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The following are the speaking notes of Pam Cahir, CEO of Early Childhood Australia, presented at the LHMU (Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union) National Council, 16 August 2007.
Acknowledgement of country
To begin I wish to acknowledge the Eora people, the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which this meeting is taking place. I wish to pay respect to and acknowledge elders past and present and Aboriginal people who are here today.
In so doing I acknowledge Early Childhood Australia's and my own personal obligation to work towards the achievement of social justice, human rights and reconciliation with and for Australia's Indigenous peoples.
Early Childhood Australia does this at all meetings it attends as a recognition that each and every one of us is a beneficiary of the dispossession of Indigenous people that began in 1788.
Today too I wish to recognise the importance of protecting all children, including young Indigenous children, from abuse. I hope that the current intervention in the Northern Territory to protect little children in the here and now is situated in a long-term strategy which:
- supports the human rights of Indigenous Australians
- works toward solutions for future generations of Indigenous children: solutions which are dignified and engender a sense of hope and purpose, and which do not further disempower Indigenous Australians.
Honoured guests, members of the LHMU and others here today...
I am pleased to have the opportunity to congratulate the LHMU on the development of its framework for a charter for child care.
This framework provides a strong basis for developing a long-term plan for delivering high-quality children's services for this nation's youngest citizens
Why is a long-term strategic approach to the delivery of children's services essential?
What I want to do today is to outline why Early Childhood Australia believes a long-term plan is essential.
I think most of us would need no persuading that the early years provide the foundation for all that follows. This thinking has long been held as conventional wisdom.
However in recent times economists and neuroscientists have added to the previous justifications for investment in early childhood, with irrefutable and convincing arguments for high-quality early childhood services that are much more persuasive to governments and policy-makers.
Evidence from neuroscientists says early childhood matters
The research by neuroscientists provides the evidence for what most of us already know: early childhood matters.
The brain research tells us:
- It is not our genes alone that make us what we are.
- The brain develops over time.
- The vast majority of brain connections are built in the first three years. Experience sculpts those connections as they are used and eliminates those that are not.
- Early experiences are powerful because they are used by the young child to continue the building process.
- The human brain is a social brain. Even what we think of as cognitive and physical skills are learned more effectively in the context of relationships.
- Earlier is better than later. It is best to learn well early; as remediation is harder, less successful and more costly.
(Levitt, 2007)
Providing the right experiences early and reducing those that are detrimental will be the most successful and least costly in promoting brain development and early childhood development.
One of the things that stands out for me in all of this is that 'The irreducible core of early experience is relationships.' (Thompson, 2001)
High-quality learning experiences go hand in hand with positive relationships in early childhood. This is not a personal view; it is what the research says.
The other thing that has focused the attention of policy-makers and politicians on early childhood is the arguments being made by economists.
Economic evidence demonstrates that early childhood matters
Economic analysis is showing that young children who have high-quality early learning and care experiences are:
- more likely to have a successful school experience, be healthy and be employed
- less likely to be engaged with the social security or criminal justice systems.
In fact, as a rule of thumb, these economists are saying that for every dollar spent in early childhood, seven dollars are saved in adulthood
These arguments give us greater leverage than we have had previously in arguing for change.
High-quality experiences matter – at home and in early childhood services
There is another, equally important, body of evidence which has identified the structural and process conditions that are necessary to provide high-quality experiences and outcomes for children in early childhood services.
This research sets out the interrelated mix of conditions, structures etc. that are the essential underpinnings if early childhood services, of whatever kind, are to deliver quality outcomes for the children and families who use them.
It is this research which sits beneath the LHMU charter.
Let me be clear before I go on:
The issues of wages, conditions, career structure etc. are fundamental to the achievement of the LHMU charter.
This will be reinforced in my outline of what the research says about the structural preconditions for quality children's services.
The structural preconditions for quality children's services
The research says:
Early childhood leadership matters
By 'leadership' I mean specialist early childhood teachers with degrees. Early childhood pedagogical leadership is an essential component of a quality children's service. Why should we be surprised?
Pedagogical leadership is what sets a service apart in terms of outcomes for children. The evidence is in on this.
You cannot provide clear and informed leadership in any environment if you do not understand what needs to be done and why. Leadership is not about a pat on the back and saying 'well done – you're doing well'. Leadership here is about clarity of focus, deep understanding about what is being done, and a capacity to deliver professional leadership and provide intentional and informed support to practitioners across an organisation.
Generalists and managers have their place in services, as do a range of other early childhood qualifications such as diplomas and Certificate III, but the leadership has to have a deep understanding about what matters for children.
Qualifications matter
As I said previously, staff with responsibility for children should have early childhood qualifications. In fact, the more staff in a service who have early childhood qualifications the better.
Research shows that there are better social and cognitive outcomes when children's care and education is in the hands of early childhood education specialists. Teaching is a planned, intentional and interactive process in which you need to know what you are doing. This too can no longer be contested.
Child–staff ratios and group size matter
The evidence is clear here too. Lower child–staff ratios and smaller group sizes enable the sensitive, thoughtful and responsive interactions which are essential to the provision of high-quality care and good outcomes for children.
For example: for babies, the optimum is one adult to three babies in a total group size of six. In Australia, the majority of regulations are one adult to five babies often in a group of 10. You cannot do what is right for infants in this situation.
Staff stability and continuity matter
Staff stability and continuity underwrite the development of the relationships and enable the quality interactions which are so significant in children's learning and development. The evidence is unequivocal about this as well.
Staff access to professional support and development matters
Importantly, this includes those intentional professional conversations that allow us to reflect, rethink and improve our practice with children. For all other professions this is uncontested; so why not in early childhood?
Wages, conditions and career prospects matter
It is increasingly clear that wages and conditions (and the existence of a career structure) are key factors in people's decision to work in children's services and continue to stay there.
What this means is that unless we pay qualified people appropriately we will not have the sustained relationships and intentional interactions with children which are at heart of their development. Unless we pay people appropriately we will continue to have a very unstable workforce in children's services.
Parents cannot go to work on the backs of poorly paid childcare workers, and governments cannot make low wages a condition of affordability.
We need to be robust and determined in our resolve to achieve pay parity with teachers in schools for teachers who are working in child care, as well as wages and conditions for other early childhood professionals in child care which reflect the complexity and significance of their work.
We need to be undeterred in our commitment to doing what it takes to evolve a career structure for the early childhood professionals who work in this and other sectors. Only if we do these things will qualified and committed people stay in large numbers in this sector.
Only if well-qualified teachers and other early childhood staff work and remain in our services will children have the continuity and stability in their relationships with adults which underwrite the high-quality outcomes that we all want for children.
As I said previously, the irreducible core of early experience is relationships.
This is not just what I think; this is what the evidence says. The current situation cannot deliver the sensitive and stable relationships with trusted adults that are so essential to children's growth and learning.
This is not to be critical of people currently working in child care. But the fact is there will be no real progress on the quality of service provision until the sector and others are willing to say that:
'notwithstanding the very best and committed efforts of those working in services, it is not possible to deliver for children in a context where the evidence-based structural conditions (and, as result, the process conditions) for quality do not exist.'
(Cahir, 2007)
Quality inputs matter if we are serious about quality outcomes, in the here and now, for young children who participate in these services. Quality inputs also matter if the human capital and other economic benefits of participation in quality programs in quality services are to be realised.
It is hard for people working with young children to acknowledge that, in the current environment, it is not possible to provide quality care for the young children for whom they have responsibility.
The gap between aspirations and reality is a hard one to acknowledge.
But the fact is until we say this unequivocally to parents and others they will not stand alongside us in the struggle to focus Government and Opposition parties on this issue.
A quality children's services system will cost money and we will not be able to get there in the life of one term of parliament.
The only way to achieve structural changes is via a long-term strategic plan which acknowledges the limitations of the current system, and sets out real goals for a quality system and a long-term plan to make progress toward them.
Then each individual strategy can be assessed in terms of the contribution that it makes or does not make to the building of high-quality early childhood services system in this country.
This is the stuff of vision and leadership.
Early Childhood Australia would also want to make the point that there would be enormous gains for children and the system if paid parental leave was a reality for all workers and if flexible working arrangements were the norm rather than the exception.
This is not a 'one or the other' scenario. This is not a 'some but not all' situation. Each element of the LHMU framework is essential.
- What I have outlined here...
- What the LHMU work will call for...
- What the evidence is unequivocal about...
...will cost money; and we need, as a nation, to acknowledge this and plan for this investment.
Children are human beings. They have value and significance in the here and now, not simply for what they might become.
The fact is that, in committing itself to the wellbeing of children, society is committing itself to the wellbeing of all.
Well done LHMU; and best wishes for the next stage in the development of the framework!
References
Cahir, P. (2007, 20 July). What needs to happen in child care? An open letter to ACOSS (the Australian Council of Social Services). Retrieved 15 August 2007.
Levitt, P. (2007, 22 May). Presentation to the US House of Representatives. Panel on the Science of Early Childhood Development, National Summit on America's Children. Washington, DC. Retrieved 15 August 2007.
Thompson, R. A. (2001). Development in the first years of life. The Future of Children, 11(1), 21-33.
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