Creating inclusive environments for children and families

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that all children have the right to high quality education and care, including those who may have a disability. When reflecting on the environments you provide for children, consider how they encourage or limit children's access to high quality experiences and learning.

Under the National Quality Framework (NQF), educators view all children as competent and capable, and hold high expectations for their learning. They strive to provide all children with equitable and inclusive environments and experiences that promote their learning, development and wellbeing. Barriers that prevent a child’s ability to take part in an educational program must be addressed to facilitate a culture of inclusion and acceptance.

Inclusive environments and reasonable adjustments

The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA) outlines obligations for approved providers and every service must comply with these DDA obligations.

Did you know that the DDA makes it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of a person’s disability? This includes discrimination that occurs in the context of accessing and participating in education and care services. We have published a range of resources to support approved providers, nominated supervisors, coordinators and all service staff to understand and meet their legal obligations under the DDA.

Furthermore, the principles of equity, inclusion and diversity underpin the NQF which recognises all children’s capacity and right to succeed regardless of diverse circumstances, cultural background and capabilities.

Services must also incorporate and demonstrate inclusive practices as part of their legislative requirements under the Education and Care Services National Law and related Regulations. This means that, if a child has an additional need that limits their ability to engage in education and care, the service must make reasonable adjustments to enable that child to enrol, access and participate in the service’s programs. Reasonable adjustments are changes to a policy, practice, procedure, program or environment that enables a person with disability to access and participate on the same basis as others.

Services making reasonable adjustments provide beneficial environments for all children and their staff. Any costs and resources associated with making a reasonable adjustment for one child is an investment in the longer term ability of the service to better accommodate all children with a disability in the future.

The benefits of an equitable environment

Under the Early Years Learning Framework V2.0, diversity in a service supports all children in developing:

an awareness of and respect for children’s diverse worlds, including culture, family structure, capabilities and strengths (Outcome 1.4)
an appreciation and respect for different ways of knowing, being and doing (Outcome 2.3)
an understanding of what it means to be treated fairly and to treat others fairly (Outcome 2.3).

October is a time to celebrate and reflect on neurodiversity

As a service, consider how you can acknowledge these events to support your children, families and educators:

Further resources

The Working Together Agreement, developed by Reimagine Australia and key stakeholders from services and early intervention groups, can help promote a coordinated approach to inclusion for children with a disability or developmental delay.

The Australian Government funds an Inclusion Agency in each state and territory to help eligible services provide a quality inclusive environment for children with additional needs, including children with disability, children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, children from a refugee background and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Inclusion Agencies support eligible services with building capacity to provide and embed inclusive practice into early learning programs.