now and what we see live every single day here at Playgroup New South Wales, because we essentially traverse all 3 areas, is there are real supply barriers around access to venues, around volunteer support, around the costs associated with running a playgroup.

There are parent and child engagement barriers around perceptions of playgroup being a lesser model or lesser outcomes than ECEC settings, or just an inability due to workforce pressures to attend. And then there are some system barriers, in that our funding at the moment doesn't allow us to be everywhere for every child in every community, like we would like it to be. And whilst we've got the universal ECEC guarantees, we would love to see the same for playgroups, because we know that playgroups can be everywhere where ECEC isn't. And parallel to this, what we have seen in recent years is that ECEC attendance has gradually increased.

We're currently at the highest enrolment levels, with some steady increases there. And interestingly, most of those increases have been in those first 1,000 days in recent years, particularly in the last 3 years. And also we've seen a slight increase in long-day care centres. So again, I'm not one to do causation and extrapolation, but I do think, when you piece some of this data together, and you're sort of seeing playgroups decline, ECEC up, yet AEDC data vulnerability indexes increase, I think we do probably need to look at what is happening in this playgroup sector and the informal community setting sector, and the early home learning environment as well, that might be impacting that, especially when you look at those domains that are in decline.

Just some more stats here on playgroup attendance. And I've just noticed a typo in my own notes, which is never good to do in an education presentation. But it's not just COVID that caused playgroup decline is essentially what this slide is trying to show, that it was happening pre-COVID. We are now, right now, in New South Wales, seeing the smallest proportion of children who are receiving co-participatory play in the first 1,000 and first 2,000 days. And of course, you come back to why. And a lot of this, we know, but I think we, as Playgroup New South Wales, have a really key role to say, 'Okay, we know it, but as our peak body role, how do we actually reverse and buffer some of this if AEDC is telling us maybe this isn't the right trend to be going down, and there might be some correlation here?'

We know that there's increased workforce participation, particularly for months, despite some of the small increases in paid parental leave. We are seeing, in the data, there is this earlier entry into ECEC, which, I might say, we wholeheartedly support. ECEC is a fantastic model. Playgroups run alongside and as a pathway into ECEC. So we are definitely a fan of it. But I do think that there is this uniqueness in playgroups alongside ECEC where parents can also be involved, 'cause as I said at the start, it's the well-being, the connection, the capacity, confidence of parents that's also gonna have such an impact on these little kids in those first 2,000 days.

Look, we're all time-poor. I also was racing to this. But not just for parents, we are finding it's really hard for us to engage volunteers, particularly in our low socioeconomic areas around the state, where ordinarily, probably in years past, we would've had hands up to run community playgroups. So we're really having to put in a lot more intensive establishment and incubation support in those communities.

And there is this shift, yes, through government funding policy, but also parent perception, that supported playgroups are better than community playgroups. And that's something that we're tackling as well. We don't want community, volunteer-led playgroups to be seen as the lesser cousin. They are just as powerful, if not more, with some of the broader community effects and the supported models. And so we are working with government on that.

And then what we are also seeing is this reduced or at least not indexed and not increased investment in community infrastructure, which is absolutely having an effect on the establishment and succession and sustainability of playgroups, and therefore, having an impact on attendance as well. Again, I won't go through this in lots of detail, but this is probably why we're all here, why playgroups matter, why our playgroup's here.

I think the real magic in what playgroups do, and you all see it, is that it is a really unique co-participation model. The child and the parent are together in a dyadic relationship, learning, growing, attaching together, getting their peer support together. And I think that really is what makes playgroups very unique. We are, obviously, universal and non-stigmatising, often called that earliest soft entry point, generally on that trajectory out of the maternal child and family health space. We have that earliest access point for families.

So again, like I've said, those real first 1,000 days, we're still often seeing that ECEC is reaching children at about the 2- to 3-year age mark. But playgroups, we can really get in nice and early. As I said earlier too, we're really low infrastructure, low-capital costs. We can be in communities. We have First Nations playgroups that meet in dried-out billabongs. We have groups that meet in parks. We have our roving play van models that go to really remote towns across the state. So we are not really needing that big capital investment. We can literally pop up within a day. And we are that real, unique, place-based model.

What we're also seeing in our playgroups, again, partly through government investment, but also just the changing dynamics of family structures, and particularly in our culturally diverse families and our Aboriginal communities, is that playgroups are becoming increasingly multi-generational. So we're not just seeing mum or dad come along, we're seeing the auntie, we're seeing the grandparents as well. And we have a range of grandparent-specific playgroups across the state now as a result of that as well, which is really great to see. And again, it's probably no surprise that playgroups play this really key role, I think, in establishing early learning frameworks, early learning foundations, and those referral points into more formal services, and building that service literacy of families.

So again, I won't go into this in detail, but I feel like playgroups, what we often are saying is we are the glue. So parents and children come in, and there's so many little connection points, again, hence the discussion today, is it's child and child, child and parent, parent and parent, parent and community, child and other parents, child and community. So we are really creating all these synapses to really get people off to the best start. And we do have, at Playgroup New South Wales, some really intentional programmes around ECEC pathways as well as school readiness, which I know has been a little bit of a macro policy tension.

I know sometimes I've had discussions at the government level of, 'Well, children shouldn't be going from playgroup into school, they should be going playgroup ECEC school.' But what we see in our 53 years, and particularly in the last few years, and particularly for our more vulnerable cohorts, so children with disabilities, children from culturally diverse backgrounds, and children in Aboriginal communities, those children and families are telling us, 'Emily, even if ECEC was safe, high quality, accessible, affordable, we would choose the playgroup model, because we like that we get to be here with our child, we like that we get our peer support and connection, and we feel that it is the best option for our child.'

So that's something we will continue to actively debate with government, whilst also very positively supporting ECEC pathways. And I think that there's some research that came out from the University of South Australia in December 23, which is great, I would love more of it. But what it did really show is that children who attended playgroups are 47% more likely to be developmentally on track across all five of the domains compared to those who didn't attend playgroup. And if you dive a bit deeper into that report, and I can circulate it after, is that those stats are just above family day care and not far off preschool results.

So what this tells me is playgroups really are having an evidence-based, formidable impact on child development. I won't share the other stats with you, except that, again, if you look at some of the AEDC correlations, and I'm not again reporting any causation, but attendance at playgroups, this report showed, is the highest in very remote and remote areas. AEDC in 2024 saw some increases and reduced vulnerabilities in those areas. So are there some connections there? And those also who know me, I'll always question, 'What if we weren't here?'

Because I don't think any of us can rest on our laurels and just assume that everyone wants playgroups. Maybe that decline is saying that people don't want it, but that's certainly not what we're hearing from families and from children. So, but we do like to think about, 'Well, what is, again, that problem statement? What would communities look like?' And again, I'm not trying to overclaim causation, but we do think that it's worth considering because we are seeing this decline in playgroup. So what could it look like as a downstream effect if playgroups weren't here or are declining?

And again, I've listed them on the slide, but I think the biggest one is, we would just see this cascading and compounding pressure into ECEC, into school teachers. I think that we would likely see some increased vulnerabilities, increased parent isolation, and really missed opportunities in those first 2,000 days, as I shared earlier. So I'm skimming through this very fast, 'cause I have lots to share. So to the AEDC data itself, again, I'm sure I'm preaching to a converted audience here. So I just wanted to pull out some stuff that I think we've been looking at here at Playgroup New South Wales. And without going into too much detail, obviously, there was some increase in vulnerabilities between 2021 and 2024. And the detailed statistics up there.

But in some of the positives, like I said, there were some increases in resilience in remote and very remote communities. And that's what we also, I think, worth looking at, what was working in those communities? Was it targeted investment? And why are we seeing that in there? So again, probably coming back to bringing the two bits together, cause and effect, in AEDC, we've seen the two largest increases. They correlate with emotional maturity and language and cognitive skills.

And what we do see is, what if we aren't fixing it in the first 2,000 days, because we are looking at that as Playgroup New South Wales. And what we do know, that if vulnerability continues to rise before school, and then this prevention window, when kids hit school, narrows sharply, this isn't just a matter of our kids are turning up at school developmentally vulnerable, they're going to go through the full trajectory of their life developmentally vulnerable. And so that's something at Playgroup New South Wales that I don't think has been lost on us with these results. And it has such a greater cross-system impact into adulthood as well.

And so we just wanted to pull that out for consideration in this presentation. It's not just about, 'Well, how will they perform at school,' and obviously, the costs and differentiation, potentially, that's required, classroom management, and that burden on teachers, but what is this going to look like as an Australian society around workforce participation, justice, mental health, and things like that? From a playgroup perspective also, we've just done some looking at, 'Well, what does the AEDC tell us?' It's an incredibly rich data source, and it is great. However, I guess our caveat is, for something that is such a great data source for the playgroup sector and for those first 2,000 days, there are some bits it's not telling us that we do think would be really useful to consider in the future.

I think what it is telling us is that those relational and emotional domains, language domains, are worsening, and vulnerability's increasing, and that there are increases in vulnerability in what I would call those play-mediated domains. We know that play can play an intervention in those domains. We know that developmental vulnerability of above 2 is at its highest on record, unfortunately.

We know that social determinants matter, and that community response is absolutely critical, and it is an opportunity. But for us, what it doesn't tell me is, it doesn't show playgroup attendance and exposure. It doesn't really show us why early childhood experiences buffered or supported children. And it probably doesn't show us where the early relational exposure to risk had an impact on the results.

And what we know from the University of South Australia study, that I put up earlier, is that they talked to school teachers. And just over 65% of school teachers, the kindergarten teachers, said they didn't know if a child had attended playgroup or not. And so when you look at all of that data that I've shared about the criticality of the first 2,000 days and potential correlation to AEDC, it would be great to look at, how can we bring some data sets together, either within or alongside AEDC, I think, to get a real, full picture of how our kids are tracking?

So hence, last, but not least, the opportunity. Those of you that know me, my mind definitely doesn't stop. And these are just some of the provocations or questions, I guess, that I've been thinking about with AEDC. But I would need far more clever researchers and data analysts to help me unpack them. I won't go through them all, but for me, it's probably the top 2, not to say that the others are less important. And I'm certainly not trying to be controversial here by any means. But I guess if we look at some of the data, I guess we would like to question, has this expansion of the formal care guaranteed an improvement in relational development outcomes? Because at the same time, we've seen this decline in playgroup attendance and playgroup availability, and a decline in AEDC result, and an increase in vulnerability.

And second to that, does parent capability and co-participation in play actually improve child development outcomes? And if so, what, in this early years ecosystem, do we need to do around that? And not just in playgroups, I think we can, again, go back to all of those environments in which parents and children play and develop. And if we know that parent capability and co-participation is important, how could we start to potentially build that in? I think, again, our other takeaway and the opportunity here is, obviously, child development is everyone's responsibility.

Again, I won't go into it, but I think at Playgroup New South Wales, it's given us a really good roadmap of where we really need to focus. It's not to say we haven't before, but I think really upskilling and supporting our facilitators and volunteers, A, to understand what AEDC is telling us, and B, to understand the really important role that playgroups have in that, and what support and term plan can we provide our facilitators and volunteers to start to embed some more emotional regulation and intentional language development? But also what are we doing to support and track parent capability shifts and support pathways?

Obviously, there's a responsibility around schools. We already do partner with a raft of schools, absolutely, but it does tend to be a little bit more in the supported playgroup space. So we'd probably like to see our community playgroups also link up with schools and also ECECs, I think there's some big opportunities there. Again, we do co-locate a range of playgroups at ECECs, or do transition pathways in, but I think there's always opportunities to strengthen those pathways, because I think we do know playgroups increase participation in ECEC, which, in turn, increases participation and readiness at school.

Last, but not least, is Playgroup New South Wales. We are, obviously, the peak body in New South Wales, so I'm certainly not shirking any responsibility there. But we have a fairly big action plan in terms of how do we really work to move the needle around AEDC data. And a few things that we are doing is, we have formed, end of last year, the Playgroup Collective, 'cause the sector itself, the playgroup sector, doesn't really have a unified voice, which many of you have probably noticed. So how do we make sure that this playgroup infrastructure and mapping, we actually know where they are across New South Wales?

'Cause at the moment, we don't, no single department has that line of sight, so we can't map. And also how do we actually position playgroups as a substantive evidence-based part of this broader ECEC ecosystem? 'Cause I don't think we'll really get the results until we do. We have a playgroup resource hub to build that capability and capacity of the sector that will continue to grow. And I think the AEDC community data explorer has been a great resource for our local playgroups to really tap into the data that's relevant to them. We will always be strengthening our cross-sector collaboration, absolutely. And it is a very reform-rich environment at the moment, with ECEC reforms and NDIS and Thriving Kids, but also playgroups need to be, and will be, plugged into that.

We also, as Playgroup New South Wales, need to look at what complementary and intersecting services do we need to have around playgroups and within playgroups. Like I said, that parent capacity, confidence, and ability to care and have their needs met is just as important. We are seeing a really rapid increase in disclosures of family and domestic violence within the, safe trusted space of playgroups. We are seeing mental health impacts. So how can we upskill our volunteer community playgroups to support that, but also have robust referral pathways? Because we're often told, particularly by women, that playgroup is the only place that they are allowed to come. And so how can we sometimes embed some of those more acute tertiary supports in playgroup, if that's the only thing some of those families are getting?

And also, which I'm very passionate about, and just wrote an article about on the weekend, how do we really support and grow our community playgroups at a scale commensurate with supported playgroups as well, because they really are the quiet frontline, but they are in decline, and I would say at risk at the moment. So just in closing, the AEDC, I think, gives us the signal. And the gaps that I have identified, I think, do give us the opportunity. I think it's forums like this and other opportunities, that it's coming together gives us the solution.

And to go back to our why, is just to ensure that every child, in every family, in every community thrives, not just in the first 2,000 days, but also beyond. And I think just a reflection, as I was doing the presentation, I think it's good for us just to reflect that every one of you listening today, and myself included, we were once a child in our first 2,000 days.

So in those first little 5 years of our life, which, for some of us, feels like a long time ago, we all had our stress systems calibrated, we all formed our attachment patterns, we built our language circuits, we developed all of our self-regulation foundations, literally in 2,000 days. And that was, by and large, it. So I think what we are trying to position at Playgroup New South Wales is the first 2,000 days does get floated along, but it can't be abstract policy anymore. It really is the origin point for every single one of us.

And I think, I would argue, that the first 2,000 days don't end. Whilst playgroups work does tend to end, once kids go to school, they actually echo. So they echo out into classrooms, into your workplaces, into the relationships we have, and into communities. So I just urge us all to make sure that the system actually reflects the truth, that the early years matter. And that is my presentation. I think we have question time. And there's heap of our articles that we've done as well that might be of interest.

Toni

Thank you, Emily. I know you said a few times during the presentation, 'I'm not a data nerd, I'm not a researcher,' but that did include some strong data and some great reference to research, and really did reinforce the power of those first years. You know, you just said, 'We were all 5 once.' And, you know, that's quite some time ago for me, half a century. But I do reflect on my grandchildren and what you're discussing in relation to developing security, developing language, developing so much so quickly in such a small time, and how valuable that time is, and how important it is we have adult engagement for our children. And playgroup gives you not only a time for adults to be safe, as you spoke of, but also for that intense adult engagement, as we spend time not only with our own children, but with the children there joining us at playgroup.

Really, really strong presentation, Emily. Thank you so much. I note that we don't have questions at this point, that we do have the Q and A open. And hopefully, during the next half-an-hour, people will add to the Q and A, so we can pick your brains a little more, because you do have a lot of knowledge there to share. And I thank you for sharing that. It was a very strong presentation. You can have a little pause time now as we listen to Rose, but don't leave us.

Emily

Well.

Toni

Stay on.

Emily

No, I'm staying. I can't wait for Rose's.

Toni

Thank you.

Emily

Thank you.

Toni

Let me introduce our second speaker, Rose Raslan. Rose has proudly worked at Lansvale for 8 years, and has been with the Department of Education for 12 years. Her professional background includes qualifications in allied health, audiometry, counselling, case management, and early childhood education and care. Rose is deeply passionate about ensuring all children and families have equitable access to information and support. By strengthening knowledge and awareness, she strives to empower families and help every child develop the skills and confidence needed to become successful lifelong learners.

Rose will be sharing some practical experience, having implemented a successful playgroup at Lansvale Public School over the years. The primary focus of the School as Community Centres programme at Lansvale Public School is to enhance the early development outcomes of children, birth–8 years, through the coordination and management of community engagement initiatives and programmes. Rose, it's your time in the limelight now.

Rose Raslan

['Importance of Playgroups']

Okay. Thank you, Toni. Good morning, everyone. Okay, so the importance of playgroup. So I'd like to acknowledge I'm coming to you from Cabrogal people of the Dharug nation, and thanking the New South Wales Department of Education for the opportunity to share our work at Lansvale School as Community Centre.

Today, I would like to share how our supported playgroup are responding to the AEDC data and strengthening early childhood outcomes in our community. So the AEDC 2024 data, published in 2025, prompted many stakeholders to ask why practical action could be taken locally. This session aims to share what we are seeing on the ground, what strategies we have implemented, and what impact we are observing. So our hope is that some of these approaches may be useful in our own context.

So Lansvale is a highly diverse community with many strengths, but also some significant challenges. We see families experiencing limited preschool participation, social isolation, language barriers, financial and housing pressures. Many parents are also unfamiliar with the Australian education system, which can make early engagement more difficult. This context shapes everything that we do.

['Why Early Intervention Matters']

Okay, early intervention is one of our most powerful ways we can change trajectories for children. When we connect early, we can identify developmental concerns sooner, strengthen parent capabilities, build secure attachment, and improve school readiness.

We know the brain develops most rapidly in early years. So if we wait until kindergarten, we are often already trying to close a gap that has been building for some time.

So at Lansvale, our support playgroups are the frontline of this work. So playgroup is not just play, it is a soft entry into school, a relationship-building space, a parent education platform, and a referral hub. This early connection allows us to support families well before formal schooling begins.

So to meet our needs of our community, we currently run 4 supported playgroups each week. This has allowed us to reach more families, reduce wait lists, maintain smaller, more supportive groups, and provide culturally responsive engagement.

Okay, so our sessions are intentionally structured to build school readiness through play. So we embed early literacy experiences, early numeracy concepts, fine and gross motor development, social and emotional skill-building. Importantly, we model strategies to parents in real time, so that they can continue this learning at home.

Okay, so parent capacity building. So a key focus of our work is building parent confidence and capability. So we provide child development workshops, positive parenting strategies, support navigating NDIS and early intervention, guidance on understanding the school system. When parents feel confident, children are far more likely to thrive. So strong partnerships are critical to our mode.

So we work closely with New South Wales Health, New South Wales Police Force, Services Australia, Department of Housing, and Department of Communities and Justice New South Wales. These partnerships allow us to provide warm referrals, increase awareness of services, and reduce barriers for families.

A great scenario is, during playgroup, we noticed a little boy who was very quiet and had limited speech compared to his peers. With mum's consent, we gently discussed our observations and supported the family to connect with a speech pathologist. Over the following months, we continued to encourage language through play and model strategies for mum to use at home. Slowly, his confidence and communication grew. By the end of the year, he was joining group time and using many words. This is the strength of playgroup, noticing early, supporting families, and connecting children to the help they need.

['Transition to Preschool']

One of our strongest early intervention priorities is increasing school/preschool participation. Many of our families face barriers, such as cost concerns, limited understanding of preschool, separation anxiety, and language barriers.

So we take a very practical hands-on approach to supporting enrolment and readiness. Another scenario in regards to a successful transition, one child who was very nervous on her first day, she held mum tightly, and wasn't sure about going inside, but with gentle support, familiar routines for mum, and lots of plays, she began to smile. Within weeks, she was waving goodbye confidently and running in to join her friends. This is the power of a strong transition. When children feel safe, prepared, and supported, they don't just attend preschool, they thrive.

Okay, because our playgroups, oh, sorry. Okay, sorry. I was too quick on that one. Because our playgroups run on school site, children build familiarity with the environment early. So before their first day, many children already know the school, recognise staff, understand group routines, feel safe in the space. Kindergarten teachers consistently report smoother transitions for children who attend playgroup.

Now, I do want to highlight an important context. Lansvale's School as a Community Centre [SaCC] is currently the only SaCC in the Fairfield LGA that is not funded by Treasury.

Our school identified the need and is funding the program internally. While this reflects strong leadership and commitment, it does create sustainability challenges around program growth and capacity. So we are incredibly grateful for the support that helps sustain this work, including ClubGRANTS, Building Partnership grants, local businesses, local NGOs, and our generous P&C and wonderful school community. Okay, despite the challenges, the outcomes have been very encouraging.

We are seeing for children smoother transitions, increased confidence, early development support.

For parents we are seeing greater confidence, stronger engagement, better understanding of child development. And for our school, we are seeing stronger community trust, better prepared kindergarten cohorts. So in my role as a SaCC facilitator, I focus on being a connector between family, school, and services. This includes building relationships early, coordinating multi-agency support, delivering parent education, and advocating for vulnerable families.

The AEDC data represents real children in our community. Our experience at Lansvale shows that when schools invest in early, relational work through supported playgroups and strong partnerships, we can meaningfully shift children's trajectories. Early intervention works, especially when it's accessible, culturally responsive, and community-driven. So thank you for the opportunity to share our journey. I look forward to the discussion.

Toni

Thanks, Rose. That's okay. I was trying to line up the questions at the same time. Thank you. You must be very proud. Listening to you speak about Lansvale and knowing the work that you've achieved there, must be nice to put it on slides and share it. It's very practical, but it's also very much a success for your community.

Rose

It really is. We believe in supporting our families. They need the early intervention. It gives them the opportunity to get familiar with the school, but it also gives us the opportunity to identify any developmental issues.

Toni

Thank you so much for sharing. Both you and Emily have provided strong presentations and very practical considerations for the audience as well. I'm going to ask both of you to be spotlighted now by the incredible tech team in the background, so I can ask two questions that I have from our audience.

So firstly, for Emily, what have been the main barriers to playgroups post-COVID?

Emily

Oh, gosh, that's a great one. Like I said, as Playgroup New South Wales, we traverse like the 3 areas. So this, how I see the supply-demand system, I think there's definitely been some barriers. There was a real slow uptake straight after COVID. I think we saw a real lag, 2 years it really took. And as you saw in the stats I put up, we're not even back to just the pre-COVID days. I think there has been a decline in volunteering and I think cost of living pressures, and that decline in volunteers being able to put their hand up for their local community.

We have also seen access to local venues, obviously, particularly playgroups run out of council venues. And there have been quite a few fee hikes across New South Wales that we feel the impact of. So on the supply side, just that calibration. Also, as Playgroup New South Wales, we play the backbone support role. So we provide the insurances and support for the community playgroups.

But obviously, there's been upward cost pressures there. On the demand side, I think parents, there was, particularly in our Aboriginal communities and CALD communities, trepidation. And they were probably the biggest lag communities to come to playgroup post-COVID. And I think, again, workforce and going back to work pressures.

And I think reflecting on one of the questions in the chat, this changing workforce dynamic, I think it was Christie that asked it, is, how do we really cater to this working parents dynamic? Because that is coming up, but our funding constructs and the system doesn't really fund playgroups in our programs like that, or take account of out of hours or weekend playgroups as well. And whether it's post-COVID or coming back, but also I think there is this system push for more formal, paid, supported, facilitated models, which we absolutely support.

We run 150 supported playgroups as well. But we do hear from parents that, very supportive of the ECEC reforms. But where do playgroups sit in that? And I think too just a bit of a lack of understanding, Toni, about the stuff that Rose just beautifully shared in practise, that playgroups are so powerful. And so I think also just upskilling the capability of parents to understand the value of playgroups and also government.

Toni

Awesome. Thank you. Okay, so Rose, your question sits more around your service. So working with your families, what have been the challenges faced with families within your school community, when you look at how your sessions are open, your provision of sessions, your engagement with the playgroup for your families?

Rose

We have non-English speaking background, CALD background. We are finding that they're not familiar with a school setting, so they're unaware of how to navigate through a school setting. But more importantly, our role here is, we are finding a lot of the families come to playgroup, so that they can learn about their child development, because we are seeing that more and more children are presenting with learning delays, and they need that extra support.

Toni

I know, when you referenced also the chance for families to connect with the school, and build that forecasting and confidence of going there, also listening to you speak, it gives parents a chance to engage with the school and get confident with language barriers being overcome. Because I know your school has also strong community liaison officers to support ...

Rose

Yes.

Toni

... with bilingual, you know, meeting with families in their first language. I think those systems, parents aren't aware of. So the playgroup is a soft entry into understanding what the school can provide to have that connection and that confidence, and being able to engage with the enrolment process and the other systems of joining the school. It's a good point.

Rose

That's correct. That's correct.

Toni

I'm just checking the chats for what else the team would like me to bring to the table from looking at the Q and As.

Here we go. I think Rose's story shows the opportunity to start developing those playgroup ECEC settings, primary school connections, building the relationships. Given our strong focus on attraction to and retention within public education, what opportunities are there for schools to support these connections as a means of increasing that positive relationship with schools when they don't have a specific playgroup programme, like the great one we have at Lansvale Public School? It could be a joint question, 'cause Emily, that actually feeds into the chance for Playgroup New South Wales to have more venues with...

Emily

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks, Andrew. You've solved a big longstanding thorn in my side about venues. No, I think it is a good one. I think my answer would be playgroups are everywhere, albeit in a bit of decline. So one first step is, on our website, you can just type in your postcode on the Playgroup New South Wales website, and all the playgroups in your local area would come up, so you can make direct contact.

But I also think, statewide, we would really like to see like a formal network, where playgroups, particularly community not just always supported, are able to utilise amazing SaCC settings, or we do just have our Schools as Community Centres also hosting playgroups, 'cause like you said, Toni, and exactly what you said in your presentation, Rose, we see it with ours, that it is really creating much smoother pathways in. So that would be mine. But they are there. And please reach out to Playgroup New South Wales, 'cause we would love to connect more.

Rose

Yeah, I agree. Playgroup New South Wales has a lot of resources that we use also, but we tap into our local government area, find out what NGOs are available, how we can support the families, and we tend to run playgroups in partnership with a lot of the NGOs.

Toni

That's good, Rose. Thank you. I know, before, Emily, you touched on the concept of how do we have playgroup for working parents. I think you spoke briefly about the weekends, and options there. So what structures are there for parents to attend some form of playgroup when they're working?

Emily

At the moment, we've probably had to push the boundaries a little bit and be creative with some of our funding, 'cause it is generally, as I also said in the chat, it's not just weekday restricted, but a lot of our funding is school term restricted as well, which, if you talk to some parents in the early years, like, 'School terms are irrelevant to me, I just want all-around support.' So some things that we've tried, and like I said, in the chat, we've seen a spike in dads' attendance as a result, which is such a key focus area, as we have some really thriving Saturday morning groups as well as online playgroups, which are an interesting format, I'll admit, but if it's that or nothing, we are finding it's taken a bit of a slog to get them up and running.

But we are now finding, we're getting that really engaged cohort, particularly in some remote area and some later evening playgroups as well. And we're also looking at exploring, can we do, sort of, corporate-also-based playgroups models somehow as well, and also, you know, at the macro systems lever? I mean, this is, you know, pie in the sky, wishlist kind of things. Obviously, yes, increasing paid parental leave provisions will support parent engagement in those early years. But also, can we look at parent and child engagement, leave, and play requirements? I mean, that's real pie in the sky. But we are testing, but the funding only gets so far at the moment.

Toni

Well, Andrew's asked another key question in the chat in relation to Thriving Kids.

Emily

Yes.

Toni

Knowing that details are a bit light on, what role do you see playgroups playing from an identification support, both from within the playgroup and collaboration with allied health clinicians' perspective?

Emily

Good question, Andrew, very timely, 'cause it's budget estimates right now with the minister, so we may get some announcements for New South Wales. And yeah, you're right, it is light on, but in short, we've been very involved in all the Thriving Kids. I would say the role of playgroups is huge, but we also don't want to overburden playgroups and lose that soft entry point and universal touch. And within playgroups, like Rose said as well, we've got this continuum. And so we don't wanna lose our trusted space, but we already do it I actually see playgroups are Thriving Kids in action.

So whilst we sort of have that soft entry point, community playgroups, and then we have that continuum along to more supported early intervention targeted supports, And like Rose and other groups, we will bring in allied health and other supports, where we are identifying, and also do really warm referrals out. But again, we don't want to systematise or formalise or Thriving Kidsalize playgroups, but I think we've got a really key role to play. And the New South Wales inquiry into foundational supports, they just released their interim report, which I can find, and just last week, I think, and playgroups were mentioned quite a lot in that. Yeah, but we don't know where they'll sit, like you say, Andrew.

And what we wouldn't want, though, is that playgroups, or the perception of supported playgroups, just goes down a disability developmental delay lens either, because we actually get supported playgroup funding, not just for disability cohorts, we get it for culturally diverse cohorts in language, we get it for Aboriginal children and families. So just making sure we are still seen as a bit more of a universal service and not just a supported disability playgroup service, 'cause we often find our parents aren't quite understanding that they will correlate supported playgroup with a disability supported playgroup.

Toni

Yeah.

Emily

But it's not always, we also have supported playgroups for ECEC and school readiness through Start Strong pathways. But Thriving Kids, yes, more to come out. But yes, we know that playgroups play an identification role. In our Aboriginal hub down in Wagga, our staff there have ASQ-TRAKs training, because we've identified that playgroup is likely the only place they're going to get those identification supports. And we bring in local allied health in there into our trusted spaces. But it's going to be, I think, Andrew, that delicate balance with Thriving Kids of not dismantling that trusted space either, and getting the balance right.

Toni

Good point, Emily.

Emily

Like with schools, I think, with all the clinicians and allied health coming into schools, it can become a very difficult thing to manage.

Toni

Yes, very good point. Okay, so Rose, I know you noted before that you have community coming to your playgroup, and english is their second language. What have you got in place to successfully support families engaging with, considering the language barrier?

Rose

Like you said earlier, we've got CLO that speaks Vietnamese, I speak Arabic myself. So we try to engage families to come in. We do parent workshops alongside the playgroups as well, just a little info session, just to get them used to and build up their awareness, increase their awareness of, you know, just developmental issues.

But like Emily said, we just don't focus on, you know, learning difficulties. We have so many other options that we present to families, whether it's a music playgroup or an outdoor playgroup that focuses on their gross motor skills. But we try to engage families by catering to their specific needs. We make sure that they understand and know the information that's available, just to help them out a little bit more with taking strategies home and dealing with their children.

Toni

Thanks, Rose. I know, in the chat, somebody's called out, I see it's Andrew, your story shows the opportunity to start developing playgroup ECEC settings, primary school connections, that collaboration that occurs prior to coming to school.

Given our strong focuses, I spoke to that one before, I wanted to call to it, the relational trust that you're building by being able to speak in the first language, and connects with families, and give confidence, where it may not sit without the playgroup opportunity you provide. I noted before, you spoke about allied health as well and the chance to bring NGOs, you actually referenced, into your playgroup. Do you also get your community liaison officers to join those sessions to navigate the conversations with families?

Rose

Yes, we do, actually. We support them by making sure that our CLOs are present, and they're able to communicate that with the community. We provide a lot of support navigating through a paperwork that needs to be sorted out, you know, helping them with the NDIS, early intervention, as well as just understanding the school system.

Toni

Awesome. Thank you. And lastly, Emily, in the chat, somebody has asked, 'The facilitator's offered any training on learning through Playgroups New South Wales to be able to manage some of these really complex challenges for families?'

Emily

Yes, absolutely. So we have what we call Village Builders program, and it's got some core tenets around onboarding and induction, facilitation about what makes a quality playgroup. We are about to implement a mentoring and communities of practise, but I would be the first to admit, I think where we are falling down is that upskilling.

I mean, we give some support around family in domestic violence disclosures and other, but I think that's really an increasing area that we're gonna be investing in this year. And also particularly with our workforce and the 650 volunteers, I think, as an organisation too, and it also happens in schools and other settings, it's a realisation, these are community members and community leaders. So it's all good and well for me to sit here in Sydney and say 'We'll switch off, that's in your PD,' like they are, they are so embedded in community.

And so we do do a lot around like boundary-setting and also self-care for our facilitators and our volunteers. And also trying as best we can to be like, 'Okay, this, a bit to your point as well, Andrew, 'what is relevant and appropriate, and can be handled within playgroup, whilst maintaining the integrity and support for an individual within a group setting? And where do we need to do a warm referral, or some offsite, more one-on-one supports?'

And that's what we've started to build out as Playgroup New South Wales, 'cause exactly to your point, Toni, you can see it in Rose's example, playgroups are this magic source around, like we are so trusted by these communities. And we often have playgroups, like families coming back to us when their kids are going to school, saying, 'Can we just come back in school holidays? Like this is our first tribe and our first village.' So yes, a lot of support to come as well, I think, as we're seeing big increases in these disclosures and mental health.

Toni

Emily, I remember, still have a good friendship with the first mum, with a child who's 2 weeks older than my second-born child. You know, that's playgroup, you know, you're suggested to go to playgroup when you have a newborn, you go there weekly, you spend time connecting with people, and those relationships stay with you, because in those years, can be quite daunting. Even, you know, when you are, I suppose, well-supported, it's still a notion of being sleepless nights and a small child.

Emily

Oh, yes.

Toni

They're developing. There's no rule book. The chance to come together ...

Emily

Yes.

Toni

... and have those connections is really valuable. And playgroup certainly provides that supported foundation for parents. Very valuable session this morning.

Emily

Yeah, I was just gonna say, yeah, in my presentation, I said the first 2,000 are this peak vulnerability time for children, but it's a peak vulnerability time for us as parents too.

Toni

That's right.

Emily

I mean, we have no idea what we are doing.

Emily

So it's nice ...

Toni

Yeah.

Emily

To have that village. You have these little vulnerable ...

Toni

Yes.

Emily

... humans, all in this co-located space, just trying to wing it and work it out together.

Toni

Yeah.

Emily

Yeah.

Toni

To, yeah, make it okay. It's okay to be sleepless.

Emily

Yeah. Yep.

Toni

Thank you so much for your time this morning, Emily and Rose. Really appreciate it. Hoping everybody has enjoyed the morning just as much as I have. Thank you for joining us for this fantastic session. Have a great day, everyone.

[End of transcript]

[‘NSW Department of Education. Responding to the Australian Early Development Census – Aboriginal and multicultural perspectives']

Toni Kember, Director Early Learners and NSW representative AEDC National Committee

Good morning, everyone. My name is Toni Kember and I'm Director Early Learners and the New South Wales representative on the AEDC National Committee. I'm joining you today from Dharug land. I'd like to acknowledge the elders of this land who have held us sacred, the duty of protecting and living in harmony with it for thousands of years. I acknowledge the various lands from where each of you are joining us for this meeting today too. This land and the lands where you're joining us from, always was, and always will be Aboriginal land. I look forward to today's session on responding to the 2024 Australian Early Development Census.

Today, we have Aboriginal and multicultural perspectives with our presenters, Tadgh McMahon and Benjamin Lam from Settlement Services International. And, we are joined by Bella Gordon from the New South Wales Aboriginal Educational Consultative Group. As you would remember from our previous webinars, this session is being recorded. The recording will be shared with those registered for this webinar, you'll receive an email when the recording is released.

You'll notice that today your microphone and video functions will be disabled during this webinar. You can use the Q&A function to ask your questions. You can also see and vote on other people's questions, which we'd like answered by using the thumbs-up button. We'll post information and relevant links in the chat, and you can submit any questions on the chat through the session. If we don't get to your question today, please reach out to our email address, aedc@det.nsw.edu.au At the bottom of your screen, the option to turn on transcripts can be actioned. If you decide to activate, you'll be able to move the text box to a space that suits you. You can even change the size of the writing.

Now, let me introduce our first speaker for today. Bella Gordon has over 14-years of professional experience within the early childhood sector. Spanning across all realms of early childhood education and care, with expertise grounded in Aboriginal community controlled organisations and programs, including preschools, mums and bubs programs, family health teams, intensive support playgroups, and preschool service and directing. She's now working with the New South Wales Aboriginal Education Consultative Group, overseeing the state's early childhood initiatives and programs as the Early Years Manager. In this first presentation, Bella will focus on the value of the AEDC data, in informing initiatives and programs in the early years within New South Wales AECG. Thank you, Bella.

[‘New South Wales Aboriginal Education Consultative Group Inc. AEDC within NSW AECG Early Years’]

Bella Gordon, New South Wales AECG Early Years Manager

Thank you for that introduction, Toni. I'm just getting my slideshow up and loading. But yeah, thank you for having me. You've heard a little bit about my previous experience as a preschool director and also just the grassroots training that I've had in the ECEC sector, it's definitely a passion of mine. So let me begin. I also have a Strepsil, because I'm overcoming a flu, so apologies if I have to cough, but I do have my backup Strepsils. So yeah, thank you for having me.

[Image of children's hands holding sand]

Before I want to begin, I just want to acknowledge the traditional custodians on the lands I am presenting on today, a beautiful, Awabakal country, which is here in Newcastle. I also wanna pay my respects to all elders and of course my elders past, present, and future. And I recognise their enduring connection to country. I also want tto extend this respect to all mums that are watching today and to the communities everyone's watching from. I also wanna recognise your roles in supporting our children and our communities where they live, learn, and grow.

['Personal introduction' ]

So, a bit about me. My name is Bella Gordon and I wear a lot of hats. I'm a proud mum of 3 beautiful boys, you can see in that picture. I'm a passionate community member. I'm dedicating my whole career to my local Aboriginal community controlled organisations. And I'm also someone who has spent every bit of that career within Aboriginal early education. So it is a passion of mine and also a place of home. I'm really lucky to live and work alongside community in my day-to-day. My journey started as a Cert III trainee and did grow through the roles of you know, supporting family play groups, mums and bubs programs, then to preschool leadership and community-led early childhood initiatives. Through my journey, I've seen firsthand the incredible impact on culturally. ... The incredible impact culturally safe community responsive early education spaces can have on our children and families. I've seen children thrive when they feel safe and connected, and genuinely seen within our learning environments. But I've also seen the gaps where systems are not culturally responsive, relational, or inclusive of our families and communities' voice.

Now in my current role, I am the New South Wales AECG early years manager, so that means I oversee all of our early childhood programs and initiatives, and I'm really lucky that I've been able to gain a broader perspective over the early childhood landscape across the state. I've seen how the work happening beyond the four walls of preschool or ECEC services. So the policy, the funding, workforce planning and systems design, and how that directly shapes the experiences of children and families, and what they have on the ground.

Through my current role, I've also seen how tools like the AEDC can influence statewide priorities' funding direction, and early intervention approaches across communities. One thing I strongly believe is that data alone can never tell the full story of our children. When data is interpreted alongside community voice, cultural knowledge, and lived experience, it can become a powerful tool for the advocacy, reflection, and meaningful change.

So, a bit about the AECG, we are the peak body for Aboriginal education in New South Wales, and everything we do is grounded in ensuring Aboriginal voices help shape decisions from the early years right through to further education and career pathways. What makes our organisation unique is that it is deeply community-led. Across New South Wales, there are more than 150 local AECGs, which are made up of Aboriginal parents, carers, elders, educators, principals and community members.

Those local AECGs play critical roles in shaping advocacy, local decision-making and relationships within their own communities and the education system. They also provide an important connection point between communities and the broader education system. Alongside advocacy, the local AECGs deliver initiatives like connecting the country programs, which support schools and services to strengthen culturally-responsive practice, local cultural knowledge and genuine community engagement.

Within schools, many communities also establish their junior AECGs, which give Aboriginal students opportunities then to strengthen leadership skills, cultural identity, and student voice within their school environments. The New South Wales AECG works formally alongside the New South Wales Department of Education through the Partnership Agreement, ensuring Aboriginal perspectives are embedded within education, policy planning and reform. Beyond education, we are also a member of the New South Wales CAPO, the Coalition of Aboriginal Peak Organisations. And through CAPO, we work alongside other Aboriginal-led peak bodies across areas like health, housing, disability, and justice to influence broader closing-the-gap reform, and whole of government priorities. That broader systems advocacy is important because outcomes for our children is never shaped by education alone, they're not siloed, they are shaped by environments and systems surrounding them, so that holistic approach.

So, within the early years portfolio, across New South Wales, currently we have 5 early childhood community engagement officers, or I will refer to them as 'ECCOs'. They work directly with community. We also have someone who oversees that program and supports me in coordinating the work, just because the early years portfolio in the AECG has grown so much, and we also have available roles too, so we are a growing space.

The ECCOs' roles is to walk alongside Aboriginal children and families throughout the Transition to School journey. And importantly, the work is not events-based, it's relational. The ECCOs walk alongside children, families, early education services and schools throughout the whole transition year before school and into kindergarten, depending on what support's needed, in practice that can look like, helping families navigate enrolments or referrals, strengthening attendance and engagement, connecting services with local AECGs and communities, uplifting culturally-safe practices and building stronger wraparound support networks around children.

One of the strengths of the statewide model is that our ECCOs are Aboriginal peoples working within or alongside communities they are personally connected to. So that know ... the local knowledge and relational approach is critical, because no two communities are the same. Alongside the Transition to School program, our broader early years work also includes supporting the Connecting the Country Delivery within early childhood settings, walking. ... Working alongside the local AECGs resource development, statewide early childhood support, and our emerging RTO training arm.

Across all of our areas of work, the focus still remains the same, so it's all about strengthening culturally-safe community-led early childhood pathways for our children and our families. And importantly, our work responds directly to both the Closing the Gap priorities and the AEDC trends, not as just statistics alone, but as real children, families, and communities requiring place-based, tailored, and relational support. A range of policies and frameworks shape the work that we do across the New South Wales AECG portfolio ... Early Years portfolio, sorry. Such as the Closing the Gap Report.

Also the DoE New South Wales AECG partnership agreement. The Aboriginal education policy and the First-step strategy and more, they all influence where government places attention, investment, and reform priorities across the the sector. So that heavily, heavily influences where we focus as well. Aboriginal children, families, and communities must help design solutions, otherwise we're at risk of building systems around community, rather than with them.

The Transition to school program that we do is funded through the Closing the Gap initiatives, which mean our KPIs and reporting is connected quite directly to the broader Closing the Gap priorities and outcomes, particularly with the early yars space being strongly focused on our children having access to culturally-appropriate education, our children being developmentally on track when starting school, and strengthening Aboriginal-led approaches and decision-making.

The AEDC plays that significant role within that data, because it's ... it directly in informs the developmental targets and how the governments are tracking that nationally. So naturally, the AEDC becomes a key consideration when we were designing and mapping our Transition to school program across New South Wales, we looked at developmental vulnerability trends alongside our community consultation and their voices. We looked at also population data, service accessibility, and existing supports and local knowledge to help identify where stronger community-based transition support may be needed. But, more importantly, we never look ... we never looked at the AEDC data in isolation, 'cause while the data can identify those broad trends, we still need to know what's fully happening within our communities.

Two communities may show very similar AEDC data, but require completely different responses based on their local context, relationships, strengths, and barriers. And that's why the program that we have was intentionally designed to be relational, localised, and community-led. The AEDC informs our work on multiple levels, so strategically, operationally, relationally. At a statewide level, it helps us guide in workforce planning, those resource application. ... Allocations, advocacy priorities, and areas where additional transition support may be required. But then the work needs to become more grounded at a community level.

Our team are also able to reflect on the AEDC trends within the context of their own communities, so we can begin asking those deeper questions like, what vulnerabilities are increasing? What strengths already exist? Are families connected to services? Are children attending consistently? Are the services culturally safe? And, what systemic barriers may be influencing the data? The data can help shape practical responses, so it might influence the transition activities being prioritised:

• educated professional learning
• community responsiveness support
• partnership development
• referral pathways
• or how relationships between schools services, and families are strengthened.

For example, when we see increased vulnerability in social competence or emotional maturity, our response is never simply to solely look at child-focused solutions. Instead, we do look more holistically at the environment surrounding the child, and what supports may be needed by strengthening around them.

So, our Transition to school program is incredibly hands-on, and relationship-driven. Every day, our team does walk beside our children and families, and ECEC services, and schools. so, you know, to unpack that a little bit more, you know, families may need support in navigating enrolment processes, supporting access to uniforms or birth certificates, strengthening attendance for whatever reasons, connecting families with those external services, or simply just building trust and confidence within educational spaces.

They also, our ECCOs, we also work closely with educators in schools to help strengthen their practices and to help support them in whatever needs they may have. And also to support the staff have better understanding of community culture, identity, and what meaningful inclusion looks like in everyday practice. So, we do say a huge part of the role is connecting dots, dots between families, schools. You know, the wider support networks that our children need. So allied health providers, local AECGs, wider community supports.

So we're creating those wraparound networks. Currently we do support more than 60 Department of Education preschools and kindergartens across New South Wales, and that is an old number, so I'm sure we've got a lot more on that list now.

Whilst we also work alongside Aboriginal community-controlled organisations, community-based services, and other providers, the impact of the work that we do does go far beyond our KPIs, and of course we're accountable to our formal outcomes tied to our Closing the Gap funding, coming back to that enrolment in attendance, stronger transitions, and cultural capacity. But with what we do see on the ground is a lot deeper than just those three sort of KPIs. We see children you know, feeling safe in their environments, connected, and excited about school. We see families developing that trust and confidence within those educational spaces where that may have not been intergenerationally. We see stronger relationships forming between schools, ECEC services, community and importantly, we see educators being more reflective and responsive in how they support Aboriginal children and families too. And even though we have lent strongly on the AEDC data for our program mapping, and it does influence our funding, and you know, we also as a collective in our team have zoomed in using the Community profile tool to explore how we can best support our communities. We are also very intentional about ensuring, you know, we're not looking at it just as a numbers tool, we're actively translating that data into practical community-led responses.

You know, if we're seeing increasing in developmental vulnerability or language and communication, you know, it may lead us to strengthening educators' understanding of Aboriginal English, or supporting more culturally-responsive communication practices, or encouraging richer storytelling or oral language opportunities, or improving pathways to speech & developmental supports.

If we're seeing increased vulnerability around, you know that emotional and mature social competence, you know, we look at strengthening co-regulation approaches, improving transition supports, you know, building stronger family engagements, and supporting children through identity, belonging, and cultural connection work. So while the AEDC does help us identify those trends, community always need to be guiding the responses that we have.

The data also helps us better ask questions, but we know that relationships and local knowledge, and lived experience is what shapes that meaningful action, particularly with our Aboriginal children and families, and responding to those needs. Of course, the AEDC absolutely has strengths and there are many of those, and one of that is to be its ability to identify those broad community trends, it can really help ECEC services, schools, organisations, and governments understand where additional supports ... supports, services, and investment may be needed.

It also encourages stronger cross-sector collaboration, because it really reinforces children's outcomes as shaped by multiple systems, not just education alone. But there's also some limitations that I think it's important to speak honestly about, when using the AEDC tools. So, you know, one of the biggest risks with data is not to be interpreted through a deficit lens, particularly when conversations only focused on sometimes vulnerability percentages without understanding broader context surrounding communities.

We need to be careful that our children are not reduced to statistics. The AEDC can tell us what's happening broadly, but it can't fully capture cultural identity, connection of country, community strengths, kinship systems, resilience, or the protective factors our children carry. And there are also more important questions around cultural safety and appropriateness within the assessment approaches itself.

One of the risks within the sector is that developmental vulnerability can be interpreted as individual child deficit, rather than a system responsibility. So sometimes the conversation can become focused on the child, so, 'What's wrong with the child?' instead of, 'What are the conditions surrounding the child?' We need to keep asking, 'Are these tools culturally-safe?' 'Who defines what's developmentally on track and what that looks like? And, 'Whose lens is being applied when children are being assessed?' Because if our systems are not culturally-responsive, if our services aren't culturally-responsive, if our schools aren't culturally-responsive, how can data unintentionally be a measure of difference as deficit.

That's why we really advocate for data never standing alone, it needs to sit alongside community voice, cultural knowledge, and lived-experience. Sort of to wrap us up, I just wanted to leave everyone with some reflective questions. I know that audience may be broad, so I didn't wanna be too specific with these questions. You know, when we look at the AEDC data with our own communities or service delivery footprints, we can't stop at the statistics themselves, we need to ask deeper questions. So 'what is the data actually telling us?' 'What may sit underneath it?' And equally important, 'what is the data not capturing?' 'Cause it can never fully reflect identity, belonging, cultural strength, relationships or lived experience. Our communities are different, our strengths are different, our barriers are different.

So I think that AEDC data can be so valuable when we're utilising it within our ECEC services, but it's never the final story about a community or a child. It should be the starting point for stronger reflection, stronger partnerships, and more community-led conversations. And Aboriginal children and families must be involved in interpreting that data and shaping responses that come from it. And that's when meaningful and sustainable change happens.

['Key policies and strategies'

1. Closing the Gap targets & framework
   https://www.closingthegap.gov.au/
2. Productivity Commission – NSW AECG response https://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/377216/sub217-childhood.pdf
3. First steps strategy – NSW Government https://education.nsw.gov.au/early-childhood-education/operating-an-early-childhood-education-service/current-service-providers/making-services-accessible-for-all-children/aboriginal-access/strategy
4. DoE – AECG partnership agreement https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/aec/aboriginal-education-consultative-group-partnership-agreement
5. NSW AECG Early Years program
   Visit our website: https://www.aecg.nsw.edu.au/early-years-support’]

So, thank you everyone for your time, I'm just looking ... I didn't actually prerecord how long this was gonna go for, so I hope I haven't gone over. I hope this presentation as you know, reinforce that you know, all our services and all our organisations can really use this friendly community profiling tool, and it can really lead to beneficial change within our work, but real change does happen when our communities are genuinely involved from shaping responses surrounding our children. So thanks for having me. I am happy to open it up for questions.

Toni

Thank you Bella, they were good questions to end with too, strong reflections and strong opportunity to consider the data, the influences, the full context and the analysis you gave around considering all the ... not the child, but the things around, was really important to note as well. I think you've caught out some really key considerations for us all. It's been great to listen to, the AECG do amazing things with our schools, as you know I'm well aware, coming from the department, but I listen to the incredible work you're doing in the early years at the moment and I thank you, because it's great, it's great support for us as educators beyond schools as well, the broader space as well, which we appreciate. Now we did have opportunity for questions to go into the Q and A.

The chat is disabled, I apologise for giving a misdirection there at the beginning, the Q and A is the best space. Mary, is there anything there at the moment? Nothing specific? We might hold them then for after our next speaker. Isabella, please stay. You can go off screen though, and relax for a bit now. We did appreciate your conversation this morning, your presentation, it was fantastic. We'll come back with questions in a little bit. We'll bounce to the next opportunity with our second speaker, and do a collaboration of Q and A at the end.

Bella

Thanks so much.

Toni

Now, let me introduce our second guest speakers for today. Dr. Tadgh McMahon works as a research advisor at SSI, a non-government organisation delivering a range of programs to migrants and refugees across Australia. Tadgh has a breadth of experience in research, policy and programs, in human services across government and community organisations, and co-led research on the AEDC conducted by the UNISA in 2023. Tadgh is also an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the College of Public Health & Medicine, Flinders University, where he completed a Doctor of Public Health. Tadgh's joined by Benjamin Lam. Benjamin is an applied statistician, oh, Benjamin has big words in all of his bio. ... Statistician at the College of Education, Behavioural and Social Sciences at Adelaide University, Deputy Director at the Fraser Mustard Center, a collaboration between Adelaide Uni and the South Australian Department of Education, and Statistical Consultant to the World Bank. His primary focus is on researching inequities of early childhood development, both in Australia and globally, using all manners of casual inference, from randomised controlled trials, to innovative, advanced, confounding adjustments for observational data.

Ben completed a Bachelor of Arts Psychology and Bachelor of International Studies, Diploma of Languages, along with a Master's of Biostatistics at the University of Adelaide. In his presentation ... In today's presentation, Tadgh and Ben will share findings from research analysing outcomes for children from CALD backgrounds. CALD children are more likely to be developmentally vulnerable at school entry, and the presentation will explore the drivers of this, along with insights on ways to improve their developmental trajectories. Please, let's now listen carefully to Tadgh and Ben.

Dr. Tadgh McMahon, Research Advisor at Settlement Services International (SSI)

['Adelaide University. Diversity, Equity, and Developmental trajectories of children from CALD backgrounds. Tadgh McMahon – Settlement Services International and Benjamin Lam – Adelaide University’]

Thank you Toni, thank you for that introduction. Yes, this is a CALD presentation between SSI and now Adelaide University. Ben and I would like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the lands on which we are all gathering from today. In my case, it would normally be the Gadigal country of the Eora Nation, and pay our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging. Wherever we are in this great continent, it's Aboriginal land, or Torres Strait Islander land, always was and always will be. And also I would like to acknowledge Bella's presentation, and also any other Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people joining today in the audience.

And so, before I throw it to Ben, I just wanted to kind of give a little bit of a story as to why we undertook this research. As Toni mentioned in the introduction, SSI is an organisation that works across a range of programs, we were aware from those programs that migrant/refugee families are struggling in the early childhood space. And from those programs, we had that anecdotal evidence, but we were conscious of a gap in the evidence-base, and we approached UNISA, Ben, and his colleagues at UNISA, and to look at this issue using the AEDC. And so, without further ado, I will come back at a later point in this presentation, but I'll throw over to Ben. Ben, over to you.

Benjamin Lam, Adelaide University

Thank you Tadgh and Toni. Good morning, everyone. It's really cold here in Kaurna Country, in Adelaide South Australia for me, so hopefully everyone is staying warm in New South Wales. So thank you for that wonderful introduction. So apologies for the many long words I use in my bio, I'll try shorten it down next time. But, just today, briefly, I'll give a brief overview of what we're gonna be talking about. It is a little bit more, let's say numbers-heavy than Bella's presentation, but we'll... We'll go through it together. So hopefully it's not too scary, but that ... that'll be my main goal today.

So as Tadgh mentioned, we work together to explore the AEDC for culturally and linguistically-diverse children in particular. So, we look at trends in developmental-vulnerability, trends in attendance for CALD children, and we went on to look at differences in developmental vulnerability for children who didn't attend ECEC. We're looking at general equity for CALD children, for socioeconomic status and english language proficiency, their locations, and children with developmental needs as well.

This work, after it was complete, Tadgh and his team went back and complimented it with. ... Oh sorry, we complimented it with a literature review which Tadgh led. I will mention at this point that our primary focus was the trends from 2009–2021, as mentioned, this report was completed in 2023, prior to 2024 data being released. But we do explore a little bit of the 2024 data, just for you guys, specific to New South Wales as well. I'm going to start very basic here, and I'm sure many people in this session in particular will already know much of this, but, just for those who don't.

So, what is the AEDC? So, the Australian Early Development Census, all data for this analysis was sourced from the AEDC. So the AEDC measures holistic child development through 5 individual domains. We use the words, 'developmentally vulnerable' quite often, and what that means in terms of the actual statistics is to score below the 10th percentile on the domain. To score between the 10th and 25th percentile is to be considered developmentally at risk. And scoring above the 25th percentile is developmentally on track. So, we throw these words around quite often, but these are the formal definitions. So DV1, developmental vulnerability on one or more domains, one or more of the 5. DV2, 2 or more of the domains. To throw it in a more positive lens, we also use 'On Track' on all 5 domains as an indicator, and that's more of a recent addition to the AEDC. We also look at developmental vulnerability on individual domains, because there are differences for certain populations and it's important to investigate where exactly these inequities are. So, just a brief overview of the domains, I'm sure many of you guys have already seen this, it is competence-based for all 5 of the domains. I won't go into it in too much detail in this presentation.

So, about the actual data and the data collection, the survey is administered during the child's first year of schooling, generally the teacher will have needed to know the child. ... A reasonable plan, usually the recommendation is for at least a month, so that they're familiar with the child to some degree. Importantly, it also collects a bunch of contextual information about the child that we use in this analysis. So, their cultural and linguistic background, whether the child attended any early childhood education or care, or childcare, to the best of the teacher's knowledge. So, it is true in many of the cases that the teacher doesn't know, and that's okay, they can indicate that they don't know to that question as well.

We have the geographical location of the child, and this is important for linking into the Australian Bureau of Statistics, remoteness and socioeconomic status in this... And then for today's analysis, we also present a little bit of the publicly available data just from the 2024 release nationally in New South Wales as well. Just to add a little bit more context for this group.

So, what do we mean by, 'Culturally and Linguistically Diverse'? In this analysis, we define that as a child being ... a child coming from a language background other than English, so defined as speaking language other than English at home, or speaking English at home, but English is not their first language, and the child's language is other than English, but is not an Aboriginal Australian language. We don't include Aboriginal Australian languages in this context, because we think that they're a distinct group with distinct inequities, and different... different solutions to different problems. So for this one, we just focus on language backgrounds other than English, not including Aboriginal Australian language.

The AEDC is conducted once every 3 years, so it's tri-annual, and is a census. So nearly all children are represented, in fact, if you go back, generally the participation rate is in the high 90%, I think in 2024 is about 95%. So importantly for us, that means that generally no child or group is left out, and we can compare back in years. And, a feature of the AEDC is that the questions and the domains, they haven't changed since its inception.

So we can compare year-on-year to see, what are the changes? What are the trends? What is ... what is getting better, and potentially, what is getting worse. So jumping right into the data, quickly we'll just talk about sort of the proportion of CALD children. How many children are we talking about when we're talking about this CALD population here?

You can see from 2009–2021, the CALD population has actually been increasing. So, in 2009, there was about one in 5 children were from a CALD background to 2021, it's now about one in 4. And, I believe in 2024, it is increased again slightly as well. So, if we break down CALD versus non-CALD children by socioeconomic status, what we can actually see is that CALD children are overrepresented in the most disadvantaged socioeconomic status groups.

So most children who are identified as CALD in this analysis, come from this most disadvantaged group. Whereas non-CALD children, most of them, sort of in the 3–4 range, in the medium socioeconomic status groups. Where are they based? Well, CALD children are mostly based in the major cities of Australia. So you can see that upwards of about 90% of children reside in ... of CALD children reside in these major cities, less than 1% are in the remote or very remote areas.

This is important to note, because when we think of the major cities, we think of them having better social infrastructure, more access to services, a lot more access to early childhood education and early intervention programs. So, if we talk about the geographical locations of the supports, they're more likely to be in major cities than major metropolitan areas.

So just looking briefly of the difference between CALD and non-CALD children on developmental vulnerability, and we can see clearly that CALD children are more risk, or there's a higher proportion of CALD children with developmental vulnerability than non-CALD children, in both one or more domains, or 2, or more domains as well. I will note if you look across the years that, that seems to be decreasing, the inequity between CALD and non-CALD, and developmental vulnerabilities seems to be decreasing, or at least it has from 2009 until 2021, although a gap still remains between the 2. Interestingly, for non-CALD children for developmental vulnerability on 2 or more domains, it actually has been increasing slightly since 2012. So that was the developmental vulnerability over all 5 of the domains.

If we look at each of the domains in particular, what is quite striking is that we can see that the largest contributor to the developmental vulnerability for CALD children seems to be coming from the communication and general knowledge domain, a little bit too their language and cognitive skills, and also the social competence domains as well. We do note that CALD children sometimes actually do better in some domains as well. So physical health and wellbeing, in certain years they were doing better than non-CALD children, emotional maturity as well with these. ... These domains by CALD children seem to be equal or sometimes scoring better at.

But really to key. ... The main kind of takeaway for this slide is that the communications and general knowledge, and language skills and cognitive skills are really the 2 driving domains of this inequity. So we'll highlight this here, this is communication and general knowledge, just zooming in on that previous graph. So we can see that, as I mentioned, it has been decreasing from about 18% of CALD children to about 12–13% of CALD children in 2021 being vulnerable on this domain. Whereas non-CALD children, it's been relatively stable over the years, it hasn't really changed much.

Still, in 2021, it's really striking to note that basically, the developmental vulnerability is more than 2 times the amount of non-CALD children in this domain, even in 2021. And then we look at language and cognitive skills, just zooming in as well, and school-based. So CALD children have historically had higher prevalence in this domain, but it is decreasing, and in fact in 2021, it's almost matching again, due to this kind of uptick in developmental vulnerability and non-CALD children listed in this domain.

So I'm gonna jump into a bit of hypothesizing. As I mentioned, our analysis didn't include 2024, that data wasn't available then, but it has been publicly released, so we can ... we can do a bit of hypothesizing from that data. So, looking at developmental vulnerability on one or more domains in New South Wales only, using the language background other than English indicator, which is similar, quite similar to what we use, but includes Aboriginal languages as well. What we can see is that the gap closed between 2009–2021, but then with the release of the new data in 2024, it's actually starting to increase again. So, we had basically from 2009–2021, the life of the AEDC, everything was getting better and better, and then in 2024, it suddenly started to get worse.

I will say that in my international research that we actually have seen the same trend in many other countries. Specifically, we've been doing a lot of work in the Pacific at the moment, and we're we're seeing the same trends that post ... we're calling it 'post-COVID'. ... Potentially a post-COVID effect that the children seem to be developing worse than they were before. So, quite worrying indicators both here in Australia and abroad as well.

I will note that in New South Wales, there is a higher proportion of children from languages ... language backgrounds other than English, than nationally, so it's about 33% of children in the AEDC are LBOTE, approximately that relates to about 30,000 children overall. So, not a small population by any means. Again, we zoom in to the 2 domains that I mentioned before, communication and general knowledge and language and cognitive skills. Again using the 2024 data, which is publicly available. And we can kinda see the same trends that I was talking about where the developmental vulnerability for CALD or LBOTE populations have been decreasing, but again, you look at 2024 and suddenly there's this uptick again. What is kind of interesting is that if you look at the overall population that's relatively stable, it's really the inequality which is increasing, which is I think quite concerning. And we see a similar pattern for language and cognitive skills as well, where really the gap between the 2 is starting to pull out again. So that was just using CALD and non-CALD children for developmental vulnerability.

We're gonna look at some risk factors and some other qualifying factors for this as well. So, just looking at socioeconomic status and how that affects CALD and non-CALD children differently, we can ... what we can actually see is that socioeconomic status has actually less of an impact for children from CALD backgrounds. So, in this space, we talk about social gradients, what we see in this gradient is that for CALD children, it's actually more flat. So the difference between the highest socioeconomic status and the lower socioeconomic status is less than for non-CALD children. So as a feature, what we can see is that children in ... CALD children from the highest level of socioeconomic status actually score similarly to non-CALD children in the ... In the middle socioeconomic status category.

Well, what else do we know from the data? We know that CALD children are much less likely to be proficient in English. So, the headline here is, '3 in 4 non-CALD children have good or very good English proficiency, compared to just over half of CALD children.' And you can see that very clearly in the graph on the right, where proficiency for poor or very poor and even average is is about double that for CALD children and non-CALD children. This is really important, because what we actually see is that English proficiency is a very strong predictor of developmental vulnerability, particularly for the communication and general knowledge domain.

So, if there is any problems with English proficiency, then this domain is kind of the first one to fall. You can see if we run the models, and the statistical probability, if the child is poor or very poor on English proficiency, then the probability of having developmental vulnerability Is nearly 100%, in fact, it's in the high 90%. And this ... that actually doesn't matter whether the child is a CALD child or not a CALD child, it doesn't matter for both, English proficiency is the key driver in this case.

What is also interesting to know is that having an average level of English proficiency, so being middle-ground, is enough to half the risk of developmental vulnerability. So, it really is a core competency in terms of the AEDC. So looking at CALD and non-CALD children, and attendance to ECEC, we can see that attendance rates are generally high in Australia.

So, for non-CALD children, you know, we're pushing kind of 90% attendance for children, or the children that we know about, who indicated a response to this question. But you can see that attendance for non-CALD children is consistently low here. I think the graph colours actually might be mixed up. But, basically the key item I want to get across is that the gap between attendance has remained stable Over the years. So, non-CALD children are definitely attending more, but CALD children are attending, but just not as much, and it's been the same since the AEDCs inception.

We also looked at access to Early intervention programs. So these are very specific support programs for children who really need it. So speech and language support, occupational therapy, behavioral supports and disability supports as well. And we can see that access for non-CALD children has been increasing. So non-CALD children are accessing these supports more and more, year-on-year, but has been quite stagnant for CALD children. And you can see that the rate of access is actually a lot lower. So these supports, as I mentioned, are mostly available in kind of metro areas where you would find more of these, and more of our children are in metro ... CALD children are in the metro areas as well, but they're not accessing these types of supports.

So looking at the effect of attending ECEC or early childhood education on developmental vulnerability, you can see that not attending nearly doubles the rates of being developmentally vulnerable on one or more domains, or 2 or more domains. So really attending ECEC is a major protective factor for developmental vulnerability, and this is regardless of whether the child is a CALD child or a child ... or a or a non-CALD child. So, ECEC attendance is beneficial, in the AEDC we have multiple different forms of ECC represented. So we have preschool, childcare, playgroups, we've run some further analysis on this, looking at which of the ECEC types are actually most beneficial, and I can honestly say from our findings that it doesn't matter, but the most benefit seems to come from preschool. But for children attending playgroups, there is still strong benefits and decreasing risk of developmental vulnerability, and childcare as well.

There are certain combinations which are better than others. I haven't put it in the slide here, but if anyone wants to discuss that, I'm more than happy to talk about that and send through reports, and papers if you'd like. So just to summarise, I know I said it was very data-heavy, but we'll just summarise what we showed there. So the proportion of CALD children has been slowly increasing over time. We see that CALD children are over-represented in lower socioeconomic status categories, so ... and definitely there's much more CALD children in urban areas than remote or rural areas.

We see that all ECEC modalities are beneficial, but CALD children are accessing these modalities less than non-CALD children, and particularly early intervention programs as well. Concerningly, the inequity isn't improving, in fact, in 2024 it seems like it's getting worse, That is something that we should be keeping in mind and very cautious of. So the other thing is, while national and New South Wales AEDC data seems to show some slight differences, the general trends remain pretty ... pretty consistent.

So, early developmental trajectories for CALD children do follow similar trends to that the nationals ... between national and New South Wales children as well. So with that, I'll hand over to Tadgh, who'll be talking about some of the literature and some of the policy as well. Thank you, Tadgh.

Tadgh

Thank you, Ben. So, the key themes from the literature, when we did a literature review on this piece of research is that there's higher rates of poverty amongst migrant children. We came across quite a lot of research as well around the settlement issues from newly-arrived families, including host community responses and particularly around things like discrimination. And also one of the things that we need to look at, is that English language proficiency has been found to improve with the ECEC attendance. After we did this research, we also came across an interesting study that the Australian Education Research Organisation did, where they actually crunched the AEDC numbers. And what they found was that family daycare with one year of preschool, was improved ... improved developmental outcomes for children, particularly for children with low English language proficiency. And the thinking around it, they hypothesised that in family daycare, there's a chance that the children in the daycare are actually ... speak the same language as you, the same non-English language that's spoken at home, and/or the educators and the carers in those environments might also be co-linguistic, and that that mix of being able to transition from a home environment, to a non-home environment, but that is still friendly in terms of its language background, seems to be really strong.

And I suppose the thing to remember, and saw this came up in Bella's presentation as well, just remembering that there's a whole host of financial and non-financial barriers, there's a lot of complexity in terms of enrolling in early childhood education, parental awareness of migrant and refugee parents, of the benefits of ECEC may not be there. And then that services may not be responsive, should I say, to parental values as well. Services might not adhere to religious... To diet at particular times of the year, they just might see that as not being that important. Thanks, Ben. So the key messages is that Australia is becoming more culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse, as Ben highlighted, at nationally, but also in New South Wales, we now have one-in-three children starting school are from culturally and linguistically-diverse backgrounds.

We've talked about the gap that has remained unchanged over time, and is possibly widening in terms of attending any form of early childhood education, the issue that children from CALD backgrounds are more likely to be developmentally vulnerable and the gap had narrowed until 2024. And probably a big thing that we need to think about at the moment, particularly in relation to what's happening around the changes coming from the NDIS review, is that children from CALD backgrounds are half as likely to access early intervention, and that that has really not changed at all since the AEDC began. And socioeconomic disadvantage is the largest driver of developmental vulnerability, for all children.

And Ben also highlighted that English language proficiency also has a very important role to play, and CALD children from the most disadvantaged areas, socioeconomic status areas, are the least likely to attend, so the ones that would benefit the most, are the least likely to to attend. And ECEC attendance matters, and CALD children in this research who had not attended preschool, were 2.8-times more likely to be developmentally vulnerable. So that just underscores some of what Ben was talking about.

And the implications for policy, for an organisation like this, aside when we looked at this, what we would say is that we need a mix of universal, targeted, and place-based approaches. So the universal approaches are really good and need to continue, but we also need targeted approaches and potentially place-based approaches as well. I'll talk a little bit about targeted multicultural approaches in the next slide, in more depth. But what we say is that we need some soft entry points. So we need points into the early childhood education systems that are lowering the ... lowering the barriers for migrant and refugee families. And I'll talk about the National Community Hubs in the next slide.

And there's also things like supported playgroups, and we also need place-based approaches, and by that, what I mean when I'm saying 'place-based approaches', 'cause it does get talked about in different ways, is there are places where maybe there's a particular geography, and where a whole bunch of services come together to address multiple intersecting disadvantage in that area, and that might include early childhood education.

So what do we mean by targeted and 'soft entry'? National Community Hubs, they're co-located, some of you may have heard of these or may in fact be aware of these, and they're co-located with primary schools, they're places where migrant/refugee families can connect with each other and their school. They bring together local education, ECEC, health, community, and settlement services together in a familiar environment. They're funded by all tiers of government, the community sector and the Scanlon Foundation, and SSI delivers hubs in New South Wales and in Queensland, using a relationship-based model to build trust and provide warm referrals to other services. So it's that kind of ... it's that responding to a whole host of intersecting issues that refugee and migrant families might have. Thanks, Ben. I probably won't go through these, I'm just aware of the time, but I might go with the recommendations from the actual report, we'll provide a link at the end.

I do want to talk in the next slide on a policy brief that we did, which I think is coming up. Oh no, this is the policy brief, sorry. Go back, sorry. We did a policy brief I got confused. Middle of the night where I am. We did a policy brief following this piece of research and here are some of the recommendations that I wanted to highlight for today's audience. We believe that ... at SSI, we believe that Australian state and territory governments really need to start ensuring that the funding, research, and planning for earlier childhood education keeps pace with the increasing number of CALD families that are actually needing access to ECEC. And we also feel that we need more of these soft-entry points and integrated approaches to access early childhood education, and scaling up outreach initiatives as well, to help culturally-diverse families navigate the barriers they face, in a new context, and in a new country, when they become parents and when they're not. ... When they just don't know what the systems are here.

We also recommend that the barriers to early intervention highlighted in this research really should form a core part of the current. ... I've said 'forthcoming', I think it's a current design of foundational supports foreshadowed in the NDIS review. And then, thank you, Ben. If you'd like to see the policy brief, you could. ... If you would like to read the research report, the QR code on ... I dunno which to tell you, I think it's on the left as you look at it? It's over here. If you can see my cursor, maybe you can. And if you'd like to see the policy brief, it's the QR code on the right, and our contact details are also there. Thank you.

['Tadgh McMahon – SSI (tmcmahon@ssi.org.au) and Benjamin Lam – Adelaide University (benjamin.lam@adelaide.edu.au)’. QR code to – https://www.ssi.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Stronger_Starts_Report.pdf and https://www.ssi.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Policy_Brief_A_strong-start.pdf ]

Toni

Thank you, Tadgh and Ben. I was also trying to work out how to advise that Tadgh, which way, because it's ... you've gotta imagine everyone's looking at the screen. And a very different presentation to Bella, agreed. But also a very interesting presentation. I'm curious though, Tadgh did say, 'It's in the middle of the ... 'middle of the night where I am'. You're not in Australia at the moment?

Tadgh

I'm not, no. I'm in Kilgobbin in West ... in the west of Ireland.

Toni

Thank you for joining us. That's very good, very impressive. And I know ...

Tadgh

Which is why ... which is why I'm lit so badly from behind, you know, I look like Jesus Christ, I think. You know? Or something like that.

Toni

There is definitely a time lag too, so I appreciate you doing this overnight. And I can see why all the titles were there then in your bio, statistically there was definitely a more numbers game in this space. Another very interesting look at the detail around more than just the child and the data. ... More than just the data, sorry, looking at the whole child, which is quite helpful for when we're analysing, considering our actions.

I'm going to ask Bella to pop back on her camera so that she appears on screen as well, so we can address some of the questions. Thank you, Bella. We appreciate that. Bella, I have one, I'll start with a question to you specifically. I know as a department employee, I attended AECG local to my school and our colleagues online have called out that they do attend school AECGs too. Wondering if there's anything specific for the early years? Now that the portfolio for the early years is expanding in AECG, is there something that looks more at supporting our colleagues in the sector, around the early years space?

Bella

Yeah, it's a good question and something that comes up quite a lot. All our locals, because they're community-run, so they're run by members of the community. It looks different everywhere you go, every local is really different, and the members look really different, so some community members have a lot more EEC representation than others. I wanna give an example, like my local AECG, when I started. ... So previously to my role in the AECG, I did ... I did attend a meeting, and I had that same perception that I walked in and everyone was very high school, primary-school-based. And you know, as we know, we have so much limitation with our time, so I sort of said, 'You know what? I can't see myself in this room. I'm not gonna attend.' And then, coming back into a different local, in the same region, same. ... Similar, you know, very closeby, but a different local AECG, the representation of early childhood members is just incredible, like it's over 50%, and that's not because of anything but the people who are accessing the meetings. So 2, we're very closeby locals, just having different members ... membership representation.

So I think, now we have the Early Years portfolio, we are really trying to build infrastructure to support locals in understanding that, you know, these spaces need to be inclusive of early childhood, because it does matter so strongly in a lot of the advocacy pieces that come up in all locals, but it does come down to the membership. And also, you know, maintaining momentum. So, if you don't see yourself in one meeting, keep coming, keep inviting your EC community around you to the meetings. And if you have Aboriginal EC staff, make sure they're going to the meetings too, because they're gonna find that sense of community, not just for the reason for you know, their workplace, but for that cultural cup-filling that comes out of them as well. We do have a resource which is a presentation, sorry, I've got my strep Strepsil in.

Toni

That's okay.

Bella

It's a presentation that we've developed and it's about, how do we uplift. ... What's it titled? God, I should know. It's called, you know, 'Mutually beneficial partnerships between local AECGs and early childhood services'. So that whole presentation is about building those connection pieces, and making sure our locals understand what they can gain, and our early childhood services can understand what they can gain from that relationship. So more than happy if you do have a local AECG, that is a little bit primary/high-school-heavy, and it's about having the conversation with them first and you know, leading by example, leading by commitment, leading by building momentum.

Toni

Awesome answer. Thank you, Bella. I appreciate that. Now I have also a question here in relation to Tadgh and Ben's presentation. Is there data or a consideration of data around the early intervention space? So looking specifically about accessing early intervention and how that's quite limited for our CALD children? Do we have any data in that space, Ben? I feel like it's a ... it's a numbers game, so ...

Benjamin

Yes, so we did have a slide for early intervention programs. Perhaps I can just re-share here?

Toni

Yeah.

Benjamin

If you will give me a second. So yeah, so Early intervention programs and in terms of access, what I mentioned during the presentation was that access is lower for CALD children than for non-CALD children. In fact, it's about half the rate for all of these services listed when you group them up together. And that hasn't really improved since 2009–2021 as well. What's kind of interesting is, as mentioned, all of these services are ... well, not all of them, but a lot of them are in ... are in metropolitans from big cities.

You would expect more of these services to be available, but ... and most of the CALD children are in these areas as well, but they're just not accessing. So, whether it's a question of knowledge, and whether parents and caregivers are aware of these programs, or whether they're being referred to these programs, there's something blocking access for CALD children compared to non-CALD children. Tadgh, I dunno if you have anything to add to that?

Tadgh

No. Only only to add that I guess, if my colleagues from SSI, from the National Community Hubs were here, they would ... I think what they would say, I hope they would say something along these lines. They would say that, access to these kind of interventions, these therapies, needs ... needs a bridge, needs that soft entry point. And so, in a hub, that's a place where conversations can happen around the potential for a child or children to need speech and language support and then for discussions to happen, rather than being provided with a referral and expecting that to magically create a link between a newly-arrived family and a professional intervention ... early-intervention. So a linking, and a ... and a more responsive approach.

Toni

Thanks, Tadgh. Thanks, Ben. Bella, there's been a call out for a link to the resources you just mentioned as well. I think you talked about a presentation between locals and I assume that's available to your locals, so your AECG presidents might access that through state AECG? Would I be accurate on that? Yeah.

Bella

I think Mary's, yeah, put up the website in the chat there. So please just contact us through the website, I'm more than happy for you to reach out. There's a little bit more information on what we've got on there. You know, we do have things like posters currently available. We've got, you know, a Transition to school storybook, hopefully being released in the next, you know, 6 months. And we've always got ongoing, I guess, releases of supportive material, because we're just trying to respond to the need, it's a huge piece of work.

I did forget to mention as well, I think a good example of what more members, early childhood members in local AECGs can create on the Central Coast, and I did see that someone mentioned Central Coast. They've actually got so many early childhood members that they've had to make an early-childhood-specific gathering because it was taking up so ... so much space in a good way. So I guess the more momentum of EC professionals coming into local AECGs, you know, the more opportunities to create more environments where we can you know, have our voices heard and yeah.

Toni

It's true. It's a good call out. Okay, so we also have a question here around translation services for ECECs. 'Working for a local health district, the team often talk to educators and ECECs who have identified language barriers when having conversations with CALD families about their children's development, they've noticed there is a gap in terms of access to translation services for educators to access for free. So what actions would you suggest taking to advocate for a nationwide free translation service for ECECs? Certainly is a barrier that we noticed across education in general, the ability to have access to translations, so that families can confidently understand what's being discussed with them and the resources they can access. What do we know in this space, Tadgh ... Tadgh, and Ben. Sorry.

Tadgh

Do you want me to try this one, Ben? I guess. ... Well, great idea, you know, early childhood and the idea of having greater access to translators and interpreters. The thorny issue I guess has been that translators, they're now ... there is a national translating service, TIS. There theoretically is access to translators through the Translating Interpreting Service, I used to work in health and it ... this was an issue in health for many years. I think it's an issue in kind of a whole range of human services, and I'm not sure what the solution is. I agree that we do need to have access to. ... Because it is really important that people are understood, and that if you're having a critical conversation, that that critical conversation is being understood by all parties And that you know, children aren't used as interpreters, and all of those kinds of things. But I'm stumped to really know what to say, other than you know, yes, it would be great, but it's a national policy issue and it's a state and territory policy issue, and it's been a thorny issue for some time.

Toni

Very true. And just jumping back to the conversation around early intervention, there was more specifically, seeking an understanding of why we can see the figure, and if these risks are a consideration, as this is what we are hearing. So, access to early intervention is reduced or limited because of a risk to visas. We seeing a correlation with that?

Tadgh

I'll just try to attempt to answer that. I would frame it differently. I would say that if you are on a temporary visa, then you do not have access to, in general, as a broad ... I mean there are lots of different types of temporary visas, but in general, you are unable to access. ... You don't have access to Medicare, and as a general rule, you don't have access to publicly-funded services. So, it's less of a visa risk,

It's a major cost barrier, because you're unfamiliar with the services that are ... that are in Australia, potentially if you're temporary, You might be recently new to Australia, and then on top of that, you don't have access to the social safety net that permanent residency affords. So I would say it's less of a visa issue and potentially more. ... I would frame it more as an issue around affordability, and a profound unfamiliarity with services.

Toni

Thank you. Now, I have a question posed here, or a statement really, for consideration and discussion. 'Do we need to develop a better tool that identifies the strengths of Aboriginal and CALD children in communities?' This is for both presenters. What do we think? Is there a tool angle, or is it ... as I know Bella called out, the tool gives strong indication of how ... how a child is engaging with the elements, but you have to consider the tool beside other ... other components. I think, Ben, you probably covered that with data too, but I'm a narrative girl, so I clung to the narrative that this might be sharing something with me, but it's not about the child, it's about looking at more than just the tool itself, and looking at how that applies beside what I know about the child in the context, and how things were the day that we delivered.

Benjamin

So, I can give a bit of context from an instrument development point of view. Given that we've developed child development instruments across the world in different countries, different cultures, different contexts. Most recently we've done a lot of work in the Pacific, as I mentioned, so countries like Fiji, Kirabas if you ... if you've ever heard of it, Tuvalu. If you've ever heard of those countries as well. But, definitely adapting these tools, we have in mind that you know, who was the person, as Bella mentioned, that, what is the lens that we're ... we're viewing these children in? So, we generally have to be very careful about that,

For Pacific countries and other countries in the world, you know, we have a team of local experts that we'll always refer to. I will say, in the instrument, there are some developmental competencies that are relatively universal, so ... so things like, you know, if you look at social competence, do they, you know, talk to other kids, or do they interact with other children? How do they interact with their community and their friends, their family? Things like that. Like, physical development as well. You know, are they running around? Are they healthy ... are they... are they happy? Are they healthy? These are all things are the universal, that we wanna see from all kids, regardless of where they're from.

Definitely I think from sort of the language skills potentially there could be some room for expansion, and when we're in multilingual countries overseas, we tend to include that. Within the AEDC, it's quite English-specific, so I think that is very ... potentially something that we can be debated against, for or against. But yeah, that's kind of like in the instrument point of view, there are domains that are probably more universal than others, and I think it's important to keep that in mind, which are the domains really that are ... that are showing the strongest inequities? And what are the targeted supports that we can provide? You know, are those targeted supports really the things we want to be doing in those communities as well?

Toni

Well, that's it. Bella, did you wanna add to the answer?

Bella

Look, I think there is quite a range of really strong opinions coming from community about the AEDC data collection, and what that looks like, and how it's done. And I can't speak for the whole of New South Wales, but we definitely hear some ... some great concerns on how it is rolled out, and we do see a lot of areas of how it can be improved, because it does have such a direct impact on our children, I think there is a lot of space for growth in this tool, because a lot lies on it, when it's you know, influencing such big pieces of work.

So I think there is a piece of work that needs to be done, which is talking to our communities about how the tool is rolled out, how it affects them, and what their perspectives are, because I can guarantee there is a lot of conversation around it, and if we do see it as such an instrumental process in really seeing how our children are developmentally on track, there needs to be more work done with who it's actually assessing, rather than having such a blanket instrument. So yeah, I do ... I do think that there needs to be some improvement in how we address evaluating our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children specifically, and I think community would wanna be involved in that.

Toni

Yeah, I know when we had the webinar, oh, last year now, when the data was first released and available to us, Dr. Tony from Queensland spoke really well in this space, around looking at the value of the tool. And then the, components where we need to look outside of the tool. And I think you've done that nicely too today Bella, in addressing that connection. But we've extend expanded too to look at what that means for our CALD children too, so it's quite valuable to consider the aspects around the tool, not just the tool alone. Okay so-

Bella

And then there's also the piece of I guess data sovereignty, and data partnerships with you know, Aboriginal communities, and Aboriginal-community-controlled organisations and that's ... that's a whole another you know, conversation too. So, not to open up Pandora's box, but there are.

Toni

No, I know that.

Bella

That are you know ... are there to improve on.

Toni

Yeah, agreed. Great opportunities there for sure. We're going to have one final discussion, which I think really again, opens another conversation around what we're finding in areas. For this one, the participant says, 'In our setting the barriers to accessing supporting ... support ring is true. ...' Sorry. 'The barriers to accessing support being true. We find that the spaces in early learning are usually full when families arrive in Australia. The families also seem to be afraid of accessing support and the impact that this might have on their ability to apply for permanency after three-years.' So I think this one's specifically for Ben and Tadgh. Then, may also be cultural factors and differences in identifying the needs that come into play. So, do others find the same in their areas, and what are we thinking in relation to the data around this?

Tadgh

I think we did touch on this briefly in the presentation in relation to the lit review. I mean, there there are definitely cultural differences. I'll leave aside the the visa issues, I haven't heard that particular angle, I'm not aware of that particular angle that was raised by ... In the statement.

But I guess the issues in relation to cultural differences, I would think that when families are new to Australia, I think there's a very different cultural context for any family in sending ... in choosing to send their child to early childhood learning. Assuming that all of the financial barriers are addressed, that range of non-financial barriers that may be in play, will ... 'Will my child lose their language? Will my child be unable to ... almost become westernised by this ... by attending this particular kind of environment?' So, I feel like it's hard to kind of zero in on these, but there would be a range of cultural differences and fears, and also you know, probably, I dunno when it was, but probably 20 years ago in Australia, there wasn't necessarily an understanding of the benefits of early childhood learning. And that's not a universal, global understanding, People will have ... families will have different values around whether sending your child to be cared for, by somebody who isn't a member of an extended kin, is a good or bad thing.

So, it ... I think we just have to remember that there isn't one way of looking through ... that, I suppose going back to the question, we've come across this a few times, the lenses with which we look through the ... look at the world, you know? There are different lenses, We all have different lenses.

Toni

It's a good call out, Tadgh, it's good. Thank you. This morning session has been very valuable, having both the opportunity to engage with Bella's session, and then engaging with Tadgh and Ben. This is our final AEDC webinar, so it's exciting to have you present for this, and the topic was very important for us too, so I do appreciate your time and the opportunity to engage. I know the audience online is also appreciative, 'cause the question and answers have been quite thoughtful and quite considered, and it's given us a chance for some strong conversation. So, thank you again for your time, and appreciate the opportunity to engage.

I suppose now Tadgh you can go off to sleep, 'cause it's about 2am over there. And I hope that your voice improves ... your throat improves, Bella. Thank you for your time, We appreciate it, and thank you, Ben.

Bella

Thank you.

Tadgh

Thank you.

Benjamin

Thanks for having us. Thank you.

Tadgh

Thanks for having us.

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