Reducing Inequalities by Investing in Early Childhood Education and Care

This final chapter discusses how early childhood policies and services can be better co-ordinated to support all children in their early years. It builds on the models of integrated and co-ordinated policies and services (described in Chapter 4) and on evidence throughout this report highlighting the benefits of effective co-ordination. Successful implementation of integrated or co-ordinated service models can offer a range of benefits for children and their families, as well as for service providers. Yet, rigorous evidence of the impact of these service models is difficult to attain due to the multiple mechanisms through which these programmes work. Nonetheless, findings from around the world suggest that links between educational, health and social services can enhance how quickly and efficiently families receive services, promoting equity and inclusion for young children across a range of outcomes (Barnes et al., 2018[1]); (Morrison et al., 2022[2]; Moore, 2021[3]; Wolfe et al., 2020[4]).

This chapter addresses the following overarching questions:

• What conditions can enable success in different types of alignment, co-ordination and integration of early childhood services?

• What are examples of policy approaches that aim to promote co-ordination across sectors and services relevant to early childhood?

• What can policymakers do to support long-lasting effects of ECEC through better system and service co-ordination?

This chapter draws heavily on discussions through meetings and workshops conducted as part of the project “Translating Research into Policies for Quality and Inclusive Early Childhood Education and Care” (see Chapter 2), and particularly the project’s third workshop (see Annex A, Workshop 3). To answer the overarching questions, it first identifies features of co-ordinated services that can promote success for these initiatives, as well as barriers to improving equity of opportunity for all children. Different examples of governments making efforts to improve co-ordination are discussed, looking at whole-of-government approaches and high-level co-ordination across traditional government silos. Finally, ways to rethink the boundaries of ECEC that draw on research and policy exchanges are presented, to identify strategies for supporting long-lasting positive effects of ECEC through co-ordinated efforts. Throughout the chapter, ECEC is considered broadly, including the full range of types of provision (e.g. home-based, centre-based) that countries regulate (see Chapter 4).

Policy and service co-ordination efforts in the early childhood space aim to address the multiple factors that influence children’s development, learning and well-being (see Chapter 3). These efforts thus recognise that there is not a single strategy that, on its own, can reduce opportunity gaps for young children. Another goal of co-ordinating services is to better reach families to make ECEC and complementary supports more accessible to all children, reducing systemic barriers that hinder access to services (see Chapter 5). Co-ordination strategies also aim to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of policy investments, to design services that make the most of available resources, avoiding duplication of efforts while layering interventions (see Chapter 9).

With these broad objectives gaining growing policy attention, several recent reviews and assessments from the field from Australia, Europe and the United States have examined which conditions enable success in different types of alignment, co-ordination and integration of early childhood services (Barnes et al., 2020[5]; Honisett S. et al., 2023[6]; Kirby et al., 2022[7]; Moore, 2021[3]; Morrison et al., 2022[2]; Serapioni, 2023[8]; Social Ventures Australia, 2023[9]). Across contexts, enabling conditions tend to include a combination of both top-down, political support and bottom-up, local input and support. Additional enabling conditions include shared values, strong leadership, and strong communication channels, including for data sharing and use. In addition, all programme components need to be of high-quality in order to support quality at the level of co-ordinated services (see Annex A, Workshop 3). The rest of this section briefly describes these different enabling conditions for co-ordination at the level of services to families, placing them in the context of some of the challenges of this work as well. While integrated early childhood policies and services are meaningful goals in some contexts (see Chapter 4 for further distinction), this section focuses on co-ordinated services. Co-ordinated services are likely more achievable in the short term, with strong potential for measurable outcomes that can inform strategies for moving systems further towards integration, or for continued investments in support of co-ordination.

Finding the right balance of top-down and bottom-up conditions to support alignment at the level of programmes and local governance appears to be especially important. This balance can be especially complicated in systems with multiple layers of sub-national governance, requiring co-ordinated action across these different levels (see Chapter 4). High levels of governance (top-down approach) are important for creating favourable regulatory and funding systems that allow for and encourage co-ordination – essentially providing infrastructure for, instead of barriers to, co-ordinated efforts.

However, allowing local governments or programmes to identify specific needs and respond to them through collaborations with various sectors (bottom-up approach), is central to realising another benefit of service co-ordination: developing programmes that are responsive to the needs and preferences of constituents, as well as making services more agile in addressing evolving community needs. Local input and support can also foster innovative solutions and connections, capitalising on existing community organisations and a range of private or non-governmental partnerships. Importantly, for co-ordinated efforts to succeed, families need to trust the professionals they encounter (see Chapter 5); local initiatives are well-placed to understand which professionals are well-regarded in the community and to build rapport with a broader suite of professionals and services through these connections.

Integrated services can be more efficient than services offered in isolation by reducing the need for separate physical facilities and separate administrative support and oversight across several small organisations while avoiding redundancy between services; this may be particularly advantageous for ECEC providers who lack specific training in administration (OECD, 2020[10]) (see Chapter 9). Public spending at the level of sub-national governments is growing across the OECD (OECD, 2023[11]). With local authorities having key funding responsibilities, it is essential to have clearly delineated responsibilities for services for children and families (i.e. good vertical co-ordination), to avoid fragmentation of services or duplicative efforts from different levels of governance (see Chapters 4 and 9). Uncertainty of funding for inter-agency work is a main barrier to the long-term success of stronger integration between ECEC and other sectors.

In addition, bottom-up support (i.e. grassroots and local support) for co-ordinated programmes can be vital for maintaining political interest in these initiatives within jurisdictions. Yet, bottom-up approaches can risk variation in effectiveness related to shifting funding or political priorities, or lack of consistent implementation of programme components as intended. While local flexibility is an opportunity to provide services adapted to the local context, it is challenging to ensure core components are implemented with fidelity to original models (particularly in cases of evidence-based programmes) alongside substantial local adaptations.

Logic models can identify the ways in which vertical co-ordination is expected to work, clarifying responsibilities at different levels of governance. This can avoid unrealistic expectations and burden for lower levels of government, where capacity may be insufficient to independently support co-ordinated efforts. Having local entities develop logic models to identify the aspects of services they are providing that are mutually reinforcing (i.e. good horizontal co-ordination; see Chapter 4) and outcomes frameworks can help keep co-ordinated efforts linked to broader policy goals and, where possible, the evidence base for their programmes. Attention is needed to measure these efforts, to identify core components of co-ordinated services that need to be present across different bottom-up approaches. This requires careful use of data (e.g. lead indicators; see Box 10.3), connected to the logic model, to enable rapid measurement for services to engage in continuous quality improvement and deliver intended outcomes (see Annex A, Workshop 3).

Staff who understand the value of a holistic approach to service provision are crucial for the success of co-ordinated services. Indeed, it seems that the processes and people at the heart of co-ordinated services are what make them successful, creating a “glue” that binds them together, and should not be discounted when designing holistic efforts (Goldfeld, 2023[12]; Social Ventures Australia, 2023[9]).

The burdens on staff working beyond their traditional professional roles are also not always well understood. Adding responsibilities for co-ordinated work is only realistic when staff are given time and support to make this part of their core job functions. Working across professional backgrounds without prioritising a single aspect of the service over others can be challenging, and requires opportunities for providers to come together, to learn from one another, and to adapt to new methods of working compared to more traditional, siloed work. Recognising that it is key for staff to find common ground across different professional paths, to have time for discussion and opportunities to develop a common understanding is crucial.

Despite its value, time for staff to be together and learn from one another adds expense to programmes. Developing the workforce to effectively work across sectors also requires investment. Accounting for these costs is critical to allowing programmes to function in the long run and reducing the likelihood of staff burnout from excessive demands on their time, beyond their core work of delivering services to families and children.

Strong programme leadership is another common feature of successful co-ordinated efforts. Leaders have responsibility for setting a clear vision and communicating it with their staff, as well as for developing partnerships across sectors and establishing working methods with families. They are also often responsible for navigating funding and monitoring requirements across different areas of governance, with implications for organising bottom-up efforts that can sustain co-ordinated efforts.

Co-locating services helps reduce access issues for families seeking services (see Box 10.1), and can be a strong facilitator of better communication among professionals. Working in the same location offers opportunities for staff from different types of services (e.g. health visitors, family support workers) to learn from one another. In turn, this can improve their work through both informal exchanges and by reducing barriers to formal exchanges. Despite these advantages, shared physical space requires upfront and sustained investments that are difficult to realise without support from high-level policies and integrated budgeting (see Chapter 9).

Interprofessional collaboration can be highly valued among practitioners, whose daily work emphasises the intersecting nature of services and policies for families. Nonetheless, different professionals use different languages and this can be a challenge for building bridges across sectors. In addition, different professional statuses can create barriers to collaboration among staff with different backgrounds. This is particularly the case between care and education sectors, where having staff together can highlight the longer hours and lower pay of the former compared to the latter; disparities like this need to be addressed at a national level in order to successfully bring services together (see Annex A, Workshop 3).

A potential barrier to collaborating across sectors relates to data protection and privacy requirements, e.g. health agencies may face particular challenges around communication and data sharing, as health data often have specific legal protections. For this reason, health professionals may be in privileged positions in collaborative efforts, receiving more data from other sectors than they are able to share (see Annex A, Workshop 3). Data privacy is a vital concern across sectors and requires careful consideration and planning to mitigate risks. At the same time, developing appropriate strategies to support children and ensuring that families receive services to which they are entitled without the burden of providing the same data to multiple programmes is an important goal.

Data sharing has different purposes and can be facilitated by understanding different data needs; mechanisms to de-identify data can enable data to be shared more rapidly and regularly for service planning and evaluation. This is in addition to a need for protocols for sharing data that tracks the progress and needs of individual children and their families, which would typically be available to a smaller set of direct service providers. Just as shared physical space is a cost of offering services in a single location, building data infrastructure and protocols to ensure the right data is shared with the right partners at the right time is another aspect that requires investment and shared budgeting (see Annex A, Workshop 3 and Chapter 9).

At high levels of government, staff can likewise come together to learn from one another and break down traditional silos. Furthermore, regular contact between central government officials and stakeholders at different levels (e.g. unions, municipal authorities) can support vertical integration (see Chapter 4). Engaging families as partners in the design and implementation of ECEC and associated programmes has also been found to be an important enabler of successful co-ordinated efforts (Moore, 2021[3]).

Integrated policy plans for child well-being are widespread in OECD countries, and are generally viewed as making positive contributions to policy agendas in this area (Dirwan and Thévenon, 2023[18]). Such integrated policy plans aim to provide a framework for co-ordination across government silos and strengthen collaborative efforts. As child well-being is a broad construct that extends beyond early childhood, these integrated policy plans do not necessarily target ECEC specifically; however, they can serve as a mechanism to support stronger co-ordination across the various policy areas that are connected to ECEC.

Comprehensive service models are shaped by their guiding principles, governance structures, and the degree of co-ordination and integration across services. These key dimensions influence how services are utilised, managed and delivered to families. As part of finding a good balance between bottom-up approaches through local collaborations and top-down governance supports, traditional government silos or the methods of working across these silos may need to be re-designed to support implementation of larger scale intersectoral efforts to address early childhood inequalities.

Figure 10.1 provides three examples of how governments are organised to promote co-ordination across a broad range of policies (see also Chapter 4). The examples include: the integration of policies focused on young children through the creation of a specific agency (left panel); support for co-ordinated early childhood services being provided through a national strategy or legislation (centre panel); and high-level co-ordination across traditional governments silos, with the aim of reducing early childhood inequalities (right panel).

There is not one singular model of integration or co-ordination to address early childhood inequalities through national governance that works best in all contexts. The examples in this section provide different considerations, and many need more implementation time to understand what impacts they may have for children and families. When integration or co-ordination efforts are overwhelming for stakeholders, result in duplication with other high-level initiatives, or are not based in shared goals among those involved, they are unlikely to add value. Indeed, the Slovak Republic recently decided not to renew its integrated policy plan for child well-being for many of these reasons (Dirwan and Thévenon, 2023[18]).

In April 2023, Japan established the Children and Families Agency. It is unique in the high level of governmental organisation at which it was created – it is an external and independent body of the Cabinet Office, with a dedicated Minister of Children and Families. The Agency has a core value of child-centredness and places the views of children at the centre of its actions, working to reflect them in policymaking at both central and local levels. The Agency is seeking to strengthen active engagement with local authorities and to better connect various child-centred efforts from local governments, organisations and companies, among other actors. Overall, the Agency aims to amplify efforts that shift the societal atmosphere around children, making them a more central focus in general and promoting the idea that children’s development can be supported by the entire society.

Breaking silos between ministries to promote this shared vision, focusing especially on children’s first 100 months (roughly ages 0 to 8), as well as supporting parents in the prenatal period and children all the way through adolescence, are key strategies to address these overarching goals (Saito, 2023[19]). The Agency can be understood as a type of “control tower” to address issues and challenges faced by children and their families, safeguarding their needs. As such, the scope of work for the Agency is broad and includes areas such as establishing measures to cope with declining birth rates, expanding engagement with ECEC for very young children, child abuse prevention, and support for children with disabilities, among many others.

The Children and Families Agency was established as a result of a report from an advisory committee on the promotion of children’s policies, which was tasked to consider the future direction of children's policies and respond to various issues related to children from the perspective of children. Based on the recommendations from the report and following a Cabinet decision, the Japanese Diet (the national legislature) passed legislation establishing the new agency, as well as the Basic Act on Children’s Policy, which is intended to comprehensively promote child-related policies. The Basic Act on Children’s Policy places responsibility on national and local governments, with efforts from employers and citizens, to ensure children’s and families’ views are reflected through comprehensive policy and service systems. At their foundation, these new initiatives that combine legislative and governance reforms are designed to support all children, thereby also reducing opportunity gaps for those who face different types of disadvantage.

Although it is too early to know how the development of the new Children and Families Agency will impact services for children and families, the Basic Act on Children’s Policy indicates that after approximately five years of implementation, the government should review progress and identify further steps to promote child-centred initiatives.

Australia, Colombia, and Ireland all take the approach of developing a whole-of-government strategy for early childhood, to guide co-ordination across ministries at the national level, rather than assigning responsibility for this co-ordination to a dedicated national authority. Iceland and the United States have implemented national legislation, with a key difference being that Iceland’s legislation is intended to take time to implement, and the United States restricted their co-ordinated investment to a limited duration.

Colombia’s From Zero to Forever (De Cero a Siempre) strategy, launched in 2011, had a primary goal of increasing the quality of ECEC for children ages 0 to 5 from socio-economically disadvantaged homes. The strategy aimed to take an integrated approach to promote holistic child development, providing nutrition, health, care and early education services together (Bernal and Ramírez, 2019[20]). A marked increase in the availability of integrated centre-based care and children’s enrolment in these programmes was seen in the years following initial implementation of From Zero to Forever. For children, this seems to have translated into better nutritional outcomes and positive effects on receptive language in the short- to medium-term; however, negative effects in other developmental domains underscore the challenges of ensuring quality of services during rapid expansion and the need for robust research designs to effectively monitor high-level strategies (Bernal et al., 2019[21]; Bernal and Ramírez, 2019[20]).

In Ireland, the First 5 strategy was published in 2018. First 5 is a 10-year strategy (2019-2028) focused on improving systems and supports in the first five years of a child’s life, recognising that no single measure can address the full range of child and family needs in this period of the life course (Government of Ireland, 2019[22]). The strategy has a built-in process for review and updates every three years; it is intended to be a living strategy that develops and adapts to the context. The oversight and accountability of First 5 rests with the Cabinet Committee on Social Policy and Public Services, which is comprised of ministers from numerous departments, while national leadership for implementation lies with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. The goals for this strategy include strong and supportive families and communities; optimum physical health and mental health; positive play-based early learning; and an effective early childhood system.

Australia launched its 10-year national Early Years Strategy 2024-2034 in May 2024. Similar to the goals of the Irish strategy, the priority focus areas for Australia are to: value the early years; empower parents, caregivers and families; support and work with communities; and strengthen accountability and co-ordination (Australian Government (Department of Social Services), 2024[23]). The strategy is a 10-year framework to shape how the Australian Government prioritises young children’s well-being and delivers strong outcomes for them by creating a more integrated, holistic approach to the early years. The Commonwealth Minister for Social Services and Minister for Early Childhood Education jointly lead implementation of the strategy, in collaboration with other relevant ministers and a senior-level cross-Commonwealth steering committee. A Parents and Carers Reference Group (PCRG) has also been established to inform implementation of the strategy, with a goal of putting the voices of families and children at the centre of policy, programmes and services that affect them.

In Iceland, the Act on the Integration of Services in the Interest of Children’s Prosperity (The Prosperity Act) took effect in 2022. This national legislation has a main goal of removing barriers to necessary services for children and families. It does so by considering services in three levels (primary, secondary and tertiary) to give service providers a better overview of the systems involved and strategies for ensuring all children receive comprehensive and effective services (Government of Iceland, 2023[24]). Primary services include health care, ECEC, primary and secondary school, social services, sports and youth clubs, and extra-curricular activities. By ensuring these services are of high-quality, The Prosperity Act aims to reduce the need for more specific and in-depth services, although it is also a priority to ensure children and families receive the most appropriate level of services.

Implementation of The Prosperity Act is expected to take up to five years and began with creating guiding procedures, regulations and legislative changes (where needed). As of late 2022, many municipalities had already appointed a project manager or steering committee to oversee implementation in their jurisdictions. In some municipalities, improvements were already evident in the speed at which services were available to families, which may be related to the obligation under this new law for service providers to notice and act when children’s needs are not being met. In order for service providers to effectively meet this obligation, training is viewed as essential: a one-year diploma programme at the University of Iceland focuses on the legislation and how service providers can implement it in practice. The Quality and Supervisory Authority of Welfare is a special government agency that monitors services to ensure they are provided in accordance with the legislation.

In the United States, the response to the COVID-19 pandemic entailed five pieces of national legislation to mitigate the crisis of growing economic inequality as a result of the health emergency (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2023[25]). This legislation temporarily expanded nutrition assistance programmes, unemployment assistance and child tax credits, and also included economic stimulus payments, help with housing, protection of healthcare benefits, and USD 50 billion in ECEC funding to families, ECEC settings and ECEC staff (Golden and Tseng, 2024[26]), an amount approximately 2.5 times the annual investment in these ECEC programmes (Head Start ECLKC, 2021[27]; Head Start ECLKC, 2021[28]; Office of Child Care, n.d.[29]). This co-ordinated package of policies helped reduce the poverty rate among young children to 6% for the year 2021 compared to 10% in 2020 and 15% in 2019. From 2020 to 2021, levels of hardship and stress reported by families in the United States also fell significantly. The ECEC investments likely prevented this system from shutting down, enabling more families to access these services and more parents to return to the workforce. However, this legislation was designed only to provide short term support to families during the crisis of the pandemic, by allocating one-time supplementary funding to programmes or providing tax relief to households for the year 2021. Data indicate that many of the families helped by these policies are now slipping back into poverty. Stable policies and budgets are needed to achieve lasting impacts (see Chapter 9).

This sub-section offers some examples of successful inter-departmental co-ordination at a national level to highlight how it can address specific policy goals. Such approaches have the benefit of being flexible to adapt to immediate needs (e.g. the COVID-19 pandemic) or specific policy priorities, and as such may be of a limited duration, or narrower in scope than whole-of-government strategies.

In France, the First 1 000 Days (Les 1 000 premiers jours) programme emerged in 2020 inspired by a report on the topic (Commission des 1000 premiers jours, 2020[30]); the initiative takes a multi-dimensional approach across three pillars of child development (nutrition, physical environment, social and emotional bonds), requiring cross-cutting policies. Its main priorities are to create good conditions for the development of very young children and to fight inequalities. The programme has a strong focus on supporting pregnant people, recognising the importance of prenatal development and the inequalities already present before a child is born (see Chapter 3). The First 1 000 Days is led through the Ministry of Social Affairs and not only works across ministries at the national level, but also across levels of governance, engaging regional and municipal authorities (i.e. both horizontal and vertical co-ordination, see Chapter 4).

Materials from the First 1 000 Days programme were widely disseminated in a short timeframe, with all first-time parents from October 2021 to the end of 2023 receiving an information booklet, and communications surveys showing 60% of target populations were familiar with the campaign (Iron, 2023[31]). In addition, 30 First 1 000 Days centres were established across the country, between 2021 and 2023, to support parents as well as partnerships among professionals working in related services. These quick developments were attributed to the critical role of the report that launched the initiative and that created a set of shared values to motivate co-operation across sectors. The leadership from a single ministry was also viewed as a strength, assuring a high-level political sponsor to support local co-ordination, foster bottom-up strategies and stimulate ongoing interest from other ministries and levels of governance.

In Germany, integration of ECEC and health data permitted early detection of COVID-19 cases during the height of the pandemic, enabling more ECEC settings to stay open throughout the pandemic, even when specific groups were closed within a structure. The data sharing between Germany’s Daycare Registry and a collaboration with Federal Ministry of Health allowed careful surveillance of COVID-19 cases and tracking of preventative measures, also yielding key insights to the importance of wearing a mask and vaccines for protecting both children and staff. Regular contact with stakeholders at different levels (e.g. unions, municipal authorities) and good co-ordination between the national agencies made this model successful (Kalicki, 2023[32]).

In addition to the Early Years Strategy in Australia, many other efforts are underway to build bridges across government agencies. Connected Beginnings is a place-based programme that draws upon the strength and knowledge of Indigenous communities to increase Indigenous children and families’ engagement with health and ECEC (Australian Government, 2024[33]). It is jointly funded across portfolios and jointly administered by the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Aged Care, who fund Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services within Connected Beginnings sites. The programme works closely with Indigenous communities to identify early childhood priorities for change, and to increase participation in quality and culturally-appropriate early childhood services and programmes. The programme is delivered in collaboration with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander partners and advice. Once expanded to its committed 50 sites by June 2025, it is anticipated that around 20% of Indigenous children in Australia will be living in a community with a Connected Beginnings site available to them.

Available evidence suggests the importance of considering the number of agencies involved in co-ordinated efforts: a study in the United States looked at dispersion of responsibilities for ECEC governance across states and compared this with children’s early reading skills in the year before entry to primary school (Jenkins and Henry, 2016[34]). Results show the optimal number of state-level government agencies involved in the ECEC policy space is around four to promote children’s reading outcomes; with either fewer or more agencies, children’s reading skills were weaker at the state-level. This suggests that highly centralised governance in the early childhood space may not always be ideal, but neither is too much fragmentation across agencies. Once again, the goals of each piece of the system need to be considered to ensure they can be effectively addressed through the governance approach that is applied. Interestingly, there is a parallel in terms of providing multiple services to families at the same time, with benefits plateauing at around four or five services (Goldfeld, 2023[12]) (see Annex A, Workshop 3).

Drawing from the available evidence on promising strategies for co-ordinating and integrating services, this section identifies ways in which policies can reconsider the boundaries of ECEC to promote stronger alignment across service areas, with the complementary goals of enhancing the quality of ECEC, reducing early inequalities and supporting long-lasting, positive effects of ECEC for children.

Calls for greater co-ordination across early childhood services are longstanding (Black et al., 2017[35]; Thévenon et al., 2018[36]; Kirby et al., 2022[7]). There is a strong rationale for combining services, given the multiple needs of young children and the numerous sources of early inequalities (see Chapter 3). Yet, the degree of co-ordination or integration that is most effective depends on the specific goals set by governments, as well as on the broader social, political and cultural contexts in which policies or programmes are implemented. These additional factors must be considered as part of planning co-ordinated early childhood systems.

ECEC can be a powerful mechanism for supporting child development beyond ECEC settings. Given the importance of the home environment (see Chapter 3), intentionally developing ECEC programmes that can support parents to foster children’s well-being and early learning can amplify and sustain children’s positive experiences in ECEC, beginning from very early ages (see Chapter 8).

Targeting parenting skills to improve children’s social, emotional, academic and behavioural skills has a long and relatively successful history. A review of 46 randomised controlled trials of preventive parenting interventions reported positive effects on a wide range of outcomes from 1-20 years following the intervention (Sandler et al., 2011[37]). Interventions that demonstrate long-term impacts from infancy and early childhood target specific aspects of parenting, particularly warmth and responsiveness, and show success with parents facing multiple forms of disadvantage (Molloy et al., 2020[38]).

The specific ways in which parenting programmes and resources for parents are integrated into the core work of ECEC settings can be different, according to the needs of families and the local context. ECEC can support parents in relatively simple ways. For example, strong links between the home and ECEC settings through regular communication and opportunities for parents to connect with staff and one another has widespread benefits even without more intensive, dedicated parent programming (Small, 2010[39]). Learning about child development and the work of ECEC staff through their children’s ECEC settings can help families feel more connected to their children and better understand aspects of their children’s development; knowledge of child development is associated with more effective parenting strategies (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016[40]).

Parents may also feel more connected to their communities when they have opportunities to exchange with one another and with staff at ECEC settings on a regular basis (Sadownik and Višnjić Jevtić, 2023[41]). This can have positive impacts on parental well-being and mental health, with likely spillovers to their interactions with their children. Furthermore, these benefits of exchange and engagement are bidirectional: When ECEC staff engage with parents to learn about children and their family’s lives outside of ECEC, they become better equipped to build connections and enhance their practice with all children (McWayne, Melzi and Mistry, 2022[42]). This, in turn, contributes to maintaining or improving the quality of ECEC programmes and can also be a mechanism for encouraging and sustaining participation in ECEC, as it increases familiarity with and trust in these programmes among families (Jose et al., 2020[43]); (see Chapter 5).

Yet, the role of parents in ECEC is often viewed as limited, given the importance of ECEC as a support for parents who are working or furthering their education and training. By considering ECEC as a programme for parents as well, the ECEC sector can play a stronger role in supporting families more holistically and extending participatory benefits beyond the walls of the ECEC setting. Different components and opportunities can be made available that accommodate different goals and needs of parents. Some aspects may fit easily with parental working hours, such as providing opportunities for conversation at drop-off and pick-up times, or including a home visiting component adapted to family availability. Other components may be tailored to parents who are not engaged in employment or education: these parents may benefit from co-ordinated training or employment services, or they may simply have availability to engage in parenting skills programmes or community groups while their children are attending ECEC.

When parents perceive their ECEC centres as a welcoming space, they are also likely to be receptive to other affiliated services, even if these are not necessarily co-located. To capitalise on this, in Iceland, service co-ordinators are based in settings that families already access, such as healthcare and ECEC settings. These service co-ordinators support the implementation of Iceland’s Prosperity Act, which states that all children in Iceland are entitled to primary level (preventive) services (see more on Iceland’s Prosperity Act above), with a goal of ensuring high-quality across all services to mitigate the need for further interventions. However, more targeted services are available to ensure that more complex needs are addressed. Service co-ordinators help families find the most appropriate set of supports, reducing barriers to accessing additional services. In this model, service co-ordinators can act as “interpreters” across different types of service providers, supporting parents to navigate across the different professional languages used in various service sectors (e.g. health, social services, education; see Chapter 4 and Annex A, Workshop 3).

Integrated service hubs, where families can learn about ECEC options while engaging with other supports, can be a meaningful strategy to promote awareness and use of ECEC. Such service hubs bring together an array of services to support families with young children and can be organised with different combinations of programmes and tailored goals (see Chapter 4). By combining services in ways that are relevant to specific community needs and interests, ECEC can be delivered in a culturally responsive manner and promoted through services that are already well-established and trusted. For these reasons, health services can be a strong central component of hubs – there is widespread availability of healthcare access for children (i.e. access to routine health check-ups) across OECD countries (Riding et al., 2021[13]), giving the system good reach to vulnerable populations, with relatively high levels of trust in communities.

Service hubs can effectively address different barriers to participation in ECEC, particularly by providing a soft entry point to education and care services, with which families facing adversity may not otherwise engage (see Chapter 5). For example, lower-educated parents may have weaker ties to the labour market, creating barriers to accessing paid ECEC programmes as well as supressing demand (Wood, Neels and Maes, 2023[44]). Migrant families may lack social connections in their new communities that can facilitate enrolment processes and encourage trust in ECEC institutions (Shuey and Leventhal, 2018[45]). Ethnic minority families may also lack trust in ECEC institutions and their staff (Mitchell and Meagher‐Lundberg, 2017[46]); (see Chapter 5). Combining early childhood programming with refugee and asylum-seeker services is a promising strategy to reach this particular group of vulnerable children (Moore, 2021[3]). Combining health services (for both children and parents) with ECEC programmes or prioritising ECEC access for families involved in the child welfare system are additional strategies to address needs for and barriers to ECEC among populations facing different types of disadvantages. At the same time, hubs need strategies to avoid segregating services according to the different types of child and family needs that are addressed.

Integrated service hubs are uniquely positioned to adapt to the different types of needs in the communities they serve by conducting regular needs assessments and tailoring programmes accordingly, including developing services that can flexibly adapt to the local context. This process of engaging families to understand their needs and their goals for their children is critical for sustaining demand for programming and, ultimately, for ensuring programme quality. Moreover, building these dialogues reduces the risk that programmes reinforce social and cultural inequalities by assuming parents in less advantaged circumstances lack parenting skills, compared to more advantaged parents who may interact with staff and programmes in ways that are more familiar to the service providers (Schmidt and Alasuutari, 2023[47]).

Including a core set of standard services (i.e. ones that are available across all communities) can generate better public understanding of what service hubs are, what they can do and who they serve, which is important to promote broad use among community members (Serapioni, 2023[8]; Carneiro, Cattan and Ridpath, 2024[15]). Such core services can also help ensure children are meeting developmental milestones and are referred to additional, specialised services as needed, even when families do not participate in ECEC. Within service hubs that provide universal, core services to all families, targeted interventions can significantly improve outcomes for vulnerable populations by providing the right support at the right time (Barnes et al., 2011[48]); (see Chapter 6). The implementation of the Prosperity Act in Iceland accounts for this possibility of targeted intervention by including service co-ordinators in multiple types of service settings.

A single point of contact for services has been shown to facilitate easier access for parents, streamlining enrolment processes and making services more efficient in identifying and addressing multiple needs of children. In many models, this means there are several entry points to linked services, or a “no wrong door” approach that ensures families find an appropriate suite of services, regardless of whether they initially seek healthcare, ECEC or another type of service. These models often operate in designated geographic zones, using co-location of at least some services to promote co-ordination among professionals as well as facilitate families’ access. Promise Neighbourhoods in the United States and Sure Start in the United Kingdom are examples of such place-based initiatives; programmes in Germany (Frühe Hilfen) and the Flemish Community of Belgium (Huizen van het Kind) are similarly designed to co-ordinate an array of services for families with young children, targeted to the local community (Serapioni, 2023[8]). There are also many other ways to co-ordinate ECEC with additional community-based services (see Box 4.3).

In Australia, the National Child and Family Hubs Network is a national, multidisciplinary group that seeks to strengthen service hubs, offering a shared framework that can unite otherwise separate initiatives. This high-level co-ordination aims to strengthen the work of community-based hubs, enhance research on these multidisciplinary efforts and promote health and well-being for children and families (Murdoch Children's Research Institute, 2023[49]). The network was created in response to growing interest in service hubs in jurisdictions across Australia (as of 2024, there are around 460 such hubs in Australia) (Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, 2023[50]). It is a forum where these initiatives can benefit from peer learning and knowledge exchange and access supports to continue their work in direct service of children and families.

As suggested by the previous two sections, ECEC can be thought of as more than a programme serving young children. Focusing on parents and on a broader range of services opens the possibility of considering ECEC for very young infants, as part of a co-ordinated service for new parents that could start even during the prenatal period. Strengthening co-ordination across ECEC for children of different ages, as well as extending the role of ECEC services and goals into the primary school years, recognises the integrated nature of families’ needs for support throughout this period. It also recognises that inequalities can be reinforced when more vulnerable children experience more transitions or receive less support around their transitions compared to their peers from more advantaged backgrounds (OECD, 2017[51]).

Countries organise ECEC provision and define its age bounds differently, with some countries separating services for children under age 3 from those for older children. This distinction often aligns provision for children under age 3 more with a health and care perspective (e.g. Bulgaria, France), which can work well if this encourages stronger co-ordination with prenatal, health and broader parenting and family services. In contrast, ECEC systems that are integrated from children’s entry into the system until the start of primary school are often the responsibility of a ministry of education (although this is not necessarily the case), and a social welfare ministry oversees the full ECEC system in some countries (e.g. Germany). Moreover, even when the full age range of ECEC is the responsibility of the same ministry, there can still be divides in regulations and oversight for different age groups or purposes (e.g. Luxembourg).

Concern about inefficiencies and inequalities of split ECEC systems (i.e. separate governance for different parts of the ECEC system) has prompted several countries to move towards integration in recent years (e.g. Italy, Korea). An important disadvantage of split systems is that they often reflect a historical view that children are not learning before age 3 or 4 (a notion strongly dispelled by research, see Chapter 3). Thus, requirements for staff training are generally lower for this youngest age group, as are other aspects of quality (e.g. curriculum frameworks may not exist). In addition to addressing these disparities, integrating across levels of ECEC may support more sustainable funding for services for children under age 3. In systems that have tried to progressively extend the age range of ECEC downward, such as by expanding entitlements or regulations to cover 3-year-olds or 2-year-olds, evidence suggests that services for younger children become more tenuous as funding is redirected towards more education-oriented programmes for older children, potentially to the detriment of access for low-income families in particular (Cohen et al., 2021[52]; Stoney, 2015[53]). However, equitably expanding access within a split ECEC system can be achieved in the context of clear goals (Gonzalez, Sabol and Schanzenbach, 2024[54]).

Thus, goals for integration or shifts in the focal age range for parts of the system require careful consideration of the effects on the broader system of ECEC, as well as implications for additional services and systems. If integration of ECEC systems for children of different ages is done partially or in stages, careful attention is needed to the impact on complementary services and systems. In other words, co-ordinated policy approaches are needed to avoid unintended consequences across the range of sectors that are relevant for early childhood (see Chapter 4). As discussed, the best approaches to co-ordination (or integration) depend on countries’ contexts, goals and existing institutions – why and how integration or co-ordination are prioritised and implemented is of central importance (Bennett and Kaga, 2010[55]).

Recognising families’ need for care outside of school hours opens the possibility of considering the ECEC sector as having a role to play throughout childhood, including through primary school. Many countries already organise out-of-school time and ECEC services in the same administrative units, often with shared oversight and funding functions. This provides a foundation for also considering how to co-ordinate and align the experiences of children and families who interact with both of these types of programmes. This alignment can be through programme standards, objectives, shared professional learning opportunities or shared curricula, as is the case in Luxembourg’s non-formal education sector (OECD, 2022[56]). These types of co-ordination efforts could be particularly beneficial to children’s experiences, offering a source of continuity across stages of development.

Co-ordination between ECEC and the next stages of the education sector are also critical. Strong investments in ECEC and positive outcomes from participation are unlikely to be sustained in the face of low-quality primary schools or redundancies in learning content (see Chapter 8). Improving the complementarity of ECEC and primary education can help ensure that the benefits of high-quality ECEC are sustained as children grow. Indeed, findings from the United States suggest that investments in an early childhood programme targeted to low-income families are most efficacious when coupled with access to better-funded public schooling, highlighting the critical interplay of co-ordinated investments in ECEC and primary education for children from socio-economically disadvantaged families (Johnson and Jackson, 2018[57]); (see Chapters 8 and 9).

Programmatic co-ordination, such as through aligned curricula and pedagogical approaches, is likely to improve the coherence and efficacy of both ECEC and primary school for children. Recognising the value of play and child-centred practices for children in primary school – to some degree extending ECEC into later levels of schooling – could be one step towards bolstering connections between these two sectors. ECEC and primary school can have sharp distinctions as a result of the overall organisation and governance of these sectors, with staff or teacher qualifications contributing to many differences. Increasing professional training requirements for ECEC staff and developing the sector to become more similar to the education sector in terms of quality can have benefits for young children, if done with recognition of the ways in which young children learn (i.e. through play and interaction rather than through lectures or worksheets; see Chapter 3). There is also ample room for schools to learn from ECEC approaches to hands-on and active learning that can be lacking particularly in the educational experiences of school-aged children from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds (National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, 2023[58]).

In Japan, the Kakehashi (bridge) programme aims to smooth children’s transitions between ECEC and primary school (Special Committee on Bridging ECEC and Primary School Education, 2023[59]). Projects under the programme have been carried out in selected municipalities since 2022. Primary school teachers in municipalities that participated in the projects, compared to those that did not, reported a change in mindset that included more attention to building on children’s previous learning experiences in ECEC and integrating more play and life experiences into their lessons. In addition, more participating municipalities reported fewer children reluctant to attend primary school compared to reports from non-participating municipalities. Based on these results, Japan plans to further promote the implementation of this programme nationwide.

Schools tend to be well understood as community entities, and therefore offer a logical place for building co-ordinated services and capitalising on institutional trust. However, outreach is needed to families through other venues to ensure beneficial services reach children and their parents before the age of compulsory schooling. One example of centring co-ordinated services in schools is the Our Place model in Victoria (Australia), which is the result of a public-private partnership between a philanthropic organisation and the state government. Our Place identifies its role as “the glue” that facilitates partnerships and enables a primary school to be a central place for accessing support services, ranging from ECEC to child and adult health services, playgroups, adult education, and well-being services.

ECEC policy and climate policy are seldom discussed together, although young children and ECEC systems are highly vulnerable to disruptions caused by climate change (Cuartas et al., 2024[60]). For example, young children are particularly susceptible to diseases that are exacerbated by global climate change (Akachi, Goodman and Parker, 2009[61]). Extreme weather events, such as heat waves, droughts, severe storms and related flooding, as well as air quality concerns, are becoming increasingly prevalent. These types of events pose risks to the health and safety of young children both outdoors and indoors, where built environments have rarely accounted for this evolving reality, as well as posing risks to ECEC systems and infrastructure.

In addition, disadvantaged communities and individuals are disproportionately at risk of being affected by these climate-related adversities (Islam and Winkel, 2017[62]). As such, climate change may contribute to the opportunity gaps for young children from disadvantaged backgrounds by exposing them to less favourable environmental conditions, and even limiting their exposure to ECEC if settings are forced to close more often due to lack of resources for addressing these conditions, such as safe spaces in extreme heat or poor air circulation and filtration in the context of contagious illnesses. ECEC settings are at risk of closures and restrictions (e.g. limiting outdoor play) due to extreme weather and poor air quality (Waters and Chachra, 2023[63]).

Co-ordination of infrastructure and urban planning policies along with ECEC policies would go a long way to improve conditions for young children in the face of climate change. There is growing attention to many aspects of the intersection between early childhood and urban environmental policies, such as the ways in which playground surfaces can limit rain water absorption or the lack of trees for shade in many play environments that can contribute to dangerously high temperatures (Katsavounidou, 2021[64]; Lehnert et al., 2024[65]). Designing public spaces and ECEC settings to be supportive of children, families and ECEC professionals in the context of shifting environmental conditions will be a critical direction for future investments to reduce inequalities and ensure the durability of efforts to build equitable systems.

Another way in which early learning and play can be promoted in the built environment is through creating community spaces that encourage interactions between children and parents, such as with interactive games or puzzles located in bus stops, grocery stores and libraries (Hadani, Winthrop and Hirsh-Pasek, 2021[66]). Transforming communities to promote children’s play and early learning can support developmental outcomes for vulnerable children both within and outside of ECEC facilities. Moreover, designing urban spaces with and for families offers opportunities to achieve key environmental goals, protecting and enhancing children’s prospects for outdoor play in the context of climate change.

High-quality ECEC recognises the importance of developing children’s gross motor skills, and opportunities for physical movement and engagement with the natural environment. Outdoor play space design criteria developed in the context of ECEC have been adopted for a wider age range of children across countries (Brussoni, 2020[67]). Creating equitable opportunities for young children to learn about and engage with the environment has an important place in ECEC, particularly in the context of declining time for play (see Chapter 3).

Countries have started to incorporate environmental awareness in their ECEC curricula, and education for sustainable development is also compatible with the values of inclusivity and cultural responsiveness that are central to high-quality ECEC (OECD, 2021[68]; Pearson and Degotardi, 2009[69]). Continuing to develop these as areas for exploration and learning in ECEC settings can have an important role in developing children’s connections to and interest in caring for the environment. Place-based education refers to pedagogies that are community-based, situating teaching and learning in the real-world contexts of ECEC settings and where children live. It is therefore an approach that is well-situated to building on an appreciation or cognitive knowledge of the natural environment that can be fostered through curricular goals by adding action-oriented and practical skills to children’s repertoire (Nusche, Fuster Rabella and Lauterbach, 2024[70]). This approach can also be enhanced by connections between ECEC settings and other community-based programming, drawing on these other programmes and resources to bolster families’ connections to local environmental issues and opportunities for action.

Active and engaged learning fostered through place-based approaches is valuable for encouraging agency among young children. This agency is critical to addressing climate anxiety and the mental health impacts of growing up amidst marked climate change (Sanson and Masten, 2024[71]). It requires strong co-ordination efforts at the community level to implement this type of early learning approach. Australia and Canada are both making efforts to develop programmes around early childhood pedagogies and environmental sustainability, including through a particular focus on supporting Indigenous communities and learning (Box 10.2).

Data are vital to inform service needs and plan for expansions and improvements to better and more equitably serve young children and their families. As noted earlier in this chapter, however, access to data and sensitivities or restrictions related to data sharing can be a barrier to successful co-ordination across sectors. Of the 26 countries that responded to the OECD’s 2022 ECEC in a Digital World Policy Survey, more than half indicated that improving the integration of data systems for information sharing and co-operation across sectors serving young children and families was of “high” or “very high” importance (OECD, 2023[75]). The consensus around this as a policy priority highlights governments’ awareness of the importance of integrated data systems, as well as the fact that developing and implementing these systems is not straightforward.

For some services, sharing of individual-level data on programme beneficiaries is vital to the overall mission of the co-ordinated effort, for example, to facilitate families accessing services to which they are entitled. Yet not all data needs are the same, and at many levels of system co-ordination, aggregate or de-identified data are sufficient for planning and evaluation needs. Carefully considering the goals of data sharing can support the development of integrated data systems that sustainably inform stakeholders while protecting personal data. For example, health data are often governed separately and more strictly than other forms of data. While protecting individual data must be a priority, creating systems that work within the legal and ethical requirements of relevant sectors can reduce perceived barriers to data integration.

The OECD Recommendation on Enhancing Access to and Sharing of Data (2021[76]) is the first internationally agreed-upon set of principles and policy guidance on how governments can maximise the cross-sectoral benefits of all types of data while effectively protecting stakeholders' rights. The Recommendation is relevant for high-level planning and governance around data use and co-ordination across sectors that serve young children and their families; this type of enabling policy environment that facilitates data sharing and prioritises protections can promote better data strategies at lower levels of governance and at the level of programmes themselves. The Recommendation advocates for a whole-of-government approach to data sharing to meet societal, public and legal objectives.

In developing integrated data systems to address early inequalities, it is important that attention is given to the types of data that will be most informative for ongoing service planning. Often, data systems function to satisfy reporting and funding requirements, making them difficult to connect to one another due to specificities of these requirements as well as definitions related to key populations. Future data efforts need to be mindful of the burden associated with data collection and maintenance, identifying strategies to support these processes and mitigate the additional demands placed on service providers.

Investments in data infrastructure may be necessary to reduce duplicative efforts and facilitate both data collection and use. Such investments should be guided by data logic models that articulate which data are needed and by whom in order to deliver the desired outcomes, whether these are at the level of service provision to individuals or more aggregate levels for service planning, monitoring and ongoing quality improvement (see Annex A, Workshop 3). Ultimately, data systems are a tool to track inequalities and to identify strategies for closing gaps between children in the early years.

As this chapter and report have described, ECEC is just one among many levers in the landscape of policies to address early childhood inequalities, which are multi-dimensional and related to a broad range of factors. The effectiveness and sustainability of ECEC policies is conditioned on their interplay with other support systems for young children and families, and on their alignment with other education policies. Every part of the system should be of high quality to achieve positive results: while co-ordination is important, it can do little to address inequalities if the co-ordinated components are not of adequate quality (see Chapter 6). For these reasons, developing national oversight for ECEC that includes multi-sectoral quality frameworks is an important strategy for supporting co-ordination at lower levels of governance and at the programme level. In addition, dedicated funding for co-ordination is needed to ensure that collaborative efforts do not become an afterthought or low priority for practitioners (see Chapter 9).

National quality frameworks encompassing all sectors serving early childhood – those that involve programmes from different ministries and agencies rather than focusing exclusively on one aspect of ECEC (e.g. pre-primary education) – can provide mechanisms for prioritising co-ordination, as well as a common language for programmes to use with one another. Such frameworks can also offer a common vision for a country’s children and families, contributing to better coherence across initiatives and over time. In addition, national oversight can support a consistent level of quality across local areas with different levels of disadvantage (OECD, 2023[11]). These national frameworks can still allow for important levels of local control and flexibility to be responsive to particular community and family needs. Data systems that support monitoring and continuous quality improvement at the programme level can ensure that local flexibility is balanced with national oversight in ways that meet programme goals and quality standards.

In addition to the dedicated funding needed for the ECEC sector described in Chapter 9, national governments can support intersectoral co-ordination through funding. Such funding could be used towards integrated data systems, or for joint training programmes for ECEC staff and professionals from other sectors to learn together and from one another. A common perceived barrier to collaboration is a perception that ECEC staff are not professionals in the same way as teachers, nurses, social workers or other service providers. Thus, in addition to cross-sectoral training opportunities, continuing investments in the ECEC workforce are needed to raise the status of this critical profession (see Chapter 6).

In many ways, these types of investments can be considered the “glue” that holds together co-ordinated services (Goldfeld, 2023[12]). This “glue” refers to the working methods and processes of co-ordinated work behind the services provided to families. These aspects of co-ordination may be part of professional duties in many fields, but must not be overlooked in terms of the staff time, training needs and organisational investments required to achieve successful co-ordination across sectors. While many of the facilitators of co-ordination discussed in this chapter are suggested by research to be important components of this “glue,” there is a need for further research on which elements are critical to sustain long-term co-ordination and to make it most effective in addressing early childhood inequalities.

Recognising that a single sector, programme or provider cannot address early childhood inequalities on its own, high-level policies and national commitments to support co-ordinated services are needed to support long-lasting positive effects of ECEC. ECEC remains a critical and central pillar of supporting children’s development, learning and well-being in its own right, and one that stands to be further enhanced through intentional connections with complementary policies and services for families.

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