Creating a learning environment where every child feels included, valued and can fully engage and participate alongside their peers is not just ‘good’ practice—it is a core aspect of upholding children’s dignity and rights.

Building warm, respectful relationships with children and strong partnerships with families provides a solid foundation for inclusion and nurturing identity in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings.

Strong connections with community, such as health and early intervention professionals, are also critical to understanding and celebrating children’s strengths and making sure they feel heard and supported.

Collaboration is key

Working together for inclusion supports teams to share and build knowledge, understanding, experience, skills and ideas. This increases opportunities for children to participate and learn in everyday environments, such as ECEC services. By working together to achieve best outcomes for a child, you can strengthen inclusion and build a strong, lifelong foundation for their learning, development and wellbeing.

Who is part of an inclusion team?

Children, families and carers, ECEC services and early childhood intervention professionals can all be part of an inclusion team. Each team is different because each team member brings their own unique perspective and resources to the team.

Children are integral members of the inclusion team. Their voice is important and should be considered at each step of the inclusion team journey. It’s important to think about how to capture and include their voice.

Find out more about who is on an inclusion team.

Inclusion Together – a resource for ECEC services

To support the inclusion of children with disability or additional needs in ECEC, the NSW/ACT Inclusion Agency led a collaborative project funded by the Australian Government Department of Education to develop a free online tool to assist services to build an inclusion team that works well together.

Inclusion Together provides practical tools to help make collaboration and decision-making processes smoother so you can focus on achieving best outcomes for children together.

Inclusion Together includes:

• conversation starters to guide important discussions
• collaboration templates and meeting planners to ensure meetings are effective and productive
• short videos featuring families and educators
• dedicated Help and Best practice pages for extra support when you need it.

Working together

The Inclusion Together map helps the inclusion team navigate their journey of working together. There are 4 steps that support team relationships, guide decision making and help you to monitor progress.

1. Have a shared conversation – share hopes, needs, problems, thinking, goals and ideas.
2. Find common ground – find common ground to focus on, together.
3. Agree on the path forward – agree on next steps and ‘who does what’.
4. Keep connected – check in and keep working together as the journey continues.

What best practice might look like

It is important to think about best practice approaches and actions when deciding on shared priorities and planning for next steps. These scenarios, from the Inclusion Together Best Practice Guide, provide an example on how positive outcomes can be achieved for children when we work together for inclusion.

Conversations with families

Educators hold unique valuable knowledge and experience relating to children’s development, although may find it challenging to share information about development with families.

To help services strengthen their partnerships with families and facilitate supportive, respectful conversations, KU Children’s Services Sector Capacity Building Program has developed Talking with Families: Shared Understandings of Development.

The guidebook focuses on family-centred practices and strategies for working collaboratively with parents and carers, such as:

• Initiate conversations early – having early informal discussions about a child’s developmental differences gives families time to process information and think about next steps. Be respectful of and support families as they navigate change.
• Use positive communication strategies – use clear, simple language and active listening when discussing a child’s development. Be objective and empathetic.
• Adopt a strengths-based approach – focus on understanding, celebrating and building on the child’s strengths and abilities. Consider how you can reduce inclusion barriers to support the child’s full participation.
• Trust yourselves as educators – what you do each day matters to the child and their development.

For inclusion support

Read Supporting disability inclusion in ECEC for information about support programs funded under the NSW Department of Education's Disability and Inclusion Program (DIP) and Australian Government Department of Education’s Inclusion Support Program (ISP).