CHILDREN AND YOUTH DEVELOPMENTS



OFFICE OF FAMILY AND WORK

A new policy focus on work and family and has led to the establishment of the Office of Work and Family Division in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. It will ensure that policies that impact on work and families, are central to policy decisions and are considered in a coordinated way across government.

The key priorities of the Office of Work and Family are to:

• oversee the Government’s new directions for childcare and early childhood education, and the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) early childhood agenda;
• work with the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) to ensure the Government’s workplace relations reforms take account of work and family issues; and
• produce the first annual State of the Family Report and improve the process for consideration of family impact in cabinet submissions

OFFICE OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CHILD CARE

The new Office of Early Childhood Education and Child care has been established within the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR). The Office is responsible for delivering the Federal Government's key commitments on early childhood education and child care. It will work towards providing the leadership to achieve a nationally-consistent system of quality, accessible and affordable early childhood education and child care for all Australian families.


CHILDREN AND YOUTH STATISTICAL PORTAL (CYSP)

The Children and Youth Statistical Portal (CYSP) is a pilot project of the National Data Network (NDN). It was launched on 8 October 2007, with the first phase planned to end on 30 June 2008. More than 300 'children and youth' related information resources have been made available by a range of research organisations and Australian and state government departments. This number is growing. There has also been increasing interest from users downloading information resources from the Portal.

We have learned a great deal during the pilot and will soon be entering an evaluation phase, after which decisions will be made about the CYSP's future directions. An important part of this evaluation will be the analysis of results from our on-line survey which asks visitors to the CYSP for their thoughts on its design, features, information holdings and how it can be improved. The survey will be available here until mid-June, so please help us build a better portal by completing this short form.

If you have any questions or feedback on the portal, please contact Michael Giess on (02) 6252 5032 or email inquiries@nationaldatanetwork.org.


FOOTPRINTS IN TIME — THE LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF INDIGENOUS CHILDREN (LSIC)

After four years of planning and testing the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs' (FaHCSIA) Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children is now underway across Australia. The study also known as Footprints in Time will follow up to 2,200 Indigenous babies and children from eleven regions across Australia. The study will collect information through a series of annual interviews with parents and caregivers of Indigenous children over the years 2008-2011. The study aims to gain a better understanding of how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children develop resilience and what helps to improve health and wellbeing. The most up-to-date details about LSIC can be found in Issue No. 30 of FaHCSIA Research News on the FaHCSIA website.