Berry Street Web Docs Berry Street Early Years Plan | Page 3

• Children live in families, and families live in communities.
There are a myriad of ways that we can intervene in a child’s
life course, and community is one important way. The community
has a significant impact on supporting or making more difficult the
task of caregivers. Therefore, strengthening communities and
investment in the early years is important work for Berry Street.
• A wide variety of childrearing environments promote healthy development. Much of this
variability is embedded in different cultural practices and values.
• The negative impact of early childhood deprivation can be ameliorated by effective
interventions in later childhood. However, if change is to occur at a later stage of
development, it is likely to require longer and more intensive work to achieve a smaller
degress of change than would be possible at a younger age. It is never too late to
intervene, but it is never too early either: the earlier in the life course, the better.
• Relationship is the most powerful vehicle for helping children recover from maltreatment
and the effects of trauma and disrupted attachment.
• Early intervention is cost effective: the greatest returns on investment for interventions
are available in the early years. Responding early to problems as they emerge is more
efficient and cost-effective than waiting until they meet particular eligibility criteria for
specialist and intensive treatment.

The Context within which we operate
Berry Street works with families and children across all parts of Victoria within a diversity of
cultural, community and service contexts. Many of the children and young people we work with
have suffered great distress, trauma and significant harm from violence, neglect and abuse
preventing them from having a good childhood.
The evidence that the early years of life are critical to children’s development and future
wellbeing is now compelling. Yet there is also evidence that growing numbers of families lack
the support, resources and capacity to meet the needs of their children. Significant inequities
are emerging in developmental outcomes for young children between different locations,
communities and cultural groups. The access families have to support in raising their
children is anything but equal. In Victoria, there are now pockets of disadvantage where a
disproportionate number of children are not getting the best start in life. For Berry Street, this
is unacceptable.
Encouragingly, all tiers of government recognise the urgent need to reconfigure the services
we provide in order to achieve better outcomes for young children. Early years education and
care and child development feature prominently at the highest level of government.
In July 2009, the Council of Australian Governments, COAG, signed off on “Investing in the
Early Years – A National Early Childhood Development Strategy”.
The strategy commits governments to reforms aimed at securing the health and well-being of
all Australian children by 2020. It acknowledges that children have rights and are beings now,
as children, and not solely as future productive adults, and that investment in the early years
“pays off” for the community and economy in the long term.
Specific areas of reform include:
• A National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children that identifies priorities and
outcomes that will contribute to reducing child abuse and neglect.
• A National Partnership Agreement on early childhood education ($970M over four years)
to achieve universal access for all children to quality early childhood education in the year
before school.