Best Start Project Sites

Existing sites

The demonstration sites came together with local groups of parents, Health and Education, Early Years Providers and Community Leaders joining together to form local partnerships to steer the development of Best Start activity that trailed and evaluated new ways of connecting early childhood , social health and education services to maximise child development opportunities.

These projects were due to be completed during 2006 and have now been extended. They have been allocated $40,000 recurrently to maintain facilitation of the partnerships and build on the work undertaken in each site. These partnerships will continue to develop and build on:

• The shared vision to work together.
• Building Strong cross-sectoral local partnerships.
• Providing better access to quality learning and development programs.
• Developing a wider range of supports for parents including vulnerable families.
• Providing more coordinated and conveniently located children’s and family’s services.
• Furthering the opportunities for involvement for parents and communities.

The Breaking Cycles Building Futures research project, funded by the Premiers’ Drug Prevention Council, was undertaken to identify barriers to service inclusion. The final report identifies a model for improving access to services and strategies to promote more inclusive antenatal and universal early years services that better engage and assist vulnerable families.

To make a lasting difference, Best Start projects must fit strategically into the wider landscape of services for young children and their families. A crucial component of local planning is to use other local activity that will add strength to the Best Start partnership and avoid duplication of effort. This means using and building upon existing services and developing coordinated and integrated approaches with other relevant initiatives.

See the links on the right hand side to find out more about existing Best Start projects.