Best Start

‍‍Best Start is delivered through local partnerships that bring together early years and community services to identify areas for improvement and use evidence-informed approaches to strengthen their capacity to provide the best possible environment, experiences and care for children and families.

Aboriginal Best Start

There are six Aboriginal Best Start project sites across Victoria. These sites are designed to empower communities and families, and to develop broad cross-sectoral relationships across all early years services to improve outcomes for Aboriginal children and their families.

Best Start Outcomes

The key Best Start outcomes that all partnerships work toward are:

• Children engage and participate in early childhood education (kindergarten and supported playgroups) and enter school as confident and involved learners  

• Children and families actively engage with maternal and child health (MCH) services, attending key ages and stages visits to optimise health, wellbeing, safety, learning and development.  

Best Start Network

Best Start commenced in 2002 and a network of 29 sites across Victoria, including the six Aboriginal Best Start sites, are managed in partnership with local communities. Each Best Start site employs a facilitator to coordinate and coach the partnership to collaborate across sectors to understand complex local problems and co-develop innovative ideas that enhance their work with children and families.

The network is strengthened through the expertise and collaboration of the Victorian Aboriginal Community Services Association Limited (VACSAL), Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) through the Centre for Community Child Health (CCCH), and 15 Department of Education Early Childhood Improvement Branch (ECIB) teams.

What do Best Start partnerships do?

All Best Start partnerships have an important role to work in a culturally inclusive manner with Aboriginal and diverse communities.  

Best Start partnerships use local data and community knowledge to identify the reasons why families are not engaging in local early years services. Partners work together to implement an improvement science approach to make small changes in practice and support each other to implement new approaches that better serve their communities.  

Best Start partnerships are most effective when the organisations on the partnership commit to actively working together to achieve agreed local objectives.

Who can be a partnership member?

Multiple agencies and organisations can be involved in a Best Start partnership.  

• Council services

• Staff and providers from kindergartens/long day care services  

• Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations  

• Maternal and Child Health  

• Community service organisations  

• Community health workers  

• Department of Education program staff

Agencies and organisations who are working with children and families in the early years space are encouraged to engage with their local Best Start to share referral pathways, engagement strategies and contribute to highly impactful local collaboration.  

‍Contact

If you would like to locate or contact a local Best Start site please email: beststart@education.vic.gov.au.

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