CYDA's submission to the Education Department's National vision for early childhood education and care

1. Activate our children’s voices

Implement a National Child and Young Person with Disability Engagement Framework

Australia needs to develop and implement a National Child and Young Person with Disability Engagement Framework to amplify the voices of children, across government policy and programs to ensure their rights and developmental and social needs are included. Truly innovative and effective engagement needs to begin with anti-ableism[1].

2. Support the workforce

Support the current and future workforce across all settings

A qualified, fairly paid and supported workforce is critical to the experience of children with disability and their families in early childhood settings. Collaborative models for professional learning, staff development and career progression must be underpinned by better pay and recognition.  

3. Calibrate the funding

Calibrate the funding to ensure revised models and subsidies support children with disability to enroll and attend early childhood education and care

Revised models and subsidies should support children with disability to enrol and attend early childhood education and care regardless of the setting, the Early Childhood Approach/NDIS plan in place and income or work status of the families.

Fund outcomes monitoring for children and young people with disability to improve the available data and outcomes reporting across education.

4. Enhance support and adjustments

Revise the Inclusion Support Program (ISP) to address the inclusion of each child and the capacity and capability of educators

The Inclusion Support Program (ISP) needs to change to support children across all hours they attend settings, to navigate and to address the inclusion of each child, increase the capacity and capability of educators and the transition to a long-term inclusive education for all children and young people with disability.

5. Collaborate

Deliver on the Early Childhood Targeted Action Plan (TAP)

The full range of stakeholders in the ECEC sector and all levels of Government need to collaborate to deliver on Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021-2031 including, the Early Childhood Targeted Action Plan (TAP). The TAP lays out key actions to strengthen early identification, information, supports and pathways, and collaboration between programs and services.

Scope

This vision encompasses all forms of ECEC including preschool, long day care, family day care and out of school hours care. We recognise all forms as being essential to workforce participation as well as an environment of learning, development, and care both in the early years and during school years. The vision is also intended to intersect with broader early childhood development systems and programs.

To what extent do you agree that the draft national ECEC vision scope adequately reflects ECEC? 

CYDA supports this strong position on ECEC and recognises that accessible and inclusive early childhood experiences are one of the surest and most sustainable pathways to an inclusive life and all the benefits that brings to the whole family, including balancing work and care responsibilities.

CYDA believes the draft vision also helps support the objectives of The Early Childhood Targeted Action Plan as outlined in Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021-2031 as follows: 

• enable early identification of disability or developmental concerns and develop clearer pathways and timely access to appropriate supports 
• strengthen the capability and capacity of key services and systems to support parents and caregivers to make informed choices about their child  
• encourage a stronger sense of inclusion and provide opportunities for parents, caregivers and children to build peer networks, including for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and culturally and linguistically diverse parents and caregivers. 

CYDA would encourage the focus on cconnected services. The service systems that relate to early childhood development – including childcare, preschool, child health, family support, the NDIS early childhood approach and child protection – are disconnected. 

Policy, process and programs for these systems span federal and state/territory governments, and a mix of ministries and departments within governments. This complexity is confusing for families and caregivers to navigate and children risk falling between the gaps of a fragmented system. 

Principles

Equity: All children are supported to succeed, regardless of their circumstances and abilities. Carefully designed strategies and targeted investment provide additional support to children and families when and where they need it.

To what extent do you agree that the four key principles outlined are right for the draft national ECEC vision?

CYDA supports the four key principles and is encouraged to see that the principle ‘equity’ includes reference to investment and strategies to support all children to succeed.

Dependent on the support, engagement and experiences children and their families/caregivers and communities receive during early years, this life stage can bring both opportunity and risk.[2] Tragically, we know that many children are not able to access equitable or adequate support. Specifically, not every child currently has access to high quality, affordable and inclusive Early Childhood Education and Care and Outside School Hours Care. As a result, children assessed as developmentally vulnerable on one or more domains increased from 21.7% in 2018 to 22% in 2021.[3] This is in addition to the children who already have a diagnosed disability.

Affordability: ECEC is within the means of all families. Sustainable, flexible funding systems are in place to support providers in reducing cost barriers for all children and families.

Australia’s early learning centres are also some of the most expensive in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). According to the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, approximately 27 per cent of household income is absorbed by childcare.[4] These costs have more than doubled since 2002.[5]

Quality: ECEC services are culturally appropriate for their community and meet high standards in providing learning and development outcomes. Children build relationships with a stable, qualified workforce that is recognised for its critical role in the community, and families have confidence in ECEC services.

The federal systems that influence and should support key aspects of early childhood development are underperforming and must improve. For instance, our early learning centres are of inconsistent quality.

Too many do not meet National Quality Standard (NQS). According to National Quality Framework Snapshot Q4 2022, 10.4 per cent of centres did not meet the NQS, rising to 37.6 per cent for family day care.[6]

Accessibility: Geographic or cultural barriers to attending a high quality ECEC are removed. Services are supported to provide flexible models that meet the needs of their community and link with support services where families need them

The results of CYDA’s ECEC Survey 2022 are shared in the report: “Taking the first step in an inclusive life - experiences of Australian early childhood education and care”. The report details one in five reported that their child had been refused enrolment, nearly a quarter said their child had been limited in the number of hours they were allowed to attend, nearly 30% reported exclusion from excursions, events or activities, and about the same number reported bullying from other children or staff. These findings suggest that there is an urgent need to better equip and support early childhood education and care settings by removing the  barriers to early inclusion and more flexibly support children with disability so that they are included early and are able to benefit from the education and support provided. Without this, we are likely to see the same sorts of inequities perpetuated as in the past.[7]

Vision

*Children: Every child can access and participate in high-quality, culturally responsive ECEC, including preschool, to support their right to thrive, grow their sense of identity and connection to the world, and become confident and engaged learners.                                               

To what extent do you support the draft national ECEC vision statements?

CYDA supports the statements presented. In notes to support the vision, CYDA suggests direct reference to the underlying human rights, policies and legislation. CYDA also wishes to bring light to the need to activate and centre children’s voices.

The rights of children and young people with disability to express their views, and have these views listened to, are articulated in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (CPRD) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and recognised through a range of legislation and policy in Australia at federal and state levels, including the Disability Discrimination Act (1992), various State Disability Acts, and the Disability Standards for Education (2005).

Article 7(3) of the CRPD states “Children with disabilities have the right to express their views freely on all matters affecting them, their views being given due weight in accordance with their age and maturity, on an equal basis with other children, and to be provided with disability and age-appropriate assistance to realize that right”. Article 12 of the CRC states “States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.”

However, there are currently few mechanisms to implement these rights in Australia in practice.

*Families: Every parent can access an affordable, high-quality service to support their participation in the workforce, and the associated social and economic benefits.                                         

Children with disability look to their family first and foremost for protection from harm and for guidance to navigate their lives safely and securely. Where families must deal with ableism, structural inequity and deeply held societal beliefs about their own role as family, children with disability are immediately placed at a disadvantage. This disadvantage is not because of the nature of their disability but society’s inability to support and provide adjustments for their differences.

At times, there is a risk that families divert most of their attention and effort to early childhood intervention. The places where it is delivered and the people responsible for services and supports, feel welcoming, supportive and understanding. People and places in the child’s or their family’s own local community may feel less so. Families tell CYDA they go where they and their child feel welcome and understood. Any exclusion or isolation does everyone harm. Young children, disabled or non-disabled, miss out on formative experiences together. It is therefore critical for the role of ECEC to be recognised by all parties, including families, involved in the early development of children.

*ECEC workforce: The ECEC workforce is highly skilled, valued, and professionally recognised and the sector is supported to attract and retain workers.                                        

A qualified, fairly paid and supported workforce is critical to the experience of children with disability and their families in early childhood settings. The workforce also needs reform to the ECEC policy framework to support their efforts including the Inclusion Support Program (ISP).

As highlighted by Early Childhood Australia (ECA) in their 2022–23 Federal Budget Pre-Budget Submission[8],  the ISP is under pressure from:

• increased demand from ECEC services for inclusion support throughout the period of the pandemic
• gaps between funding and costs of providing additional educators through the program
• mismatched growth in demand and growth in the funding of the program
• funding not covering the true costs of providing the service

CYDA supports ECA’s proposals including:

• comprehensive research be undertaken into the effectiveness of the current ISP, including what is driving demand and constraining delivery
• exploration of what models could be implemented to support ECEC services in the current context of workforce shortages, where additional educators may not be readily available
• identification of models that focus on bridging capacity-building and direct support for children
• exploring ways that the system could address need for children to improve both their inclusion and outcomes
• support development and access to a suite of professional learning to support inclusive practice and more informed responses to children with complex or additional needs

*Government: Governments take a holistic approach as stewards of the ECEC system in partnership with the sector, shaping a system that is nationally coherent and connected and responsive to community needs and outcomes for families, providers, and the workforce.

For all levels of government policy to reflect the needs of children and young people with disability and for the respective departments to follow through on effective service and strategy delivery, requires meaningful consultation with, children and young people with disability and their families and caregivers. This inclusion must be genuine and built on co-design principles.

Levers

Governments, as the stewards of the system, have powerful levers available to them to shape the system to meet the vision. These levers include:

Funding: The way that funding is allocated and to whom has an enormous impact on the way the system operates. Funding policy must be an enabler, not a barrier to access.

Regulation: Laws and regulations shape the system to respond in a particular way to implement governments’ overall policy intent. Safety and quality standards underpin the system.

Policy: Governments actively intervene in the system to forge strategic partnerships, broker solutions, or address particular areas of need.

To what extent do you agree that the levers (such as funding, regulation and policy) and enablers (such as leadership, data and evidence, and accountability frameworks) are what is needed to support the draft national ECEC vision?

CYDA recommends that levers for government needs to include:

• protection for the educational rights of children by funding and implementing an independent oversight body to ensure that education providers – in early childhood, school, post-school etc settings – are meeting their legal obligations and complaints can be independently investigated, monitored and resolved
• investment to involve and engage children and young people with disability across ECEC to break down barriers to participating in consultative activities. Engagement and co-design needs to inform policy and service development
• outcomes monitoring for children with disability to improve the available data and outcomes reporting across Australia’s Disability Strategy and links to data across education as outlined under the National School Reform Agreement

Enablers

If we are to realise this vision, there are a number of enablers we need.

Governments will collaborate with the sector to ensure these enablers are in place.

What does stewardship of the early childhood education and care sector look like from your perspective?

How could the current scope, principles, statements, levers and / or enablers be improved to better reflect and support the draft national ECEC vision?

CYDA grounds our work in evidence and a human rights approach. There are a range of international instruments that establish normative standards and principles for the treatment of children and young people with disability. 

CYDA encourages and supports any vision for early childhood making reference to key policy settings and principles including:

• The United Nations Charter on the Rights of People with Disability (CRPD)
• Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
• International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
• Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

All children or young people are more than their disability, their education and more than their health. Consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child[9], and the CPRD, Australian children and young people with disability should feel healthy, safe, connected, supported, challenged, and engaged.

Workforce: Attracting, training and retaining a high-quality workforce is a critical factor in achieving the vision.

Leadership: Quality leadership is essential at all levels: leadership from governments and within governments, leadership from prominent advocates and community members, leadership by providers and within the workforce. Leadership must be effective, clear, and aligned to the vision.

Data and evidence: Policies, models, and interventions must be underpinned by comprehensive high-quality data and evidence.

Efficient and effective data collection is a key policy priority for CYDA, and it is essential for improving outcomes for Australia’s children with disability. As a representative organisation, CYDA uses multiple avenues to understand the experiences of children and young people so we can best provide an informed voice on the social issues important to them. One of these avenues is the use of desk top research methods to gather data. However, often CYDA is unable to ascertain information specific to children and young people with disability because many data sets are aggregated at a more macro level, lacking the granularity needed to understand children and young people with disability. As noted in Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021–2031, a range of stakeholders need to “…work together to develop a comprehensive data strategy in 2022. This will ensure data needed to measure outcomes for people with disability is collected, shared and progressively improved”.[10]

As the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) notes, “..there are currently no national indicators to measure how children transition through major development stages, or how children interact with services and move through different systems…” and “… there is limited ability to track children through different data sources to assess their outcomes”.”[11]

Without high-quality data, there are limited opportunities to develop evidence-based approaches to protect children and young people and monitor existing and new interventions.[12]

Accountability framework: Clear roles and responsibilities are critical, especially with shared system stewardship.

Any framework for accountability is dependent upon data – transparent and reliable. The direct experience of children and young people with disability and the policy experience of CYDA demonstrates that there is a great need to improve the collection and use of data at a range of levels within the ECEC system, at the individual, system, and jurisdictional levels. Additionally, there is a need to examine how data is used to inform policy and practice in the ECEC system.

Communities and families: Services must be shaped around the needs of  communities and families of all backgrounds including First Nations people.

The Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) covers children’s development in five domains: physical health and wellbeing, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills (school-based), communication skills and general knowledge. AEDC publicly available data at a community level includes demographic data for all children included in the census but includes scores only from children who don’t have any diagnosed “special need” (disability). The Front Project noted this exclusion in its 2022 report ‘Supporting all children to thrive: The importance of equity in early childhood education.’ [13]    

Philanthropy: The not-for profit sector plays a fundamental role in the sector including direct provision and the important role of philanthropic advocacy and investment

While the not-for-profit sector may play a fundamental role, there is a need to invest in further funding for independent disability advocacy for families, to ensure children can have the equitable and accessible ECEC experience as outlined in the draft vision. Where there are specific state and territory-based organisations for children and young people with disability, it is easier to have their issues resolved. In many states and territories there are no specialised services, and CYDA hear numerous reports of the difficulty young people and families have in accessing the support they need.

Outcomes

*Successful implementation of the draft national ECEC vision would improve the early childhood education and care system for children and families, as well as the ECEC workforce.             

To what extent do you agree with the following statements:

Too often in the past we have seen hopeful and strong visions in plans, but then fallen short in terms of investment and implementation. Beyond the shortcomings on paper, this lack of progress and accountability has life-changing consequences for children with disability. Too often, CYDA hears stories of children with disability ‘falling through the gaps’ due to the lack of clarity of responsibilities between national and state and territory systems. This has never been more evident, with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability highlighting the neglect children and young people with disability experience across systems and their intersections including, but not limited to, the NDIS, education, health, justice, out-of-home care, and housing.   

It is often difficult for representative and advocacy organisations, researchers, services and the public alike to fully understand the success (or pitfalls) of strategies, programs and policies affecting children with disability because there is a lack of sufficient data. Publicly available disaggregated data is particularly lacking.

What changes would you expect to see as a result of the draft national ECEC vision implementation (e.g. what level of communication would you expect from government about the progress of the vision)?

To realise the vision and ensure children and families do not suffer the burden of bureaucratic pitfalls, the following is required:

1.      Establishment of a robust outcomes framework

2.      An independent body to report on the progress of governments

3.      Genuine commitment by governments over time.

The outcomes framework should include clear delegation of responsibilities between national, state and territory and local governments and include shared ownership by all departments that children with disability intersect with. The outcomes included should be established from a foundation of human rights as per relevant United Nations agreements, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

While disaggregated data by disability and by age is difficult to obtain in itself, it is almost impossible to get data for children with disability with other intersectional characteristics such as gender diversity, those from First Nations or culturally and linguistically diverse communities, socio-economic status or location (e.g., rural/remote). To ensure the vision and resulting outcomes are genuinely reflective of the experiences of different groups, and that its progress can be monitored, CYDA recommends intersectional and disaggregated data is collected and monitored for all cohorts and demographics (e.g., age, regionality/rurality, socio-economic status, ethnicity, gender diversity, etc.).

How could the current scope, principles, statements, levers and / or enablers be improved to better reflect and support the draft national ECEC vision?

CYDA recommends that the vision and any resulting frameworks include clear accountability measures for all parties involved. We hear from our membership that they often have difficulties accessing supports, with different departments and systems passing the buck to other departments and systems who they believe are ‘more responsible’ for providing support e.g. NDIS vs ISP.

*The draft national ECEC vision outcomes for children, families, the ECEC workforce and government adequately incorporate and align to the underlying principles as set by the National Cabinet.       

Presentation

*The draft national ECEC vision is easy to read and understand                                     

CYDA understands the desire to present all the relevant sections of the vision on a single page but suggests it might work better to pull the outcomes over to a second page and outline short-, medium- and long-term outcomes against the four areas of the vision.

This would also allow for a more logical flow of scope to principles to vison to levers and enablers and then outcomes.

*The presentation and layout of the draft national ECEC vision is easy to follow                                     

The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 requires agencies to ensure people with disability have the same access to information and services as others in the community. Online, this means to design and build digital content that meets the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) accessibility guidelines.

The final vision should also be presented in Auslan and Easy Read versions to ensure it is accessible to a wider audience.  

How could the visual presentation of the vision be improved?

Accessibility notes:

CYDA suggests being careful when using a dark background, to make sure the background is dark enough and the writing is clear enough to be able to read it.

If there is a strong user need to provide a PDF, the document must still be accessible and may need an accessibility statement so users can request the information in a different format.

To make a PDF accessible, structural elements such as headings need to be marked-up so that a screen reader can follow the logical order of the content.

Accessibility guide for low- vision or blind

Non-text content (images and videos) must have a text equivalent.

Screen reader assessment (clickability)

Ensure  that interactive elements are accessible and properly labelled for screen reader users. This means that all clickable elements should be announced by the screen reader and users should be able to understand the purpose of the element and navigate to it using the keyboard.

ARIA attributes

ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) attributes are used to improve the accessibility of web content and applications by providing additional information to assistive technologies, like screen readers. ARIA attributes help define the roles, states, and properties of various elements on a web page, making it easier for users with disabilities to interact with and understand the content.

1. Activate our children’s voices

• activating and collecting input from young children on their experiences and goals
• families, caregivers, communities and systems have high expectations and aspirations for children

2. Support the workforce

• all stakeholders drive inclusion from the earliest age, focusing on access, engagement and development

3. Calibrate the funding

• investing in inclusive and accessible environments where children are welcomed and valued

4. Enhance support and adjustments

• investing in support and adjustments for children and their families across local communities where they live, play and learn

5. Collaborate

• collecting and sharing data to understand outcomes and drive investment and accountability