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The national spotlight is again on early childhood education. The recent report into child welfare and wellbeing in the Northern Territory (Little children are sacred) and the federal election have placed young children and families at the forefront of community consciousness.
As current community debate and comment has shown, many young children all over Australia live in challenging circumstances and require nurturing and protection. Children's services have a major role in promoting social inclusion and wellbeing for all children and families. Yet too many children still miss out or attend poor-quality services.
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Clearly, children must be protected at all cost from abuse of any kind, but there is no simple solution to child protection and the problems that confront families living in poverty and despair
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The breakdown of family and community happens over time, and can only be rebuilt over time. Whatever the context, strengthening families and rebuilding sustainable communities requires cultural negotiation, vision, active engagement and partnerships between community members and leaders, and government, welfare and educational agencies.
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As the Little children are sacred report said:
'[No] program, in isolation, can deliver a “once-off inoculation” that ensures children's healthy development ... To adequately prevent child maltreatment (or to effectively support families), it is important that a range of programs are instituted and coordinated under a comprehensive strategy.
'This strategy should be “comprehensive, child-centred, family-focused and neighborhood-based … [and one which takes] … children seriously as individuals”.'
(Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse, 2007, p. 266)
In the long term, the qualities of strong families, individual resilience and community capacity comes from within people—they cannot be imposed from outside. Wherever families are located—from remote Indigenous communities to suburban Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane—solutions introduced from outside a community rarely work. As several writers in this issue of Every Child stress, learning initiatives must be based on local knowledge, values and cultures, and should be collaborative and participatory.
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Good communication is the basis of strong relationships between people, smooth transitions to school and developing literacy skills. Policy and strategy documents and initiatives must promote more holistic and inclusive views of children, families and community as part of local and national approaches to early childhood services.
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Building holistic, quality early childhood programs is challenging enough in communities that are well resourced; but, in many regional, remote and suburban areas, resourcing is problematic and attracting and keeping qualified practitioners is especially difficult—if not almost impossible. Employment in hard-to-staff communities requires a massive rethinking of working conditions, housing and salaries to attract qualified personnel to schools and early childhood centres
Importantly, building safe and rich social and learning environments for children means first building communities' own strengths—in particular, as a base, parenting confidence and skills. Providing teachers, nurses, doctors and other health workers is also important. In the long term, local people must be trained and mentored for local roles. This is critical to strengthening local communities.
Again, building social capacity first requires strong families, starting with family-focused early childhood care and education—and, as Jenni Connor stresses in her article on the High/Scope program, intergenerational partnerships. Continuing this theme, Sharon Foster and other writers in this issue highlight culturally relevant early childhood development, care and education as critical to child and family wellbeing and also children's social and cognitive maturity.
Pedagogies must engage and connect with all children. They must be personalised for individuals and local communities—including Indigenous children and their families—and must be developed through cultural negotiation and communication with families and communities about their educational needs, aspirations and ways of doing things.
Sandra Wooltorton and Debra Bennell's piece on ecological literacy provides a good, practical example of helping children reconnect with their communities and habitats. The process requires children's engagement in and reflection on sensory experiences of nature, so that they engage directly with their environments.
As this issue of Every Child emphasises, strong relationships and good communication are fundamental to building stronger families and providing quality learning environments for young children.
Alison Elliott
Editor
Every Child
Reference
Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse. (2007). Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Mekarle: Little Children are sacred. Darwin: Government Printer of the Northern Territory.
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Every Child magazine – Building collaborative communities – vol. 13 no. 4, 2007, p. 2
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