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Overview - Best Start Guidelines 2005

Content: The four key evidence themes| Key activities | Download the Guidelines

The Best Start Guidelines 2005 has been developed as a project resource for those interested or involved in the Best Start project. It is divided into three main sections:

• Section 1 provides background information about the Best Start project and its development

• Section 2 provides guidance for those undertaking a Best Start project including establishing local Best Start partnerships, developing and implementing an action plan, monitoring and reporting on activity, evaluation, and sustaining changes beyond the life of the project.

• Section 3 provides information about governance, funding, contracting and project administration.

Introduction

The importance of the early years - the four key evidence themes

The early childhood literature provides substantial evidence that:

• the early years are crucial in setting the stage for later life
• young children develop through their relationships with others
• children's development is shaped by the balance between risk and protective facto
• supporting families effectively requires a comprehensive, coordinated family-centred service system.

Setting the stage for later life

Brain research shows that the early years of development from conception to age six, particularly the first three years, provide the basis for the development of competence, coping and emotional skills that affect learning, behaviour and health throughout life. There is growing evidence that good nutrition, nurturing and responsive care-giving in these early years, combined with high quality early childhood development programs, can improve the long-term outcomes for all children's health, development, learning and wellbeing.

Developing through relationships with others

All young children's learning and development occurs in the context of their relationships with their caregivers. These early experiences form characteristic ways of relating to other people and of coping with the ebb and flow of emotions. These patterns of behaviour are not just psychological tendencies, but are actually built into the architecture and physiology of children's brains.

The balance between risk and protective factors

Children's development is shaped by the balance between factors known to place development at risk and those known to have protective properties. Children exposed to multiple risk factors become vulnerable to developmental problems of health, learning and wellbeing, whereas those exposed to protective factors are more likely to be resilient in the face of environmental adversities. These determinants of child development have an impact at all levels: family, neighbourhood, community and economy. To ensure that more children develop well, we need to reduce the factors that place them at risk and promote those that are protective. Among other things, this means building more child and family friendly communities.(A diagram of risk and protective factors associated with/ protection of adverse outcomes can be found in A review of the early childhood literature [PDF 194 kb] (download help) (February 2000) by Centre for Community Child Health (www.rch.org.au/ccch)

Providing a comprehensive, coordinated family-centred service system

To achieve better outcomes for children and families, we need an integrated system of services that can respond to the emerging needs of children and families in local community settings. To become more effective, service systems need to adopt a family-centred approach to working with families, a partnership approach to working with communities, and a strength-based approach to policy and service development. Better outcomes are also achieved when services are comprehensive and inclusive.

The challenge is to adopt an ecological perspective, collectively addressing all of the factors that impact on child and family functioning, rather than continuing to provide separate services that each focus on a single factor or problem. To achieve a holistic, integrated system, we need to adopt an approach that is cross-sectoral, multilevel, and has strong local leadership.

This evidence can inform the development of early years services through planning, in partnership with the community and government, for early years services and activities that are:

• sufficient in number to meet the need
• high quality and developmentally appropriate
• across the range of education, care and health
• targeted at children at risk of long-term damage or disadvantage
• culturally appropriate
• aimed at minimising risk and strengthening protective factors
• comprehensive in nature
• strongly linked and coordinated across the universal, secondary and tertiary sectors
• able to foster participation
• family-friendly and adopt a family-centred approach to practice.

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Key activities

International research and experience indicate that some key activities are essential elements of a comprehensive, inclusive, accessible and effective early years service system. These include:

• improving access to quality antenatal care
• improving support for parents to care for their children
• improving opportunities for good quality play, learning, child care, kindergarten and early education experiences for children, before school and during the first three years of school
• strengthening the key role of schools as a hub within communities and a natural focal point for the integrated provision of services to children and their families
• improving support for parents to strengthen their skills and capacity to promote the development and early learning of their children
• improving access by parents to adult literacy and numeracy education and other adult and further education and related services
• improving health care for both child and parent, including health information (for example, nutrition, immunisation, public health surveillance and primary health treatment)
• improving support for all children and families in the transition from preschool to school, with a focus on those with special needs
• improving outreach and home based services for those in most need
• improving the promotion of safe, nurturing and child-friendly community environments.

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Best Start Guidelines

Download the Best Start Guidelines 2005 [PDF 1,336 kb] (download help)