Leading with purpose: Sam Page on child safety, quality and the future of early learning

As CEO of Early Childhood Australia (ECA), Sam Page has long been recognised as an influential voice in early childhood education and care. Ms Page is a strong advocate for the rights of children, the importance of high-quality early learning, and the central role of educators in building a safer, more equitable future.

 

Ahead of the 2025 ECA National Conference, The Sector sat down with Ms Page to explore her perspectives on child safety, quality, and education and how the sector can rise to meet the challenges of today while preparing for the opportunities of tomorrow.

 

ECA’s role and advocacy

 

Fiona: ECA has been a leading voice in shaping policy and practice in early childhood education for decades. From your perspective, what role does ECA play in driving national conversations on quality and child safety?

 

Sam: Advocacy for the rights of young children and the importance of high quality early childhood education and care are part of the DNA of ECA, they form the basis of the objectives in our constitution.  When ECA started back in 1938 the purpose was to engage with the Federal Government on early childhood education and care policy and to support the early childhood profession. I feel very privileged to lead a team of people that combine expertise in practice, research and policy and to draw on the wisdom of our members nationally to do this work. I see our role as being a trusted voice, informed by evidence and practice, focused on the best interests of children.

 

Fiona: As the CEO of a not-for-profit, how do you balance advocacy for children and families with the realities of a complex, evolving education and care system?

 

Sam: We have to be pragmatic and work with the system we have but remain ambitious for the future.  I am really excited about the Federal Government’s commitment to creating a universal system that can provide every child with an entitlement to at least 3 days of high quality early childhood education and care. It is also good to see State and Territory Governments expanding their preschool/kindergarten programs.  What we need now is system stewardship and sophisticated policy analysis on the interaction between policy decisions and changes to programs to make sure that the future system can deliver on equity of access and inclusive, culturally responsive practice. We are cognisant also of the importance of the early childhood professional workforce now and into the universal system for every child and family.

 

Child safety and wellbeing

 

Fiona: Child safety remains a critical priority across the sector. What do you see as the key elements of building and maintaining safe learning environments for children?

 

Sam:  The key to safe learning environments is in the education team – experienced, competent and stable teams working together collaboratively, communicating all the time as they engage in the active, dynamic supervision of children. Where quality and safety breaches have occurred there are a combination of contributing factors but the most significant is underresourcing and a lack of investment in capability.  ECA is committed in its advocacy to building quality across the many different provider and service types where children and their families attend every day. Children’s safety and effective safeguarding is everyone’s business. 

 

Fiona: How can services strengthen their safeguarding practices in line with both the National Quality Framework and the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations, while ensuring these approaches remain practical and not overwhelming for educators and leaders?”

 

Sam: There are resources available to help educators understand and apply the Child Safe Standards and to strengthen safeguarding in ways that build on the foundations of good practice. We hope to see more public investment in sector-led resource development and professional support because it is critical to have a good working understanding of ECEC practice in order to support professional learning. ECA and others have been particularly focused on resources for service managers and leaders.  I worry that they are bearing the brunt of the family anxiety as well as trying to support teams who might be feeling professional grief and anger over system failures, as well as their own sense of responsibility for child safety – we want them to know we have their back and we are here to support them through current challenges. 

 

Fiona:What role do you believe educators play in embedding a culture of safety and trust in their day-to-day work with children and families?

 

Sam: It is all about relationships – relationships of trust with families, responsive and attentive relationships with children as well as the dynamic relationships across the team, constant communication about what they are doing and where they are going so everyone knows what’s happening.  It is also important that teams have a culture of safety – supporting each other to be diligent, to report any concerns or red flags and to provide no opportunity for harm to occur to children.  Perpetrators who set out to harm children can seem very nice, kind and genuine – they want to be trusted and to have opportunities to isolate or groom children – it is important not to allow that opportunity and for everyone to understand that safeguards are in place for good reason. Continued vigilance is important – ensuring children’s safety is every day, no matter where we work in the sector. By prioritising children’s safety, their rights and best interests in our conversations and all that we do, we work against where complacency may set in and more deeply embed a culture of safety and trust for children and families. 

 

Quality and equity

 

Fiona:The National Quality Standards have been a cornerstone of the sector for more than a decade. Looking ahead, how do you see quality evolving in early learning and care?

 

Sam: The National Quality Standard has served us well and the sector is right to be proud of it, that said, I think there are a few ways that it could evolve.  We should require more from approved providers including having early childhood expertise on governing bodies and senior executive teams to ensure that every decision includes attention to children’s interests. Furthermore, I think we can strengthen the standard in areas such as inclusive practice and holding services accountable for being inclusive and reflecting the diversity of their community.  We could also put caps on the amount of profit or surplus that can be directed away from service delivery (including excessive rent or payments to landlords and schools). We should also mandate employment practices, such as reporting questionable conduct, that safeguard children across the sector not just within one context or employer.The use of technology warrants further attention both as a pedagogical tool and as a mechanism for monitoring quality.  In the future I think quality monitoring should be more of a continuous process, rather than a point in time assessment and we should include the perspective of children and families when assessing how a service is performing.     

 

Fiona: ECA has consistently highlighted the importance of access and equity. How can the sector ensure that children from all backgrounds, including those experiencing vulnerability or disadvantage benefit from high-quality early education?

 

Sam: I think we need to take a systems approach, most communities need an eco-system of early childhood programs, playgroups and sessional preschool might be available through stand alone services or embedded within long day care or schools, flexible options might be provided through home based models such as family day care or in-home care or online with a teacher guiding a home tutor, long day care and outside school hours care are essential for working families. We need a mechanism of managing supply to ensure that the mix of options provided are appropriate and enable access for every child and family.  We also need mechanisms to address barriers such as transport, cultural and linguistic diversity and the capacity to accommodate children with diverse or additional needs. This might be through funding levers and system support (e.g. inclusion support), it may also require additional roles across the system – family support, allied health, system navigators – depending on the characteristics of the community and the cohorts of children that may be at risk of missing out.  Essentially we need to bake inclusion into the system not treat it as an add on. 

 

Fiona: What are the most pressing challenges and opportunities you see for maintaining and improving quality at a national level?

 

Sam:  It’s the system stewardship piece – who is ultimately responsible for ensuring that there are the right services available to families where and when they need them and that the system overall can deliver on access and inclusion. This is behind the growing consensus on the need for an ECEC Commission, the need for a steward to design and manage a systems approach which is a big shift from the market approach we have had.  

 

Investment in our professional workforce is completely essential.  It underpins so much of ECA’s advocacy.  The work of expert early childhood professionals is highly sophisticated as they support and enable children’s learning, development and wellbeing in quality early childhood settings.  

 

We know that because of inconsistency in pay, conditions, professional recognition and career progression compared with other parts of the education sector, that recruitment and retention of the early childhood workforce is an ongoing challenge; and that churn works against consistency and quality.  ECA sees investment and acknowledgement of the importance of the early childhood professional workforce as completely necessary if we are to see an uplift in quality nationally. Systematically addressing where training and professional learning needs exist also must be a priority.

 

Workforce and leadership

 

Fiona: High-quality education is inseparable from the skills, wellbeing and support of the workforce. What needs to happen at a policy and practice level to strengthen the profession and attract more people into early childhood roles?

 

Sam: ECA did an exit study a few years ago asking people who left the sector why they left – unreasonable job demands, poorly functioning teams and inadequate pay for the amount of stress were the three main reasons. We need to address all of these collectively as a sector to build the profession we need for the future. We must change the narrative – early childhood education needs to be seen as a respected and desirable professional career option. We need to address current issues of quality and safety so that we can tell a more positive story about the joy of teaching and learning with young children and the pathways into high quality jobs that this sector can provide. Wages are an important part of this, we must lift the rates of pay to a professional level and achieve parity with other teacher and educator roles. Beyond wages we need to focus on quality jobs – manageable workloads, adequate time for non-contact tasks, regular and high quality professional learning opportunities as well as highly functioning teams. 

 

Fiona:How can centre leaders and approved providers create cultures that not only support compliance but also nurture innovation and professional growth?

 

Sam: I think the most important thing they can do is invest in the education team. Most educators want to do the work well, they need reasonable workloads, a supportive team environment and time to learn the skills they need.  A culture of communication and learning is really important – constant sharing of ideas, feedback and opportunities for improvement. A mix of really good professional learning options is also important, publications, on-demand learning, events and conferences, these all help to build a sense of professional identity, competence and belonging. It is also important to have reasonable expectations – very few people are born with the natural skills to be talented educators and leaders, these are skills they need to learn. We should welcome and support people at the beginning of their career and build them up into the professionals they have the potential to be. This requires long-term investment in training, support, supervision and mentoring and while not everyone may stay in the sector, those that do will be highly effective and enjoy professional growth that deepens and embeds their knowledge and expertise. 

 

Looking ahead

 

Fiona: With the ECA National Conference bringing together educators, leaders, researchers and policymakers, what message do you most want delegates to take away from the conference?

 

Sam: Early childhood educators, teachers and service leaders have the knowledge, ability and commitment to deliver high quality services to young children and families. Policy makers need to understand what it takes to deliver universal high quality and drive investment in that. Researchers need to help inform those policy decisions. Advocates need to amplify the voice of children and families as well as educators and sector leaders. The conference is a great opportunity to do all of this – it is also a time to reconnect with our collective purpose, regroup as a profession and build forward.  

 

Fiona:If you could leave the sector with one call to action on child safety, quality and education, what would it be?

 

Sam: The foundations of good practice are to be found in the EYLF, the NQS and the Code of Ethics – go back to those foundations and build the team you need to deliver on quality, that team will deliver on safety because they are focused on the best interests of every child.  This is an incredible profession, that does incredibly important work, so often quietly and humbly.  ECA sees you, your ongoing commitment, and your professionalism.  We will continue to champion the importance of early childhood.  We are grateful to early childhood colleagues from across the sector who generously share stories of the quality work that they do; platforming also this brilliant profession that contributes so much to the lives of young children, their families and communities.

 

The 2025 ECA National Conference will be held from 1–4 October, providing a national platform for collaboration, reflection and leadership across the early learning sector.

 

The Sector thanks Sam Page for sharing her insights and continuing to champion the rights of children, the professionalism of educators and the central importance of high-quality early childhood education and care.

 

For more information and to register, visit https://www.ecaconference.com.au/2025/