TICCSS Report

The final survey in the longitudinal study of implementation of the National Quality Framework is now completed and the report is available on this website.

The report highlights the leadership of the community children’s services sector in implementing the quality reforms and achieving ratings of Exceeding the standards and of Excellent service.

Services are exceeding the mandatory staff to child ratios and employing more qualified educators and teachers. They support their Educational Leaders and support increasing numbers of children and families experiencing vulnerability – all while limiting fee increases.

Watch out for publication of a paper documenting the findings of the TICCSS studies in the context of the policy and advocacy debates during the eight year period of phased implementation of the National Quality Framework.

The report on the 2019 TICCS Survey is now available. This important research demonstrates that:

• More not-for-profit childcare services are high quality and fewer are poorer quality compared to services run for profit
• Not-for-profit services maintain or improve on their already high quality ratings
• Not-for-profit services have higher numbers of educators and teachers than they are legally required to
• Not-for-profit services have the major structural requirements needed to be nurturing early education environments.

ACCS has received ethics approval for the TICCS survey to be conducted in 2021. Information for participants including how to raise any concerns or complaints about the conduct of the survey is contained in the link below.

ACCS Nationwide Research shows Community children’s services are delivering some of the highest quality services in Australia.
The 4th wave of the ACCS Trends in Community Children’s Services is now available. It shows that community services are leading the way in:
• providing quality education and care services for children and families
• demonstrating a commitment to continuous quality improvement and strong support for the National Quality Framework
• providing wages and conditions above award
The research showed that community children’s services are working more closely with the wider community and have noticed an increase in the number of children attending services who are in vulnerable circumstances.
Community children’s services are concerned that children who will most benefit from ECEC will have reduced access to ECEC as a result of the reduction in eligible subsidised hours for children of families who don’t meet the Child Care Subsidy activity test. The research showed that community children’s services believe that access to ECEC can be supported through the provision of fee relief, financial support and even free ECEC services.
Community children’s services are prioritising structural aspects of quality, providing services with higher than prescribed ratios of children to educators and employing educators with higher than prescribed qualifications.

At the mid-point in the five-year process of improving the qualifications of educators and ratio of educators to children, and two years into the new early childhood assessment and rating system – the sector is successfully meeting requirements and staff reluctance to embrace change is reducing.

One year into the national reforms, services are steadily integrating NQF into their operations and practises.

As the first phase of the National Quality Framework commences the community children’s services sector is embracing the reforms – the vast majority of services are already meeting the new standards.