Early child development

In their early years, children need nurturing, support and the opportunity to try new learning experiences. Without these opportunities, children's life life-long health, education, economic and social prospects can be disadvantaged.

The Queensland Government's priorities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are to:

• improve child and maternal health care
• support good parenting
• strengthen early childhood education and care

Targets, strategies and progress measures

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) and the Queensland Government have set targets to improve the early childhood development of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

Council of Australian Governments (COAG) targets

• halve the gap in mortality rates for Indigenous children under 5-years-old within a decade
• ensure all Indigenous 4-year-olds in remote communities have access to early childhood education within 5 years
• halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievements for Indigenous children within a decade

Q2 (Tomorrow's Queensland) targets

• all children will have access to a quality early childhood education so they're ready for school

Progress against these targets will be measured using the following:

Progress measures

• perinatal mortality
• childhood mortality (0-4 years)
• low birth weight
• participation in early childhood education

Strategic directions

The Queensland Government's actions and projects will support the following strategies:

• improve sexual and reproductive health, especially of young women
• improve access to health services for Indigenous children and mothers
• ensure greater access to early childhood education services
• encourage family participation in learning about health and development in their child's early years
• increase access to universal early childhood health and development services
• ensure all services are delivered in an integrated, culturally competent way

More information

Download details about the Queensland Government's actions to improve early childhood development for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children:

• Closing the Gap Report: early childhood development section (PDF 465 kB)
• Closing the Gap Report: Full report (Word 754 kB)

Related information

• quarterly reports on key indicators in Queensland's discrete Indigenous communities

Other sites

• Closing the Gap clearinghouse: evidence based research

Last reviewed: 12 November 2009

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