BUILDING THE RESILIENCE OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT SYSTEMS
Child care, education, health and welfare systems and community services are vital to developing healthy, well-adjusted, productively functioning and law abiding citizens who are able to contribute and participate optimally in community life.
The proposition that child care, education, health and welfare systems and community services in contributing to healthy, well-adjusted, productively functioning and law abiding citizens who are able to contribute and participate optimally in community life is now widely accepted and increasingly well understood in Australia.
So is the fact that early behavioural patterns greatly influence infants in the later years of life. Because the social and emotional well-being of young people in Australia is declining, urgent attention is now being paid to the systems which support and nurture Australian children from before birth to the age of 8 years. High priority has been accorded to this issue by all Australian governments, particularly through the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).
Download Resilience of Child Development Systems Report 1
Building the resilience of child development systems: A National Demonstration Project based in South Australia using the South Australian Health and Education systems as case studies Report of Roundtable held on 24 October 2008, December 2008, Australia21, Canberra.
BUILDING THE RESILIENCE OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT SYSTEMS – BACKGROUND
A roundtable discussion was held in Adelaide on Friday 24th of October 2008, convened by Australia21 as part of its program of work on the Resilience of Australia’s Health and Education Systems.
The meeting took place following a recent review of early childhood development in South Australia by the 2007 Thinker in Residence, Dr. Fraser Mustard. In his report entitled “Investing in the early years: closing the gap between what we know and what we do”, Mustard developed a series of recommendations that have been supported by the South Australian Government and could transform quite radically, the quality of interactions between families and institutions not only in South Australia, but, in view of the Federal Government’s commitment to reform in this area, across the nation.
The roundtable sought answers to two questions:
-
What are the key resilience issues impacting on the development of an Australian integrated early childhood system (incorporating education, parenting support, child care, child health and child development)?
-
How can Resilience Theory assist in addressing systems issues such as funding, governance, workforce, community ownership, operation and quality assurance?
Discussions are ongoing with funding agents to undertake a series of mapping studies discussed and described in the publications below:
Download Resilience of Child Development Systems Report 1
Building the resilience of child development systems: A National Demonstration Project based in South Australia using the South Australian Health and Education systems as case studies Report of Roundtable held on 24 October 2008, December 2008, Australia21, Canberra.
Download Resilience of Child Development Systems Report 2
Building Resilient Health & Education Systems: Notes from meeting with Professor David Hawker Thursday, 19th February 2009