• Home
• About the AEDI
• For communities
• For schools
• For parents
• National implementation
• AEDI results
• Publications
• FAQ's
• Mailing list
• Links
• Media
• Contact us

Print version

 

For communities

The AEDI provides communities with the opportunity to strengthen collaborations between schools, early childhood services, and local agencies to support children and families.

Along with a range of other community indicators, the AEDI can be used by policy makers to plan and evaluate place-based initiatives for children.

Communities can use the AEDI to develop and evaluate their efforts to improve children's outcomes.

Read about the evaluation of the AEDI community implementation.

Steps to implementing the AEDI

To implement the AEDI into your community, you need to work through three phases, these being:

Phase 1: AEDI Preparation Phase
Phase 2: AEDI Implementation Phase
Phase 3: AEDI Dissemination and Action Phase

State/Territory AEDI Coordinators will assist in facilitating national implementation of the AEDI. The AEDI National Support Centre also provides additional support throughout the process.

The Community Preparation and Implementation Guide describes these phases in detail.  Click here to download or purchase a hard copy of the Guide.

Understanding and interpreting the AEDI results

The AEDI helps communities understand how their local children are doing developmentally and compared to children nationally and in other communities.

Reports and Results that you will receive:

• AEDI Community Profile - AEDI results for the community, presented in tables and maps
• AEDI School Profile - AEDI results for the school, available to the school only
• AEDI Progress Reports - Available to the community after the AEDI has been completed in two cycles (i.e. every 3 years)
• All community data are made available on the AEDI website

The AEDI data and maps can show:

• Variations in child development across different parts of the community
• Where the strengths and vulnerabilities lie across the domains of child development
• Where the children who are developmentally vulnerable live
• The influence of socio-economic and community factors on child development
• How well the community is supporting young children and their families
• Where there have been successful early childhood programs
• Where change is still needed

Community data and maps.

Uses of AEDI in communities

The AEDI can:

• Be used to raise awareness about the importance of the early years.
• Be used with other community mapping and consultation processes to enable community mobilisation.
• Provide a common language for the community to discuss the needs of young children.
• Provide a basis for identifying possible priorities for action in the community.
• Provide communities with a tool to help understand what seems to be working well and what may need to change in their community to support families.
• Provide a baseline for measuring change in children's development over time.
• Act as a community level evaluation tool.

A series of community case studies have been developed to showcase the AEDI in action in communities across Australia. Click here to find out more.

Frequently Asked Questions

Read more information in our Frequently Asked Questions section.