Abstract
Attendance at high-quality early childhood education and care services can have positive impacts on children’s learning and development, particularly for disadvantaged children. Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory are among the most disadvantaged in Australia and stand to benefit in the short- and long-term from attending high-quality and culturally safe early childhood education and care. Few studies, however, have evaluated how early childhood education and care services can support Aboriginal children’s learning and development, or reported on the challenges of conducting such evaluations. This article reports on an evaluation of the Arrwekele Akaltye-Irretyeke Apmere Centre for Aboriginal children in Alice Springs, Australia, which employed a culturally-adapted Abecedarian approach. The evaluation drew from interviews, classroom observations, document review, and language and developmental assessments to report findings about quality, cultural safety, acceptability to the community and children’s language and development. The findings show that despite the Centre facing challenges during its establishment, by the end of the evaluation children were attending the Centre and receiving high-quality service. The service was overwhelmingly valued by interviewees from families and the community and there were indications of positive outcomes in children’s language and development. Insights for the design of similar evaluations are discussed, such as the need for more rigorous and consistent data collection techniques, a larger sample, and the inclusion of a wider range of perspectives.
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The data is the intellectual property of the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress. Contact: info@caac.org.au for information.
Notes
Henceforth referred to as Aboriginal when referring to Indigenous children in Central Australia.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by funds from Central Australian Aboriginal Congress and an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Practitioner Fellowship Grant/Award Number: GNT1155290. The authors wish to thank the Board of the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, the management and staff of the Centre and all participants. We acknowledge the assistance of Bronwyn Silver (Central Australian Aboriginal Congress), Hannah Stark, Isabel Brookes and Patricia Eadie (Early Childhood Group at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education (MGSE), University of Melbourne) and Anita D’Aprano (MGSE and The University of Melbourne Department of Paediatrics).
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This work was supported by funds from Central Australian Aboriginal Congress and an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Practitioner Fellowship Grant/Award Number: GNT1155290.
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The work was supported by funds from Central Australian Aboriginal Congress. One author (RH) was concurrently employed by Central Australian Aboriginal Congress at the time the research was conducted.
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Elek, C., Gibberd, A., Gubhaju, L. et al. An Opportunity for Our Little Ones: Findings from an Evaluation of an Aboriginal Early Childhood Learning Centre in Central Australia. Early Childhood Educ J 50, 579–591 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-021-01174-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-021-01174-5