At some stage in the last 2 years, the penny dropped in the Australian political community that the early years of children matters – a lot.

Ask any exhausted staff member about this change across any area in the combined early years professions and the responses include words like ‘finally’ and ‘hallelujah’. Old hands and the power pack of advocacy professionals now on the scene however know that this is not the end point, and the phrases now being shared include the Churchillian ‘Its not the end, or even the beginning of the end, rather it just might be the end of the beginning’, meaning

‘folks … we just got started‘.

In 2024, the early childhood policy suite went from accepting piecemeal approaches across the country, to demanding one with consistently held high expectations of the outcomes for our children, all of our children, regardless of where they live.

The Australian Government released the Early Years Strategy 2024 – 2023 https://www.dss.gov.au>early-years-strategy

Reading and then listening to the new Australian Early Years Strategy (the Strategy) I was struck by two things:

1. It’s good. It’s actually really good. There is so much that can come from this policy.
2. Why the lack of knowledge about the Strategy amongst the professional practitioners in Early Learning Centres?

As some of you know, my work on the Australian National Quality Framework (national early childhood law, regulations and standards), as a member of the policy and legislation development team in this state and nationally has had a profound impact on the way that I work and think. The implementation of that Framework taught huge lessons.

In one way, an early learning centre was a great training ground for a policy professional because everything that is done with the planning for a child is strategic with an objective or interlinked objectives, requires considered input from the user or community, needs development through the policy development cycle processes, needs framing and communication, has an implementation cycle of trial and review, and last but not least requires rethinking on a regular basis through critical analysis to ensure that new approaches are available to the work.

The development of policy should, no, must include a co-aligned learning journey with those most impacted by the policy. Learning about policy as it is developed and released is an opportunity for conversation, development of understanding, and opens doors to engagement.

The problem with developing policy is that you can’t turn a policy into an implementation plan without a lot of steps being taken first. I get that. For one thing, the mapping of the mess of early childhood programs (meta and local) across the country is huge, but it is necessary to look at what can be leveraged, used in other areas, or what needs to be ended.

There is however one step that can be taken, awareness raising.

Let’s try this for size:

When the authors say in the Strategy document that ‘government policy isn’t always coordinated, yet it needs to be‘, the average experienced Early Learning Centre Director will probably struggle to politely reply, ‘Yes I know’. When you are on the receiving end of policy, you get very good at thinking about it, messing it up, trying to understand it, and then giving up and continuing on as you were before the policy started. Then again, when you are engaged in policy implementation, you get very good at discussing it, working together to understand it, implementing it, and reflecting on your implementation.

The thing is, you need to know something exists before you can think about it.

As a member of a number of national and local networks, I have raised the strategy time and again and find many participants unaware of it or at best, unaware of its potential.

They need to be.

Why?

It is only through ongoing engagement with the Strategy are we going to be able to keep it front of government and community mind. That kind of activity will ensure that this document and its authors are held accountable for ongoing progress at implementation, and for success measurement.

One policy actor said recently ‘But early learning staff are too busy and they don’t understand policy development.’ My response? ‘Sure they do. You just haven’t given them a chance to prove it to you’.

A policy activity to do in your Centre:

The Strategy considers the silos of government services and its impact on parents looking for support. How does that relate to your work in-centre? Ask all of the team members to work together to list all of the local parent support agencies and organisations who can or do support your parents.

Then compare that with what actually exists. If educators and teachers are to engage with parents, and then support the parents they need to know about ‘relevant community services and resources to support parenting and family wellbeing’. It isn’t acceptable to not know – in fact it is in the law that they have to know. [Quality Area 6.1.3]. If they don’t know, it will be because they exist in one silo and the services exist in another silo, and that isn’t good for parents, is it?