Early Years
Our research is focused on improving early childhood development outcomes for young Australians experiencing disadvantage.
The Challenge
The early years shape lifelong outcomes. School readiness predicts educational achievement, health, and economic participation. Many factors contribute to early development, including caregiving quality, early language and literacy experiences, access to high-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC), early intervention for developmental concerns, and the impact of both adverse and beneficial childhood experiences.
Supporting early childhood development (ECD) outcomes requires a systems approach to understand how factors interact.
The Approach
Our ‘Launchpad’ exploratory project focuses on access to high-quality ECEC, comprising a series of research activities, including a rapid evidence review, expert consultations and interviews with parents and carers of young children.
The purpose of the research was to:
1) Understand how parents and carers navigate and make decisions about childcare.
2) Identify the barriers and enablers to using and accessing high-quality ECEC.
3) Develop actionable ideas for how the system could work more effectively, to improve access to quality ECEC through a behavioural and systems lens.
Find out more
Sign up to our launch Webinar 8th May, 11am-12pm AEDT here.
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