2020 Unleashed - Childcare
The Prime Minister's suggestion for early childhood centres is excellent and long overdue.
Research clearly points to the need to invest heavily in early childhood and, unfortunately, Australia is incredibly low on the oeCD rankings for what it spends in this field.
It's right that we consider this a national "future" problem for discussion at the 2020 summit because if we want social inclusion and a successfully educated population - which in turn will provide a successful economy, arts, sports and scientific sectors - we need to make sure our children get the best start in life.
But research suggests that childhood centres will not be enough on their own. So what else is needed?
Firstly, forget about starting the focus at birth - we need to start pre-birth with mums and dads-to-be.
What happens during pregnancy has a significant impact on the future of our children. Too many children today are damaged during pregnancy. We need to support soon-to-be mums and dads to ensure that pregnancies and newborn children are as healthy as possible.
Secondly, the most important thing in a child's life is not clever programming or medical experts but a loving bond with a parent. Being one of only two western nations that does not have a strategy around paid maternity leave, we are denying many parents the opportunity to bond as well as they want with their children.
Equally we need to create an environment where - after paid maternity leave - parents can afford to spend healthy amounts of time with their children throughout their early years.
There is some evidence that 20 hours a week is a good balance for a child to be in child care. If we place our children in child care for longer than that we risk the loving bond between parent and child and no amount of support will make up for it.
We know that the one thing parents long for most is to be able to spend more time with their children.
This is especially in young working families where finances are under pressure and parents often have to work long hours just to keep the household going.
Somehow we need to remove this financial pressure and create an environment to ensure that the most important aspect of early childhood - that bond between parent and child - is given the chance to flourish.
Thirdly, Mission Australia and its research partner Griffith University - along with research available from the UK and the US - have clearly shown that while universal early childhood programs are vital they will not on their own provide the necessary support needed by disadvantaged families in our community.
That's because the most disadvantaged groups in our society often don't access mainstream services like those recommended by the Prime Minister. Given this, we need to develop other ways of connecting with them to make his model work.
A good example of how this can be done is Mission Australia's Pathways program which has been achieving great results among low-income families and communities in Brisbane, Sydney, Perth and Melbourne over several years. It's been shown to improve child communication and language skills, reduce difficult behaviour and strengthen family connectedness.
One of the key factors in its success is the availability of outreach teams that can create effective connections with families and communities. Without them, those families most in need will miss out.
Added to this, our evidence clearly shows that a child's education and development can be significantly improved by providing broader support to the family through programs which develop parenting and relationship skills, financial skills and anger management.
Finally, we need to remember that while investment in early childhood is extremely important, life's not over by the age of five.
We can't focus all our efforts on the pre-school years, they need to be available throughout a child's entire development.
As the Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman stated:"Early investments (in childhood) not followed up by later investments (throughout middle childhood and adolescence) are not productive."
Parenting is challenging for all of us, but it's particularly tough if a family is experiencing long-term poverty, unemployment, mental illness, etc.
The good news is that evidence shows that for every dollar we spend on early childhood, we save our community $17 in terms of spending on welfare, justice and health services down the track.
But those savings pale into insignificance when we consider the human gains that are to be made by transforming families and re-building those disadvantaged communities that have languished for decades - if we can get the model right.