EarlyEd Mobile Early Childhood Education Approach (MECE)
How do we ensure no child misses out on early education experiences from an early age?
The children who need the support the most are often the ones that are not well connected with the services that can support them. They aren’t making referrals for help. They may not even know that their child needs support or where to go. Too often we make families responsible for finding help rather than taking the service to them, making connections ourselves and building trust.
Community based child and family services are already connected with families.
Instead of waiting for families to seek support EarlyEd has developed a place-based early childhood education approach which reaches out to families by going into their communities and connecting with the services and groups they are already connected with. EarlyEd’s Mobile Early Childhood Education approach (MECE) recognises that there are already well established child and family services that have been operating for years and know their communities well. Families trust them and know them. Instead of creating new programs EarlyEd build’s on the strengths of these services.
This approach was developed and implemented under the valuable Start Strong Pathways funding from the Department of Education NSW.
Children with delays in development and disability need support to access early childhood education.
Parents are their child’s first and most important teacher. Children with disabilities and delay need to get support early, with their learning to ensure we give them the same opportunities as other children to learn, be included and make friends. We need parents to know how to support their children. All parents need support but parents of children whose development is of concern need specific support.
The roll out of the National Disability Insurance Scheme saw the supports for children being siloed which particularly led to the loss of collaboration between early childhood education and early childhood intervention. This created gaps in support for families. The Start Strong Pathways funding has enabled EarlyEd to retain collaboration with the local early childhood intervention sector to fill this gap. Families can use these supports to find out
- if their child needs support with their learning
- how to support their early learning and
- how to get help for their child so they can get involved with mainstream formal early education experiences.
If we can capacity build our local community centres to help families know where to go for support and be included in their services we can support long term sustainable changes to the community.
Start Strong
EarlyEd is funded for Start Strong Pathways by the Department of Education as part of their commitment to early childhood education for all children no matter what a child’s circumstances are.
“Community based and not-for-profit services are available to help support the early learning needs of young children by offering families a pathway into early childhood education. These services also help expand a child’s social horizons beyond family and home-based interactions.”
Purpose
“Research shows that children who participate in a quality early childhood education program for at least 600 hours in the year before school are more likely to arrive at school equipped with the social, cognitive and emotional skills they need to engage in learning.”
The benefits endure well beyond primary school. Higher levels of educational attainment, economic participation and family well-being have all been linked to moderate levels of participation in early childhood education.” – NSW Department of Education
Note: Not one of our designated preschools? Other early childhood education services not funded under Start Strong may find there is other funding they can access to obtain support from EarlyEd. Please call us on (02)9923 2727 to discuss training needs.
About “Start Strong Pathways”
1. Purpose
The Start Strong Pathways program will help provide educational supports for young children prior to preschool enrolment, strengthen the engagement of children within these services, and help promote the importance of early childhood education to parents.
2. Objectives
“Start Strong Pathways has three core objectives:
- support educational engagement of children too young to receive a preschool education
- support pathways to preschool
- promote the importance of early childhood education to parents and communities”
