Our children, our families and our communities How are we doing? Yasmin Harman-Smith Deputy Director Fraser Mustard Centre

What do we know about our children, families and communities and where are our knowledge gaps? What can we do across all levels to improve outcomes for our children?

Where do you fit?

What we know

AEDC A nationwide census

Holistic measure of child development

Predictor of later outcomes

Longitudinal Trajectory Analyses Students who are developmentally vulnerable on the language and cognitive domain, or on the communication and general knowledge domain, have lower NAPLAN numeracy and reading test scores in year 3 and do not catch up.

Life course problems related to early life 2 nd Decade 3 rd /4 th Decade 5 th /6 th Decade Old Age School Failure Teen Pregnancy Criminality Obesity Elevated Blood Pressure Depression Coronary Heart Disease Diabetes Premature Aging Memory Loss Source: Hertzman 2011

Previous international science

Australian results differ Source: Brinkman, Sincovich, Gregory 2013

Conclusions Although socio-economic status still has a significant impact, children from poor socio- economic backgrounds but with good child development on school entry show resilience throughout their schooling Take away message – improve school readiness for all with a progressive universalist approach.

AEDC in QLD Where do our children need extra support?

What happened differently for the cohort born in 2003/2004 to the cohort born in 2006/2007?

How can the AEDC inform what we do going forward?

Source: Hertzman 2004

What works? Evidence and the evidence gap

What works – High quality child care (e.g., Gialamas, et al., 2014, and more intensive programs such as Peri- preschool etc.) – Connected approaches Children’s Centres/integrated services/place based (UK, Canada, SA, TAS) Thriving in adversity LGA – Playgroup – Nurse home visiting

“… just having a diverse group of, you know, people to work with. Like I find, like I can go to anyone of our teachers or whoever and just chat with them about something. Or they might be going off to do learning about a certain theory or something and then bring that back to the centre. And just having more people...it's great...and you do sort of bring that back to the children and the families...Expanding your own professional development and bringing that back to your work place.” (Children’s Centre Staff)

Early indications of things that work Thriving in adversity communities: provided early literacy programs to young children (0 to 2 years) by a trained facilitator through their local libraries had more playgroups per 100 children and a much higher proportion of children were attending playgroups in these communities tendency to work collaboratively across different agencies and sectors, with co-location of key early childhood education services (playgroup, preschool school and childcare), pooling input from a range of services higher community involvement no differences in health services and playgrounds

Knowledge gaps Who is getting services? Who are we missing? What difference is it making for those who receive the service?

We need better information

Build in rigorous evaluation

Resources AEDC resources ( – Videos – Case studies – Choosing intervention planning tips – Mapped data (Data explorer) Early year’s toolkit – oolkit/early-years/

With more knowledge we can do the work we are passionate about more effectively and improve outcomes for all children