Leadership in collaborative practice through early intervention infrastructure for multi-professionalism and familly partnership building

The early childhood sector in Australia is currently having national conversations taking place through the Early Years Strategy (2023) for achieving the vision of an integrated approach supporting the foundations for lifelong learning trajectories and meeting the developmental, learning and wellbeing needs of young children.  While the national assessment during children’s first year at school through the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) findings show that around 22% of children in their first year of school indicate vulnerability in one or more of the developmental domains, additional professional support is available for these children and their families through early intervention programs. Services available for these children and their families move beyond early childhood education and care to include early intervention programs connected with allied health professionals such as occupational therapists, psychologists, behaviour analysts, family counsellors, physiotherapists, and speech therapists. Hence the necessity of multi-professional and parent collaborations through an integrated approach to ensure consistency for supporting the assessing and monitoring of developmental areas of the child and their parents/carers.    

Overall, the project aim is to identify the strengths and gaps in leadership for collaborative practice through the infrastructure of early intervention multi-professional and parent/carer decision-making to assess, monitor, implement and achieve outcomes across home and services for children’s outcome intent.  This paper is developed through an analytical socio-ecological lens of early intervention practitioners (n12) and parent (n8) participants’ questionnaire and interview data that determined varying approaches and perceptions of strengths and challenges for leading and influencing professional collaborative intent that enables or enriches sharing and working towards agreed-upon goals or outcomes for children and families.

Highlighted in this analysis was the tension in establishing the voice of all involved across a child’s intervention, education and care for working towards children’s outcomes. These tensions relate most significantly to clarity for all in understanding the intent and what this requires for implementation, alongside reduced capacity across the professional networks for gaining purpose and practice comprehension.  We argue that the Early Years      strategy vision of integrated functioning requires clear definitions of leadership and collaboration terminology for parent and multi-professional collaborations through a consistent, manageable framework with policy and funding coordinates. The evidence-based framework and funding should be made available to all professionals required to engage with early intervention collaborations for purposeful, practical, and effective outcomes for all children involved in early childhood education and care and early intervention services and associated professional development.