The Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) has joined in a project to unlock new and better ways for getting public and private agencies to work together to improve support for children and young people across Australia.
In 2020, the non-Government network of 80 organisations, Every Child, teamed up with ANZSOG to undertake the Systems Leadership for Child and Youth Well-Being Project.
Dean and Chief Executive of ANZSOG, Ken Smith said the school had signed up as ANZSOG was “promoting excellence and innovation in public administration”.
“It is important that public sector leaders reimagine their roles and their responses to complex national issues — the vulnerability that 20 per cent of Australian children endure is one of those persistent challenges,” Professor Smith said.
Co-chair of Every Child, Leith Sterling said the collaboration with ANZSOG aimed at finding ways for health, housing, early years learning and care, schools, and all support systems to work better together.
“Services are fragmented and often not readily available to children and young people, particularly if they live outside of the big cities,” Ms Sterling said.
“The challenge is that 20 per cent of children in Australia do not start school ready to learn — many continue to fall behind.”
She said the stage one report of the Every Child project was distributed in April through which the team undertook three main actions.
These were firstly to engage individually with more than 80 leaders across systems, across sectors and across jurisdictions to discuss opportunities for improving systems leadership and importantly improving life outcomes for children, young people and their families.
Secondly to review a wide body of material on systems change and leadership, relevant to advancing child and youth development and third to host more than 60 leaders to test findings and engage leaders in systems networks in their fields of influence.
“The stand-out key message in the report is that all children can start school ready to learn and leave school ready for life and work, with concerted leadership, early support to children and families, and much better integrated support systems,” Ms Sterling said.
She said the authority and expertise of ANZSOG and the project team had helped to attract the active participation of senior executives from Education, Health, Treasury and other agencies who have a role in better integrating and advancing child and youth well-being in Australia and New Zealand.
