Ensuring every young Australian has a great start to life, and an even better future

We know that early learning is critical to children’s health and wellbeing, their chances of future success in school and in later life, and that it plays a key role in reducing child vulnerability. But we also know that, in Australia, the cost of early learning is quickly becoming unaffordable to many families as it outstrips wage growth, and the standard model of early learning and care isn’t responding to the changing needs of family and work life. The requirements for our young people to thrive in a 21st century society and economy are also rapidly evolving, leading us to ask – what might we need to do differently in order to prepare children for a Goodfuture?

Through the Goodfuture program, Goodstart have set out to have an impact on many more children by creating irresistible new, future focused offers for families. At the heart of Goodfuture is the desire to understand in detail and without judgement the reasons that some families find it hard to engage with early learning support, so we can design better solutions that truly meet their needs. For some parents, asking for help means being judged and feeling inadequate for not being ‘perfect’. Others find it difficult to ask for help from their families for fear of being a burden, or simply don’t have anyone close by to rely on. But in some cases parents find that services in their local area aren’t able to cater for their specific needs, especially if they are shift workers.

We spent time with 25 families from a wide range of contexts across Australia to learn more about their lives – their daily routines, their family trees, how they interact with different kinds of services and organisations around them, their biggest struggles and most cherished values, and what hopes they have for their children’s future. From their stories we were able to crystallise some of the key challenges and opportunities they faced.

Using the rich insights gained from spending time with families, the Goodfuture design team – comprised of Innovation Unit staff, educators and directors from early learning centres and members of Goodstart’s central support team – started designing irresistible new offers that were firmly focused on the areas of greatest need and impact. The team took part in intensive week-long design sprints, drawing upon the experience of families and staff along the way, which culminated in twelve prototypes ready for further testing with users.

For many of the Goodstart team, design sprints were an introduction to service design in action, and they revelled in the opportunity to explore and deeply understand the challenge. As the team moves into testing ideas, the engagement of such a wide group of educators – and families – at different touch-points in the process has created high demand from staff who want to get involved in developing these ideas further.