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The Children’s Collective launches in WA – unique collaboration for broad scale impact
Freya Lucas
Nov 15, 2019
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An exciting new early years collective, comprised of leading organisations in Western Australia, working in partnership with WA Government Departments was launched earlier this week.
The Children’s Collective has a focus on early intervention initiatives, to improve long term outcomes for children, particularly those in regional and remote WA.With its origins stemming from a commitment from WA early childhood education and care (ECEC) and leaders, and others interested in the health, welfare, and wellbeing of WA’s children, to 'put their logos aside' and genuinely collaborate to focus on creating ‘a brighter future’ for all children of WA, the idea for the group was born at a VIP roundtable pre-conference event was held to bring together key early childhood CEOs and government leaders held prior to the biennial Child Australia Early Childhood Learning & Development Conference.
Spokesperson for the Collective, and CEO of Child Australia, Tina Holtom stated, “The WA early childhood sector needs to come together if we want to genuinely create change for our children. We need to work outside of traditional boundaries, across government departments, agencies, and organisations, to piece together what is needed if we want to be serious about improving developmental outcomes for children.”
Ms Holtom added that while talk of “the village” needed to raise children was all well and good, what was required most from leaders in this space is responsiveness, kindness and inclusiveness of a diverse early childhood community, whilst embracing genuine partnerships.
A working group for one of the core projects of the Collective is being led by Todd Dawson, State Manager of Goodstart Early Learning WA, who is exploring supporting parents with the Home Learning Environment.
Mr Dawson spoke about the “noise” surrounding parents, which makes it difficult for them to know who to turn to for trusted, respected guidance.
“Our aim is to demystify and support families as best we can by cutting through the noise and providing quality recommendations that support great outcomes for all children,” he said.
The Children’s Collective initiative has endorsed several parenting support sites including the latest parenting app release from CoLab, (an initiative between Telethon Kids Institute and Minderoo Foundation).
The Children’s Collective will look to creative, innovative ways of reaching more children throughout WA, especially in the regions and very remote areas of the State.
“We need to take a coordinated approach and upscale initiatives that we know will get results and reach every child. At a very minimum we must challenge the status quo and focus on prevention rather than cure. If we are proactive in supporting the child in their early years, we can truly prevent the need for intervention in the latter years.” Mrs Holtom said.
The Children’s Collective will launch their website in coming weeks and registrations of interest can be made at www.childrenscollective.org.au. A Facebook page for the Collective can be found here.
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