Building a future-focused early childhood development system

12/08/2025

The National Early Years Policy Summit in June brought together policymakers, researchers, community leaders, practitioners, and those with lived experience to answer a critical question: 

How can we better use what we know works to improve outcomes for children?

 

Together for our children

Released last week, the Summit’s Communique sets out 10 priorities with 5 immediate actions that will improve children’s outcomes:

  • closing the gap for First Nations children
  • establishing national governance architecture
  • delivering universal high-quality ECEC
  • scaling place-based services
  • strengthening the workforce.

These are not radical ideas — they are evidence-based and common sense.

 

At the Summit, we had strong representation from the Centre for Community Child Health, with Dr Anna Price (Healthier Wealthier Families) and Dr Suzy Honisett (National Child and Family Hubs Network) both presenting at sessions. And while the Summit is pivotal in driving an early years reform agenda that will reduce inequities in children’s outcomes, the solution must be more than universal, high-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC).

The first 1000 days of a child’s life are a critical time for health and development. We need to ensure that universal and targeted services and supports for families are accessible, equitable and high-quality. This includes antenatal care, maternal and child health services, primary and community health care, disability care, parental programs and social supports. Both universal and place-based approaches enable children and families to receive the support they need. Child and Family Hubs are vital for offering place-based, integrated services alongside opportunities for social connection to families during this time.

With universal accessibility to high-quality ECEC a strong theme in the discussions, there needs to be unwavering focus on inclusion for the diverse needs of children and families living with disability and from culturally and economically diverse backgrounds. Continuing to build workforce capability and capacity to work with all children will strengthen the ECEC response.

A need to 'harness data’ has been highlighted as a key tool in these reforms. We know better data can capture a more accurate picture of the current state of the systems, help us understand which children and families should be the focus of our efforts, and guide the improvements needed to achieve the reforms. Substantial time, effort and investment already goes into data collection across our early childhood systems, but the potential value of this information is not realised when it is not effectively connected shared, or applied. Australia can better structure the early childhood data ecosystem to optimise service systems so they can achieve their aim to give children the best possible start to life.

Finally, embedding the voices of children and families is essential to continuing to build a child and family-focused early childhood development system. As one child put it, 'We’re not useless. We know stuff.’ Safe, trusted environments are key to enabling meaningful participation. The Centre’s Voice of the Child Toolkit provides evidence-based tools and approaches that empower children and young people to contribute meaningfully to research, care and service delivery. The Centre will be using the toolkit in a national pilot  to creatively engage children aged 3-5 years in five ECEC settings across Australia to contribute to the design of the early child development system.

We are extremely encouraged by the outcomes of the Early Years Policy Summit and look forward to continuing to engage in the policy opportunities we have – in ECEC, productivity, health, mental health and disability/foundational supports – to realise an equitable, accessible, integrated system that reduces inequities in children’s outcomes.

 

Access the Centre's recent policy submissions