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The Early Childhood Development program seeks to improve learning and development outcomes for Australian children (aged 0-8 years) by supporting targeted and universal programs.

The early years are a critical period for brain development. During that time children learn social, interpersonal, and cognitive skills that help them lead healthy, happy lives and participate in learning and work. Each year one in five Australian children start school developmentally vulnerable. For children who do not receive early childhood education and care (ECEC) it’s two in five. Once children start school behind it is difficult for them to catch up.

Early interventions are both cost-effective in that they reduce long-term costs to society, have the benefit of early mitigation of problems that can cause significant lifelong anguish and enhance the chances of children thriving throughout their lives.

Program Objectives:

• To support innovative projects that target vulnerable communities that seek to improve child development outcomes and have potential for scale.
• To scale and consolidate successful evidence programs to a point of sustainability.
• To support initiatives that seek to better integrate fractured services/systems in early childhood, improve access to and quality of ECEC and/or strengthen the ECEC workforce.
• To develop shared measurement tools and or resources for the early childhood sector.

• To evaluate large scale interventions (particularly randomised control trials) that contribute to enhancing the evidence base for early years intervention.

The Foundation has a particular interest in programs that recognise and foster parental engagement in their children’s learning and development and prioritise support for programs that engage with or target parents.