Early Years Catalyst – Landscape Atlas

Provides an overview of the systems integral to children’s early development and maps the government-driven structures that underpin how they operate.

The Early Years Catalyst commissioned Orange Compass to develop an early childhood development systems landscape atlas, designed to: 

• Provide an overview of ten systems that are integral to children’s early development including health, mental health, disability, early learning, child protection, parenting and family supports, family and domestic violence supports, social security, affordable housing and community infrastructure. 

• Map federal, state/territory and local government-driven structures that underpin how these ‘sub-systems’ operate and identify those elements that act as barriers to improving early childhood development outcomes. 

Method

This work involved a rapid compilation and analysis of publicly accessible information (e.g. policy / strategy frameworks, budget papers and inquiry reports) supported by consultation with system experts. 

Key findings

• There is no single defined ‘early years’ system in Australia in a structural sense; the systems that are integral to children’s early childhood development exist in a complex and fragmented landscape. 

• Many of the government structures that underpin how our social service systems operate reinforce the deep forces that are maintaining unacceptably high levels of disadvantage in the early years. 

Landscape Atlas Publications

• 
  Part One: Child’s Needs

  Contains chapters dedicated to each of the five systems that are focused primarily on meeting a child’s needs.

• 
  Part Two: Shared Child and Family Needs

  Contains chapters dedicated to each of the five systems that are focused on meeting shared child and family needs.

• 
  Annex: How Government Works Australian Style

  Provides a brief introduction to how government works in Australia which underpins the structural elements of our early years system.