The first five years of a child’s life is a time of rapid development that lays the foundations for health and wellbeing later in life. During this time, children must be nurtured, supported and protected to ensure they grow up happy, healthy and thriving. 

Unfortunately, not every child in Australia is getting the support they need. Significant inequalities – both in developmental and educational outcomes – exist between children experiencing socio-economic vulnerability and their peers. 

In Australia, Integrated Child and Family Centres (ICFCs) have the potential to meet many of the needs of children and families experiencing socio-economic vulnerability. Offering a unique set of wrap-around supports that are responsive to the needs of children and their families, they are a safe space to build social networks. Equally important, they also provide a range of crucial services: early learning programs, maternal and child health, and other targeted supports. With the right approach, ICFCs can help fill a major gap in the current early years landscape. 

Over the past few years, Social Ventures Australia (SVA) have been exploring how the current system could better respond to the unmet need of children and families experiencing disadvantage across Australia.  

This year, together with our partners, we are exploring ways to increase the impact of integrated early years supports in shaping happy, healthy and thriving children. 

Together with the Centre for Community Child Health (CCCH) at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI), we hosted a hybrid event with Deloitte Access Economics to launch two exciting new papers exploring the critical role of ICFCs, the key enablers to increase their impact and pathways to scale up and better embed them into Australia’s early years policy and service system. Our panel of sector leaders included:  

  • Tim Moore, Senior Research Fellow, CCCH, MCRI
  • Caitlin Graham, Policy and Program Manager, Early Childhood, SVA
  • Cassy Bishop, Manager, Cairns & Gordonvale Early Years Centres, The Benevolent Society
  • Lachlan Smirl, Partner, Deloitte Access Economics
Children and families benefit most from ICFCs where the staff come from multiple disciplines and have a clear understanding of, and commitment to, transdisciplinary, wrap around support along the whole service model continuum, from universal support to targeted support.” Cassy Bishop • Manager, Cairns & Gordonvale Early Years Centres. The Benevolent Society
Paper one: Happy, healthy and thriving children: Enhancing the impact of Integrated Child and Family Centres in Australia

In this paper we closely examine a number of Australia’s major ICFC models. We explore the operational, policy and funding structures that are needed to best support outcomes for children and families experiencing socio-economic disadvantage. This paper aims to inform strategies to both strengthen the impact of ICFCs and scale their operations to ensure the children who would benefit most are able to access them.

Report brief Full paper
Paper two: Exploring need and funding models for a national approach to Integrated Child and Family Centres

Together with CCCH at MCRI, we commissioned Deloitte Access Economics to prepare a report that explores a national approach to scaling ICFCs. This report identifies a significant number of children who are experiencing hardship and living in communities with high levels of disadvantage who don’t have access to an ICFC. The paper explores where this need is situated and how it interacts with the existing supply of ICFCs. It unpacks options for how ICFCs could be funded under a national approach and options for how to scale and embed ICFCs within the national early years system.

Report brief Full paper
Watch the event recording

Meet the team