CoLab: The Australian Declaration for Young Children

Investigators: David Ansell, Helen Monks, Jean Perkins, Samantha Veurink

Partner: Minderoo Foundation

Early childhood development and learning is a broad-ranging and complex field. It is therefore critical that we are all clear about what is known and can be trusted as good quality evidence to underpin policy and practice. Accordingly, the Australian Declaration for Young Children outlines a series of key considerations and recommended actions to advance the agenda for early childhood policy and practice.

With more than 100 leading Australian stakeholders with recognised expertise in early childhood development and education being invited to contribute to the development of the Declaration. A specialised research technique called the Delphi Process was used by CoLab to engage these stakeholders in a consensus process to collate and consolidate key research findings and recommended actions. Overall, 78 stakeholders contributed to the content of the Declaration and CoLab was able to establish broad agreement and expert validation on the key understandings and critical actions.

The outcome of this process is The Australian Declaration for Young Children which pledges a long term commitment to significantly improve young children’s development and learning by jointly advancing the agenda for early childhood policy and practice, particularly for families experiencing adversity.