Vulnerable families want to access more child care but can't. Experts say there's a simple solution (2024)

For many First Nations children turning up for their first day of school, there are more than just the typical concerns about making friends, finding the toilets in time and getting through a big day of learning.

"By the time they walk into a mainstream education service … it's the first time that it becomes really evident that you're living in a country where every system, every law, every organisation, every building was built to go over the top of yours," says Catherine Liddle.

Ms Liddle is an Arrernte/Luritja woman and CEO of SNAICC, the peak body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

"Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are the only people in Australia to ever experience that," she says.

"They are the only people in Australia who live in an environment where, not so long ago, the laws were that you couldn't practise your culture, you couldn't practise your language, it had to be eradicated, you had to be assimilated."

That reality puts Indigenous-run childcare and education services in a unique and important position.

"These services not only ensure that our families are strong, that our children are strong but [also that] they are culturally ready to take on a world that doesn't quite understand what the journey is like for our families," Ms Liddle tells ABC RN's Life Matters.

But barriers are stopping First Nations families from accessing child care.

Rachael Phillips, a Gomeroi woman and the director of Birrelee Multifunctional Aboriginal Children's Service in Tamworth, NSW, says it's a situation that can be fixed.

"The answers are there. We just need the government to listen to it now, and commit. They need to commit to helping us reduce those barriers," she says.

Benefits of First Nations-run child care

Ms Phillips sees firsthand the impact of early childhood education in her community.

"[Birrelee] has been around since the 1970s … A lot of our staff, myself included, actually used to be children at the service. We're up to our fourth generation of children coming through. So we're very connected to community and are very proud of our service.

"We know our history, and we respect that."

At Birrelee, children learn Gomeroi culture and lores, and they are taught Gamilaraay language by a dedicated language teacher.

"Our children [are] learning at the same level as what [the language teacher] actually teaches university students, so before our children head to kindergarten, they're already starting to speak sentences in Gamilaraay," Ms Phillips says.

They're just some of the ways an Aboriginal community-controlled service empowers families, Ms Liddle says.

It's about more than child care alone. Services like Birrelee are governed by its community and adapts to the unique needs of that community.

"It means that our families go in there and they are self-determining," Ms Liddle says.

"This is a friendly environment where they feel safe, they can ask for help, and the service wraps around them. Many of our families don't have internet access or even reliable phone access, so they rely on the services to connect them to the relevant agencies.

"All of our families have these incredible strengths and our services respond to them … So they play incredible roles in connecting our families to everything that they need in order to be strong."

Child care kick-starts a better journey

Most First Nations children who come into contact with out-of-home care systems haven't had access to early education and care, Ms Liddle says.

"There is a direct correlation."

Conversely, she says First Nations children who do access quality early education and care "have a better journey and better outcomes across every stage of their life journey".

"That means they're far less likely to come into contact with child protection.

"If they come into contact with child protection … it is a dragnet you cannot get out of. Those children then bounce in and out of out-of-home care until they hit juvenile justice systems. Then they bounce in and out of that until they hit mainstream detention services."

There's no doubt that access to early education and care changes lives, she says.

"This is a vital investment."

Ms Phillips firmly agrees.

"We rely heavily on funding to be affordable for our families, and at the moment we only have funding up until June next year. We haven't heard anything past then.

"We know how to reduce the barriers— they just need to listen."

What is the activity test? And why is it a problem?

Both Ms Phillips and Ms Liddle say the childcare subsidy activity test is stopping First Nations families accessing the free education and child care they need.

When the government introduced the activity test in 2018, it was about helping more women in the workplace to be able to go back to work, which sounds good, Ms Liddle says.

But it presented significant problems.

The number of hours of subsidised child care families can access depends on how many hours parents spend working (or looking for work, or volunteering).

For example, if you work fewer than eight hours a week, in most cases you can access a maximum of 24 hours a week of subsidised child care. The more you work, the more subsidised care you get.

But that's a system that doesn't consider highly vulnerable families, Ms Liddle says.

For those experiencing domestic violence or extreme poverty, for example, accessing jobs can be difficult or impossible.

"And [the activity test] effectively said those families — who need early education and care the most — [can] no longer access those services."

The May federal budget delivered dedicated funding for the first time to SNAICC and its sister peak body, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Corporation — $29.1 million over four years, with $8.7 million per year ongoing, towards issues impacting First Nations children in early childhood and education.

The government also committed to $5.9 million over two years to a National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children's Commissioner.

But funding for the Early Years Support program, which supports Aboriginal community-controlled organisations in early childhood education and care, ends in December.

The budget did not remove the activity test for early education services.

A 2022 Impact Economics review into the childcare subsidy activity test found that the test was most detrimental to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, followed by single mothers.

It's a situation Ms Liddle says needs to change.

"Closing the gap starts with our children, and that starts in early education and care."