A Strategic Assessment of the Children's Services Industry

STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT OF THE CHILDREN’S SERVICES INDUSTRYbeen consolidated by policy interventions designed to create a coherent and seamlessapproach to children’s early care and education. For example, New Zealand's strategic planfor early childhood education, Pathways to the future: Nga Huarahi Arataki had, as a guidingprinciple, to ‘identify and take into account relationships between government policy in earlychildhood education and other government policy goals, particularly those in education,labour market, health, welfare …’ (Ministry of Education, 2000). One of the ‘on the ground’objectives related to this principle was to ‘improve the development and educationalachievement of children between birth and age eight through forming strong links betweenECE services, parent support and development, schools, health and social services’ (Pathwaysto the Future 2003, np).In 1998, England and Scotland integrated responsibility for all early childhood services withineducation departments (Kamerman, 2005; Moss 2006). Since that time, the UK has invested aconsiderable amount of money into early childhood education and integrated Children’sCentres have been developed. England’s 5-Year Strategy for Children and Learners has setout to consolidate a range of services into Children’s Centres so that early education and childcare, family support, health services, employment advice and specialist support are availableon a single site, as well as working toward the establishment of a Children’s Centre in everycommunity (Glass 2006). A further aim is to integrate child care and what is referred to as‘nursery education’ (DfES 2004). All services for children below school age, as well asschools and care services for school aged children are now the responsibility of one localdepartment, Children’s Services, and one central department, the Department for Children,Schools and Families – an approach first heralded in a Government Green Paper, Every ChildMatters, in 2003 (HM Treasury, 2003).Canada and Australia have released National Agendas for children but these have not directlytackled the systemic divisions in the same way. In 1998 Canada announced a NationalChildren’s Agenda which in 2000 resulted in an extension of parental leave provisions and anEarly Childhood Development Initiatives Agreement (ECDI) with states and provinces. TheECDI agreements provided funding for improvements in the key areas of: a) healthypregnancy, birth and infancy, b) parenting and family support; c) early childhooddevelopment, learning and care, and d) community supports (Colley, 2006).In late 2007, Australia released a National Agenda for Early Childhood (Family andCommunity Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaCSIA), 2007) 2 . Australia’s Agenda isdescribed as ‘a framework for action to promote the positive development of all childrenliving in Australia for birth to age eight’. In a similar fashion to Canada’s ECDI agreements, itidentified four action areas: healthy families; early learning and care; supporting families; andchild friendly communities. Unlike the Canadian Agenda, the Australian Agenda was notconsidered to be a plan of action, rather it was described as a reference document for peopleworking with young children and no funding was attached to the achievement of its outcomes.Nor did it seek to reconfigure the various responsibilities of different levels of governmentand related sectors, although it did advocate joint planning processes. An Indigenous Childcare Plan was released in 2007 (FACSIA 2007a). In line with the National Child care Strategythe Plan recommends ‘an integrated approach to the delivery of child care, health and broaderfamily support services’ (FACSIA 2007a).2The status of the National Agenda is unclear following the change of government.20