Māngere early childhood education project

Author:

The Southern Initiative, South Auckland Social Wellbeing Board, Auckland Co-Design Lab

Source:

The Southern Initiative | Auckland Council

Publication date:

2018

Topics:

People

National and international evidence is clear that early childhood education (ECE) can be a powerful tool for improving educational and social outcomes for children. It shows that quality ECE helps to buffer the disadvantages experienced by children; particularly those from low-income, vulnerable families.

We also know that interventions and supports provided in the early years are more effective than later interventions, especially for children experiencing disadvantage.

In Māngere the importance of quality ECE and providing families with the right support is paramount.

The first phase of this short project has aimed to take a human-centred approach to understanding opportunities for change and ideas and concepts to prototype and test during phase 2.

A key finding from this project and wider work is that empowering parents is not only about improving services or creating opportunities.

It also requires a concerted effort to remove or alleviate the cumulative weight of stress factors that many families experience in Māngere.

About the project

The Māngere early childhood education project was set up to explore developing insights, opportunity areas and ideas alongside parents, ECE staff and wider stakeholders. The project has been sponsored by the South Auckland Social Wellbeing Board and is part of the SASWB programme of initiatives.

The project team would like to thank both MoE and the SASWB for their support to explore the value of a human-centred approach to the project.

By adopting a co-design approach and starting with the experiences of the people closest to the issues, the project team wanted to develop fresh perspectives that could contribute positive change based on the excellent work many ECE providers and staff are already doing.

Our key overarching recommendation is to make “Māngere a suburb of early learning excellence” by growing and celebrating the passion, skills and togetherness that is anchored in Māngere’s culture, people and identity.

June 2018