Early childhood services and support for vulnerable families: lessons from the Benevolent Society's Partnerships in Early Childhood program

Access to early childhood services is widely considered to be an important means of supporting vulnerable children and families. Yet the evidence that access to such services automatically makes a difference for vulnerable families is mixed at best. The growing presence of for‐profit early childhood services may have an impact on the sector's capacity to provide the enhanced education and care to those most likely to benefit. What are the current and future possibilities for early childhood services to benefit vulnerable children and families? What resources are required to build the capacity of early childhood settings in supporting vulnerable families, and are these likely to differ between for‐profit and not‐for‐profit settings? This paper will explore these questions using a Benevolent Society project, Partnerships in Early Childhood, funded through the Commonwealth's Stronger Families and Communities Strategy, Invest to Grow, as an illustrative case study. Researchers from the Social Policy Research Centre evaluated the first three years of the project, which involves a number of not‐for‐profit early education and care providers. The paper describes the implementation of PIEC as an attempt to improve the quality of early education and care services to vulnerable children, and lessons that can be drawn for the future of similar interventions. We conclude that time, support for staff and partnerships between different organisations appear to be critical for the success of these interventions, and that the capacity of for‐profit services to provide these resources deserves attention.