There’s nothing quite like a Facebook memory to get you thinking about how much has changed since you shared those thoughts with the world.
Last week Facebook reminded me that it had been six years since I was featured in the Sydney Morning Herald for starting a business because the 2018 child care subsidy changes (CCS) were not going to benefit my family.
Reflecting on the article, I wondered whether reforms in the early childhood space over the past six years have, in fact, benefited other families, or simply embedded more disadvantage for some of our most marginalised children.
Although last year’s CCS changes improved access for some families with low incomes, and for those wanting to enrol their child for extra days in the week, some of my friends have shared stories about how barriers still exist that prevent their child from accessing high quality early childhood education and care (ECEC).
As we await the implementation of the Productivity Commission report into ECEC; the ACCC Childcare inquiry; the Early Years Strategy; the NDIS review; the In Home Care review; and the promised increase to early childhood wages (great initiatives that are still sitting on the starting blocks), I decided to look at how children in varying circumstances are adversely impacted by the current system.
The children with disability
Johan has global developmental delay, which includes speech and language delay. His parents have taken 12 months to find a preschool that is willing to take Johan’s enrolment, but they will only do so if Johan has a dedicated support person when he attends preschool. The state funded inclusion program will not provide Johan with an inclusion support worker, instead allowing the service to supplement their team with an additional educator to meet the needs of the whole class. Johan’s parents have an NDIS plan, but their plan manager won’t allow them to use the budget towards an additional educator because the state funding exists.
For children with an NDIS plan, their ability to transfer the use of their budget to participate in mainstream ECEC is limited. When my former service offered early intervention supports for children in long day care or preschool settings, we often had to argue with a child’s support coordinator or plan manager about allocating funds in this way. They would push back on the fact that a child’s NDIS budget could not be used for formal education and that other Government funded schemes were available to the child.
In this case, Johan’s parents are stuck between state and federal funding schemes, neither of which entirely meet their child’s needs.
The recent NDIS review recommended “creating a connected system of support including accessible and inclusive mainstream services, more foundational supports and individual funding available through the NDIS”. While this has been welcomed by the sector, there is no detail around how this will be funded, where the skilled workforce will come from, and what a transition program will look like for children currently unable to access mainstream services.
The children living with domestic violence
Mariana’s husband does not allow her to work, he controls all their finances, and expects her to stay home and look after their three children. Mariana is regularly subjected to physical and verbal abuse, however she is from the Philippines and has no friends or family in Australia so feels she cannot leave the relationship. Mariana does not meet the activity test for CCS and, as her husband runs his own business, they are over the income threshold. Mariana’s husband sees no point in paying full fees to send their children to an early learning service when she can stay home and look after them.
Children living with domestic violence are some of our most vulnerable, shrouded in secrecy within the four walls of their own home and unable to be seen by the broader community, who may in fact be able to keep those children safe and meet their emotional needs.
In this case, the system is preventing the children from attending affordable early education, which would include access to safe spaces and the opportunity for the children to build consistent attachments to adults outside their home, a factor proven to reduce the long term impact of adverse childhood experiences such as domestic violence.
The Productivity Commission draft report notes that many safe houses use occasional care entitlements to ensure these children can access ECEC. But this is after the crisis has occurred. These children are just as, if not more, deserving of access to early learning outside their home to give them the chance to engage in quality education and protect them from trauma.
The regional children
Sayeed and Abiola live in a regional town and both have full time jobs. Their out of pocket expenses for access to 50 hours of ECEC would take up around 15 per cent of their wage, but they are happy to cover the cost so they can both work. The problem is that Abiola cannot return to her full time job because there are no places for their 10 month old daughter at any ECEC services near her. To gain access to in home care, she would need to prove that there are no services within a 30km radius of her home (which used to be 50kms but thanks to some advocacy I was involved in this was marginally reduced) and then hope that the dwindling number of services that offer in home childcare, due to continued disregard for this sub-sector over the years, actually have an educator available.
For long day care services, the cost of delivering services to babies is not as affordable as supporting toddlers and preschoolers. Whilst this is for good reason, which is to maintain effective supervision with smaller ratios, it means that services favour giving places to older children to make their service financially viable.
Further, the lack of workforce in the regions continues to decline with no real solution in sight. Despite the Government announcing that it would support an increase to wages for the early childhood workforce, the lack of detail and timing of such changes means that any real growth or retention of the workforce is even further delayed.
In May this year, the Parenthood released a joint statement on this issue, along with 52 like-minded stakeholders, noting that “[u]niversal access should mean that every child is entitled to an affordable, high quality, nurturing and culturally-safe place in an early learning centre in their community – or equivalent – regardless of their postcode”. Although the federal Government has agreed, in principle, to universal access, we are yet to hear about a clear timeline or pathway to making that a reality.
The job-hunting family
Juliette was made redundant a few months ago and has actively been looking for work since that time. Her level of seniority means it can take time to find the right role, but until she does, she is only entitled to 16 hours of Commonwealth subsidised care per fortnight for her child who is under 3 years old. Depending on the state or territory she lives in, she may have access to two to three days of free preschool for her child who is over 3.
If she decides to continue her children’s enrolment in a Commonwealth subsidised service, where they have likely built connections to other children and educators, she would need to pay full fees for any hours that she uses over and above the 16 hours per fortnight. In other words, her children are only entitled to less than one day of Commonwealth subsidised care simply because she is in between jobs. If Juliette chooses to reduce her hours to those covered by CCS, she would then need to wait for increased hours once she finds a job.
Many groups have called for an abolition of the activity test, which has been supported by the Productivity Commission in their draft report, which recommended that “[t]he CCS activity test should be relaxed so that it is not a barrier for any family wishing to access up to 30 hours or three days a week of ECEC services”.
The government’s focus on workforce participation fails to take into account the disruption to children, which is likely to be a stressful transition period for a family, let alone the stress of having to give up a very precious place at a long day care service only to go back on a waitlist.
What’s next?
The spotlight on the early childhood sector over the last few years was warmly welcomed by advocates, including myself. However, concrete action and timelines are needed to ensure that the various findings, recommendations, and “announceables” actually make their way into policy and law.
Until real change is implemented, more children and their families will continue to miss out on access to quality early childhood education and care, which we know provides long term benefits for not just the child but for our community as a whole.
With an election looming, let’s hope we see some actionable policies and dates when change will occur, not just empty promises that result in costly inquiries and lengthy reports.