Abstract
There is increasing international interest in place-based approaches to improve early childhood development (ECD) outcomes. The available data and evidence are limited and precludes well informed policy and practice change. Developing the evidence-base for community-level effects on ECD is one way to facilitate more informed and targeted community action. This paper presents overall final findings from the Kids in Communities Study (KiCS), an Australian mixed methods investigation into community-level effects on ECD in five domains of influence–physical, social, governance, service, and sociodemographic. Twenty five local communities (suburbs) across Australia were selected based on ‘diagonality type’ i.e. whether they performed better (off-diagonal positive), worse (off-diagonal negative), or ‘as expected’ (on-diagonal) on the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) relative to their socioeconomic profile. The approach was designed to determine replicable and modifiable factors that were separate to socioeconomic status. Between 2015–2017, stakeholder interviews (n = 146), parent and service provider focus groups (n = 51), and existing socio-economic and early childhood education and care administrative data were collected. Qualitative and quantitative data analyses were undertaken to understand differences between 14 paired disadvantaged local communities (i.e. on versus off-diagonal). Further analysis of qualitative data elicited important factors for all 25 local communities. From this, we developed a draft set of ‘Foundational Community Factors’ (FCFs); these are the factors that lay the foundations of a good community for young children.
Highlights
Healthy early child development (ECD) is the foundation for human capital and the basis for future community and economic development [1]
This paper presents our overall results for Kids in Communities Study (KiCS), including the foundational community factors for early childhood development (ECD) (FCFS); the factors that lay the foundations of a good community for young children
From qualitative and quantitative findings, we developed a draft set of Foundational Community Factors’ (FCFs), the factors that lay the foundations for creating better communities for ECD [32]
Summary
Healthy early child development (ECD) is the foundation for human capital and the basis for future community and economic development [1]. A large and growing body of research emphasises the importance of the prenatal and early years (0–8 years) for health and developmental outcomes throughout the life course [2]. The environments in which children are exposed (e.g. their family, the community or neighbourhood in which they live, and local, state and federal government policies) influence their health and development; commonly referred to as the ecology of childhood [5]. Aside from genetic and biological influences, previous research has focused on more proximal family determinants of ECD [6] such as socio-demographics of the family, parental mental health, exposure to family violence and parenting styles [7]. There is increasing interest and research into the effects of the neighbourhood or community environments on early childhood health and development [8,9,10].
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