News: Department of Social Services - The Early Years Strategy

In April 2023, The Salvation Army provided a submission to the Department of Social Services consultation on the development of an Early Years Strategy (the Strategy).

This submission was informed by the experiences of The Salvation Army’s child and family, family and domestic violence, and homelessness services. In this submission, we outline just a few of the challenges faced by children and families, the barriers preventing them from thriving in the early years, and solutions to even the playing field.

We advocate first and foremost, that the Strategy be developed according to the experiences of children and families across Australia, addressing the structural elements that contribute to inequities in the early years and beyond.

Many of our recommendations come down to the need to focus on keeping families and children at the centre of the strategy by emphasising holistic and localised responses in the early years, particularly for families experiencing disadvantage.

We recommend that:

The vision of the Strategy should be that all children and families have equitable access to opportunities they need to thrive.
The outcomes of the Strategy should include an early years system that is ready to meet the needs of all children and families, and that all children and families have timely access to high quality early childhood education and care and the resources and interventions they need to thrive.
The policy priorities of the Strategy should include addressing service siloes through co-location of services and enhanced information sharing processes, enhancing accessibility to early years support for cohorts of children and families experiencing disadvantage, and ensuring funding for early years services is structured and allocated in a way that facilitates the realisation of the Strategy’s vision, outcomes, and policy priorities.
The Strategy’s guiding principles should include a child- and family- centred and place-based approach to promote optimal and localised outcomes for children and families.

Many of the issues and recommendations made by The Salvation Army in this submission are not particularly new nor innovative. They include problems and solutions the community sector has been raising and advocating for over many years. We raise them again in this submission and emphasise their continues relevance and importance.