The Quality Areas provide a way to measure the quality of care provided by children's services and identify areas for ongoing quality improvement. The long day care system, in particular, outlines quality areas and principles to which other early childhood services, including preschools and kindergartens, would also aspire to.

Each book in the Early Childhood Australia catalogue has been mapped against the Quality Areas for each of the three systems of child care. This means that readers can quickly find resources to support quality practice in regard to the relevant Quality Areas for their sector.