The following is the presentation of Early Childhood Australia's Chief Executive Officer, Pam Cahir, to the Country Children's Services Association of NSW (CCSA) Conference, Quality and sustainability: Creating the balance.

A systems approach to the delivery of children's services in this country - does it have anything to offer?

• Early Childhood Australia's vision for early childhood services— I will spell this out because I hear all sorts of people using the same words, without talking about the same vision.
• What the children's services system (or lack of it) was like in the beginning – what were the ideas that underpinned the way we set up child care and indeed early childhood services generally? This will be a personal view and, due to time constraints, will be a very truncated version of that history.
• What's changed – and how this has affected our capacity to do our work well.

I will then go on to outline some thinking I have been doing on possible ways that services within this sector might reorganise, in order to:

• enhance their capacity to provide high quality services for young children and their families
• secure themselves for a long-term quality future.

The vision

Set alongside this – from the mid-1980s onwards – was the Commonwealth Government's purpose in regard to child care: to support women to return to the workforce through the provision of childcare services.

There was and continues to be some tension between these two goals.

This current children's services system is really a legacy system

What this has meant is that we now have a patchwork of services established for different purposes, at different times and funded – in varying ways – by different levels of government.

For example:

• Preschools/Kindergartens were set up in a range of different ways. All were established in local communities; some were funded through fees with a small contribution from State Governments; and others were established as part of an education system.
• Childcare services (I am really talking here about long day care centres) were established again in local communities and were funded by the Commonwealth Government by means of an income-related fee subsidy (originally, Childcare Assistance [CA]; now Child Care Benefit [CCB]) and in the beginning there was an operational subsidy for community-managed services.

Initially, fee assistance was only available to families using community-based services and these services also received capital funds from the Commonwealth to build their services. In the early 90s this changed, and families using private services were given access to fee assistance and this continues to be the case.

So what we had mostly in the beginning were many, many small services operating independently and carrying all of their costs and overheads.

There were of course some organisations, like KU Children's Services and the Creche & Kindergarten Union (now C&K), which operated multiple services and indeed continue to do so. But this was not the norm.

Many of these small, locally based services were community based, and it is these services that I am really talking about today. (Although it is clearly possible to make the same arguments for private childcare services.)

Why were children's services established in this way?

Certainly, when the Commonwealth entered the childcare arena, there was no willingness to create a system which replicated the features of school systems around the country and in doing so provide guarantees for all children – too expensive and not easily achievable in an established federation involving eight state/territory governments as a well as national government.

Maybe it was because the significance of the early years was understood differently. At that time, the current brain development research had not taken place and so the links between early experiences and long term development was not so clearly understood. In addition, the responsibility for children's growth and development was clearly seen, at that time, as 'women's work'.

There was also a great deal of thinking about community development, about the importance of local decision-making in empowering communities. This was reinforced by the growing understanding that programs delivered by community and children's services need to be flexible and responsive to the children and families which use them. The theoretical framework for this was provided by community development and education thinking and research, which reinforced the growing recognition of the significance of the strength and importance of the home–service/school relationship for outcomes for children.

Many of these ideas resonate still.

There was also a growing political reality that the Commonwealth was increasingly unwilling to continue to fund the large capital costs associated with a not-for-profit approach to the provision of childcare. As well as this there were growing political pressures which made it impossible to continue to deny access to fee support from the Commonwealth to families of workers (many of whom were union members) whose children were using private child care.

In fact, the ACTU spearheaded the movement for policy change at the national level which saw income-related fee assistance (now Child Care Benefit) provided to families using private childcare services. This policy change by the Federal Labor Government was accompanied by a Commonwealth commitment to funding formal systems of quality assurance and accreditation in childcare services.

Whatever the reasons, we have now not a system of early childhood services but rather numbers of independently operated services – albeit some which are operated by providers who manage or own multiple services. (For the purpose of this discussion I am not talking here about corporate providers.)

Is it time to rethink the model?

Has anything changed that would make us re-think this approach?

Before we try to think about that question it is probably important for me to set out what I think are the key features of a high-quality early childhood service system which meets the needs of children and families now and into the future.

What interrelated mix of conditions, structures etc. which are essential underpinnings if early childhood services – of whatever kind – will deliver quality outcomes for the children and families who use them and are responsive to their needs?

• Early childhood leadership matters. By that, 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 leaderships is what sets a service apart in terms of outcomes for children. The evidence is in on this: you cannot deliver what you do not understand; and you cannot see what you do not know about. Generalists and managers have their place in any service but the leadership has to be clear about what matters for children.
• Qualifications matter. 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 specialists – this too can no longer be contested.
• staff–child ratios and group size matter. The evidence is clear here too. Lower staff–child ratios and smaller group sizes enable the sensitive, thoughtful and responsive interactions which are essential to the provision high-quality care and good outcomes for children.
• Staff stability and continuity matter. They 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 professional conversations that allow us to re-think 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 peoples' decision to continue to work in our services. We need to be robust and determined in our resolve to get pay parity with teachers in schools for teachers working in child care. 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.

This is not just what I think – this is what the evidence says.

We need to be clear that no state regulations reflect the evidence with regards to group size and staff–child ratios amd, with the exception on NSW, no state regulations require the employment of early childhood–qualified teachers in leadership positions in childcare services. And, let's be frank, the wages and conditions of people working in this sector do not reflect the significance and sophistication of the task of being responsible for the growth and learning of the nation's young children.

So, has anything changed?

What has changed – though maybe it was always the case – is that many services struggle to make ends meet and certainly most don't reflect the fundamentals that evidence says are necessary to deliver good outcomes for children.

Many people responsible for small services, particularly those that are struggling, feel professionally isolated and stuck.

Many management committees are finding the task of managing hard to find time for and do not necessarily want to manage the business end of a service – they are more interested in what is happening for their children.

Many directors of community-based services feel that more and more of their time is spent in managing, in meeting government requirements etc., and less and less is spent focused on children – the reason that many entered this field in the first place. I suspect this is the case for many providers of private services.

This discussion is not about whether we are doing a good job now. Most are doing the very best they can in an environment which makes the delivery of high-quality services almost impossible. That's very hard to acknowledge and to say – but until we are able to do this and say, 'that with the best will in the world it is not possible to provide a quality environment for babies when the ratio is 1 adult to 5 babies; where we can't get qualified staff, let alone early childhood teachers, etc., etc.', we cannot confront the hard questions and find ways to move forward.

This discussion is, however, about:

• what can we do to make it more possible to do a high-quality job?
• what can we do the ensure our services are here for the long haul?

If we are to think constructively about this, we need to recognise the weaknesses that exist and the context in which we provide our services. We need to understand the shifts in the environment in which we do our work and be responsive to them.

We do not need to be threatened by having these discussions. Such discussions are at the heart of being a profession committed to the wellbeing of young children.

We need to focus, not simply on maintaining the status quo, but on exploring options for achieving our vision for services and children.

An idea that I have been thinking about is the potential a systems approach to the provision of children's services might have for improving the general quality of child care. By system I mean a group of services formally linked with all or part of their operations managed centrally.

My question is: does systems-thinking (my version) have any potential to inform the future of children's services sector in a way which moves us closer to our vision for the children and families who use these services and the people who deliver them?

We are no strangers to service systems in this country. We have school systems – both public and subsidised private systems. We also have a large system of corporate provision of child care in this country.

We need to be clear that systems-thinking of itself is neither good nor bad. It simply asks us whether the potential for aggregation, replication and transaction-reduction of functions, when a group of children's services are managed centrally, offers any potential for resource and financial efficiencies. This is clearly not an open question. The essential first step in this thinking is to be clear about the values that you would want reflected in any system, its purpose – high quality services – and the conditions essential for the delivery of such services.

In a human services environment there are two other key questions that will need to be considered in thinking about how a system might operate in children's services. These questions are:

• What things need to be done centrally, to provide guarantees for all services – policies, best practice guidelines, professional support?
• What things need to be done locally, so that the service programs are responsive to the children and families who use them?

I believe that there can clear benefits to being a part of a system. There is some evidence that the aggregation of services under common management has the potential to generate efficiencies which allow for resources to be directed towards making progress on those inputs which evidence shows underpin a quality service.

However, there are also some downsides, and we need to be aware of those and think about whether the positives outweigh the potential negatives.

We need to be clear too that not all systems are the same and I need to be clear that my interest in systems is their potential to generate savings in some areas that can be reinvested in the quality criteria I set out earlier. I am interested in a system which makes provision for quality programs for all of the children and families using it and not just those who can afford them.

In my view, systems allow us to aggregate and/or consolidate functions and reduce replication. This generates efficiencies and potentially reduces expenditure, and releases resources that can be redirected to other areas. One newly established system has used the gains made from using this thinking to reduce the staff–child ratio for babies in their services.

We are all natural systems thinkers – system-thinking permeates our day-to-day. When we carry things on a tray and make one trip rather than many we are using a system. A too-full supermarket trolley rather than making more than one trip is also in the same thinking-frame.

Children too quickly begin to think in a systems way. As they move from taking the sand from the sandpit bucket by bucket, to putting it into a barrow, they make simple system. We do it all the time.

So what might this kind of thinking mean if applied to children's services?

• If the payment of salaries for a number of services is aggregated there are significant economies of scale in terms of staff, finance systems, data entry reporting etc. – this translates into savings in dollar terms.
• If you consolidate/aggregate purchasing of consumables, you increase your capacity to drive down prices to get the best deal – this translates into saving in real dollars.
• Doing this also reduces the number of transactions that need to take place. This reduces telephone calls, invoices etc., which in turn reduces staff time, and the costs of telephone, office materials etc. used on this task.
• Aggregation/consolidation of administration offers the potential for more focus on our core business: our work with children.
• Systems allow you to maximise the potential of IT to streamline administration and importantly maintain communication.
• The consolidation of staff into one system offers up the potential for a career structure, the possibility of system-supported staff development and communication. As well as the chance to plan for those professional conversations that are so important to the sense of being part of a profession and for personal professional growth.
• The larger numbers of staff in one system forces a focus on careers and on wages and conditions, and can potentially contribute to staff stability and reduced staff turnover. This is not only essential for the quality of what we do with children but it also makes good economic sense: staff change costs money.
• Being in a system would reduce the professional isolation inherent in being responsible for a single service.
• Being in a system might reduce individual freedom but it would provide the protection of system policies and procedures etc.
• A system offers the potential for cross-subsidisation of struggling services – a real commitment to social justice and outcomes for all children. KU children's services already does this.
• A system most importantly offers potential to invest in quality frameworks like smaller group sizes, lower staff–child ratios, and may provide the sorts of professional support etc. that will encourage early childhood professionals to stay in this sector.
• Systems also offer the chance to replicate rather than always starting from the beginning. A simple example: one small system I know has developed a best practice guide for its staff. It does not prescribe the daily program but does set out the broad parameters of a best practice program to which all children are entitled. It leaves the key decisions about the day-to-day to the services, but takes a stand on what all children are entitled to, whatever service they are in.

I emphasise again that the most important decision to be made in the development of any system is to decide:

• what must be done locally – to ensure the best experiences for the children and families in a particular service
• what would be better done centrally – either because it provides guarantees for all children or because doing it centrally makes economic sense.

If we decided to pursue this, we would need to think hard about what we would want to keep if we consolidated some services into small systems. For me, some of those things would include:

• programs which are responsive and flexible so that they meet the needs of the children and families in particular services
• a continuing commitment to the day-to-day relationship with the families in our services
• maybe some capacity to say what resources you need for your programs – a resource allocation
• maybe some say over food and what children will eat.

What else should be done at the local service level?

An early childhood services system has a much more fundamental purpose, and system economic gains must be directed to this purpose. That purpose is the delivery of high-quality programs and outcomes for all of the young children and families who participate in them.

To do this, any system of children's services has to:

• provide early childhood professional leadership
• make progress on the quality infrastructure (including staff–child ratios, group size, the employment of qualified early childhood teachers with four-year degrees)
• provide professional development and day-to-day support on the ground for people working in services – it must reduce professional isolation.

Change is scary

Can we do this? Yes we can!

The Lady Gowrie in Tasmania has begun. They now have a small system of children's services and are a real example of what can be achieved when 22 services are consolidated into one system.

KU Children's Services is a system of services with a palpable commitment to cross-subsidisation, which guarantees all their services a qualified early childhood teacher. NSW Country Children's Services works from a different model, but it takes over the finance operations of services on a fee-for-service basis.

There are many other examples of childcare systems – small and large – across Australia.

We cannot stay where we are

We cannot wait for others to generate the vision and provide the leadership – we must do it ourselves and do it now – children cannot wait and they deserve no less than the high-quality services described as part of Early Childhood Australia's vision.

Thank you.

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