Foundational Community Factors (FCFs) for Early Childhood Development: A report on the Kids in Communities Study (KiCS report), April 2018

The Kids in Communities Study (KiCS) is a national investigation of community-level factors that make a difference for young children’s development in 25 areas of advantage and disadvantage across five states and territories in Australia: VIC, NSW, QLD, SA, and the ACT. This project is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage collaboration of academic experts from six Australian universities, three international universities and policymakers and child development professionals from 17 government and non-government partner organisations.

KiCS’ communities were selected based on the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) and the socio-economic status of the area. For example, the AEDC shows that there were children who lived in areas of relative socio-economic disadvantage, but had better developmental outcomes than would have been predicted. The opposite was also true. This told the KiCS team that good early childhood development was more complex than just how socio-economically advantaged a community is.

Community factors in five community domains were investigated using a rigorous mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) approach in each community:

  1. physical environment e.g. parks and housing density;
  2. service environment e.g. service quality and coordination; 
  3. social environment e.g. social capital and sense of community; 
  4. governance environment e.g. civic participation and ability to have a say; and
  5. socioeconomic environment e.g. income and cultural diversity.

From the ARC-funded project, the Department of Social Services (DSS) provided further funding to develop evidence-based draft community-level Foundational Community Factors (FCFs) for early childhood development (ECD). These are factors that lay the foundations of a good community for young children.

KiCS report

The April 2018 KiCS report has a list of evidence-based promising (draft) foundational community factors (FCFs) for early childhood development (ECD), based on findings from KiCS. Access the KiCS report here to find out more: www.mcri.edu.au/kics

KiCS draft community manual

The ‘how-to’ of collecting the FCFs are outlined in a draft manual. It provides details on the measures and methods used to collect the FCFs. The KiCS team are interested in learning whether communities can use this manual for place-based efforts.

If you’re interested in partnering with the KiCS team, or learning more about the report and/or draft manual, please go to:

Website: www.mcri.edu.au/kics

Contact: kics.study@mcri.edu.au

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