Share your story

Integrated approaches to supporting children and families are increasingly being recognised around the world as a way to improve the health, wellbeing and learning for children and families. In Australia, the National Early Childhood Development (ECD) Strategy aims to improve families‟ access to services and programs by providing a system where services are integrated and interdisciplinary. The strategy calls for the ECD workforce (i.e., across health,family services, education and care) to work together to engage with children and families. Among other things, this challenges workers and organisations to build the necessary skills and knowledge to work in integrated ways. With the rise in integrated working, there is an opportunity to share stories (or case studies) that describe successful partnerships. This allows others to hear positive stories about what is working well, and to be inspired about what can be achieved. During 2012, the South Australian Department for Education and Child Development sought stories of integrated working in early childhood development from around Australia. The result includes this collation of stories which focus on integrated and collaborative work in early childhood development. Some of these stories have been directly submitted by organisations wanting to share their successes and achievements and others have been collated from previous case study research on collaborative practice and integrated programmes.