1.1 This engagement
The Department of Education and Training (DET) engaged ACIL Allen Consulting to outline the policy environment for mobilising AEDC data and complementary data across the early life course as part of a comprehensive monitoring system approach.
The engagement involved consultations with senior leaders in the Department of Education and Training to understand the policy context and opportunities for data mobilisation. The second aspect of the engagements was to map the policies of government from infancy to adulthood, in particular the years before school, during school and into early post school years.
1.2 AEDC and comprehensive monitoring
AEDC background
The AEDC is a nationwide data collection of early childhood development at the time children commence their first year of full-time school. The AEDC highlights what is working well and what needs to be improved or developed to support children and their families by providing evidence to support health, education and community policy and planning. The AEDC is collected every three years in schools across Australia, with collections completed in 2009, 2012, 2015, 2018, and a collection to be undertaken in 2021.
DET is supported by the Australian Government to facilitate the collection of AEDC data to achieve a high participation rate. In addition, through its partnership with the Australian Government, Victoria seeks to:
- strengthen awareness of the AEDC among key stakeholders, for example schools, local community organisations, and government agencies
- increase government and community utilisation of the AEDC results in early childhood policy development, service delivery and program management
- support communities with relatively high levels of developmental vulnerability to respond to their AEDC results.
In early 2020, a report was prepared into the utilisation of AEDC among communities, policy makers and research bodies. This work highlighted community interest in working together with policy makers and research groups to use AEDC results to mobilise action that will improve outcomes for children and young people.
Comprehensive monitoring overview
The comprehensive monitoring system seeks to systematically capture and connect knowledge about children and young people’s development at key points in their lives.
The importance for communities is to understand whether children and young people are making positive progress and whether efforts and supports are in place to promote children’s development as they grow up. It recognises that early developmental progress underpins later adolescent development and the important interplay of child development with family and community environments. Further background on the pathway from the AEDC to comprehensive monitoring is provided the From the AEDC to comprehensive monitoring: Brief overview section on this page.
The comprehensive monitoring system includes a suite of eight surveys across developmental time points from infancy to 21 years of age.
The comprehensive monitoring system profiles the development of social and emotional competencies and difficulties over time, as well as the social contexts (family, peer, school, neighbourhoods, communities) that drive these outcomes. The social and emotional wellbeing competencies and difficulties are:
- Physically Well / Healthy Bodies – i.e. physical wellness, sleep, nutrition and exercise
- Self-regulation / Trust in self – i.e. attachment security, relationship quality and support
- Co-regulation / Trust in others – i.e. emotional competence, situation and emotion focused coping skills
- Global citizenship / Sense of meaning – i.e. development of a social and environmental conscience
- Difficulties – i.e. depression/anxiety, conduct and behaviour, substance use (adolescence onwards).
The suite of eight surveys is currently being tested in targeted locations in Victoria from 2020 to 2022 to complement the national AEDC data collection in 2021. The work is being jointly progressed through a collaboration of international and local experts, including
- the Centre for Social and Early Emotional Development (SEED) at Deakin University,
- the Victorian Department of Education and Training, and
- the Human Early Learning Partnership (University of British Columbia, Canada).
From the AEDC to comprehensive monitoring: Brief overview
The earliest form of a comprehensive monitoring system was conceptualised by Dr Clyde Hertzman (Founding Director, Human Early Learning Partnership at the University of British Columbia) in the early 2000s. His vision was to extend and elevate the Canadian Early Development Instrument (the basis for the AEDC) with the addition of a Toddler Development Instrument (TDI, at two years of age) and two Middle Year Development Instruments (MDI, at 10 and 14 years of age). The TDI and MDI have been progressively refined and adapted through consultation and a series of community implementation projects across British Columbia.
In 2015 as part of a larger trans-pacific collaboration, the TDI and MDI were implemented in across five regional and rural local government areas in Victoria, Australia. The MDI was completed in schools across regional and metropolitan Victoria between 2015-2018. Feasibility trials of the Canadian TDI were undertaken with parents and carers of two-year old children cross multiple communities in Maternal and Child Health centres across Victoria between 2015-2019.
These trials were highly successful, with response rates exceeding 90 per cent in many regions, and high community engagement in data collection and usage. As a result, a formal Australian adaptation of the instruments was undertaken to extend their reach to include an infant/family census as well as a late adolescent (18 years) and young adult census (21-24 years), just prior to when parenthood typically commences and thus completing an intergenerational picture.
The Australian adaptation was based on a developmentally sequenced data ontology mirroring that of the Australian Temperament Project (ATP) which is one of Australia’s longest running studies of social and emotional development. Since 1983, the ATP has followed over 2,000 young Australians and their families, from infancy to adulthood, across 15 data collection waves. This data ontology emphasises developmental pathways (positive competences, difficulties) and social climates (family, school, peer, digital, community), based on socioecological theory, social determinants theory, and social capital theory.
Source: Cleary et al, forthcoming
1.3 Project objectives and method
Objectives and scope
The objectives of the engagement are to:
- examine current progress and priorities for mobilising data
- map government policies that support the social and emotional wellbeing competencies of children and young people
- inform DET’s consideration for improving AEDC mobilisation in the future.
Method
The project was undertaken in three stages:
Stage 1: Project mobilisation
An initial meeting was held on project commencement between DET and the project team. This included discussion of the project objectives, scope and expectations, the project methodology and identification of the stakeholders to be consulted.
Stage 2: Data collection and drafting
The main focus of the data collection was to map the policy context for mobilising AEDC data and speak with a small number of senior DET executives to understand the policies and priorities of government.
Stage 3: Final report
At the conclusion of stage 2, a small group discussion was held with DET to test the emerging findings. A draft and final report were prepared.
Source: ACIL Allen, 2021
1.4 Sections of this document
The sections of this document are:
- Chapter 2 Government priorities supporting data mobilisation – presents themes raised through the consultations on the alignment of government policies and priorities with the AEDC and broader data monitoring
- Chapter 3 Policy environment supporting data mobilisation – presents the policy mapping and discusses the coverage of policies across the comprehensive monitoring social and emotional competencies
- Chapter 4 Opportunities – summarises opportunities arising from the analysis.
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