Credit: Pixabay/CC0 public domainFor young people, the transition from early-years services to formal education has been a key point of transition. Flinders University has now asked the question, "Is service integration really important for children?"Recent research, published in Children's Geographies by Flinders University Ph.D. Jennifer Fane (now based at Capilano University, Canada), indicates that service integration appears to have very little effect on children's transition experiences.Since 2005, the Australian Government has supported the Integrated Early Years Services. This is in line with best practice policy to support children and families. It includes services that are linked in a way that creates a cohesive and comprehensive system of support for children, families and parents, including early education and health services.Dr. Fane says that this concept makes sense for adults. It's a one-stop shop where families can access services, reduce the need to negotiate among sectors and disciplines, access care, health and education needs of their children, and support their overall wellbeing. We wanted to find out if they made life easier for the children they were serving.Researchers identified potential early childhood care and education services. They mapped them against their socioeconomic status and integration level to show the diversity of these services in metropolitan South Australia. All children aged four to five years old at the eight chosen sites, who were scheduled to start school in 2017, were invited to take part. Twenty children were invited to participate with parental consent.Young children did not experience significant service integration during their transition from home to school.18 of the 20 participants expressed positive feelings about their transition to school. Most shared their belief that school allowed for lots of play and that rules were fair and fair. These 18 children came from all categories of transition, with children who attended fully integrated early childhood education or child services having no significant difference to children from the low- or moderate service integration categories.Dr. Fane says that service integration has been criticized before. Dr. Fane explains that while everyone may work together in theory, there are often instances when the services are provided side-by and effectively isolated rather than integrated.Dr. Fane says, "What adults value differs from what children value.""What we learned by doing wellbeing research with young children instead of adults is that their experiences are more varied than what adults currently measure." Play and agency, for example, are important aspects of children's wellbeing that aren't currently measured or assessed in child wellbeing frameworks.The researchers discovered that 90% of children reported positive play experiences, which was a key indicator of their well-being, according to their own estimates.Dr. Fane says that "most children believed school provided more play opportunities than their early childhood settings," even though this is not the case. This is a strong indicator for wellbeing for children. It doesn't matter how integrated their early years service was.Many children reported that school had more rules than their early childhood services, but this was not viewed as a problem. The rules were clear to the children and they could see the advantages of the rules set by adults.Dr. Fane says that children saw the rules as fair, in place to keep their safety, and they felt good following them at school, regardless of integration level."The study showed that service integration did not, at least for the children in the study, have an impact on their wellbeing and experiences during the transition."Informal partnerships and integrations were just as successful than formal arrangements. So, holding service integration up to be the best option might not be grounded in reality. Some things are intuitively obvious, but they don't always hold up to scrutiny."We need to do more research to determine if this is the best practice or if it only appears so on paper."Further information: Jennifer Fane et. al., Preschool-aged children's experiences with integrated early years services, Australia: including missing perspectives. Children's Geographies (2021). Jennifer Fane and colleagues, Preschool-aged children's experiences with integrated early year services in Australia: including missing perspective, (2021). DOI: 10.1080/14733285.2021.1942790
