Early childhood best practice is at the heart of all that matters

by JENNIFER GRANT

Vital.

When we consider this sole word, it conjures meanings of something that is essential, and yet alive and bursting with energy – just like a beating heart is vital.

It’s also the word Noah’s Ark Senior Manager, Services, Dr Stacey Alexander selects to describe the Noah’s Ark Practice Principles.

And when you think about it, all applications of that word are fit for purpose in this context.

“Best practice is a non-negotiable – for us the Practice Principles are more important than anything else,” Dr Alexander says.

“We are not here to make a profit, we are here to provide high-quality services to families and so those best practice principles are central to everything that we do.

“The entire organisation is geared around helping our staff to provide best-practice services.”

In about 17 years with Noah’s Ark, Dr Alexander has also spent more than a decade presenting nationally and internationally at early childhood conferences on the Key Worker role and, for the past eight years, on how early childhood intervention professionals can improve the attachment security of children with a disability or developmental delay.

She was also the lead author of the Key Worker book and online course.

“To me, Noah’s Ark’s dedication to providing best practice for families is the reason why most of us are working here,” she says.

“It comes before anything that we do, and it’s been something that we have continued to work on to improve our services and to consult heavily with families around their experience of our services so that we can keep making them better and better.”

It’s this consultation with families that is a driving force of all the work that happens at Noah’s Ark, a non-profit organisation, and it’s where the Noah’s Ark Key Worker project has its roots.

“The primary practice principle that has always united the work at Noah’s Ark has been around family-centred practice,” she says.

“It’s always about putting families at the very centre of things – so, the most important thing in a child’s life – and us doing what we can to enhance their experience, confidence and capacity in supporting their children.

“The Key Worker role has come out of that best practice principle – it was about looking at what the family’s goals are, being knowledgeable about what the family’s routines are, what they already know and what works for them and what their priorities are so that we can work out how to best help them.

“That is far more effective than coming in with an ‘expert hat’ on and saying what I think you need is ‘this’. And the Key Worker role was always around forming strong relationship with families to support that work to happen.”

In 2010, the Noah’s Ark Key Worker project began to be able to share resources with its staff.

“Then we realised we had written a book,” Dr Alexander says.

“We wanted to be able to share the knowledge more broadly in the sector because we want to support the entire sector as much as we can to provide best practice services to families.

“Creating an online training program was a way we thought we might be able to do that so people could access it from anywhere and it’s still running strong.

“And it is heartening that people within the sector still find it a valuable resource.”

The online course was revised in 2024 and the book is available on ResearchGate, with Dr Alexander saying people still access it every week.

But what about best practice moving forward?

Dr Alexander says the "significant shift” towards child agency has formed an enormous trajectory within best practice at Noah’s Ark, including the research behind the Child Agency Toolkit course offered as part of our organisation’s learning and development courses.

And in terms of ongoing learning and development, research and information are still flowing within and from Noah’s Ark, driven by the Practice Principles that are a vital beating heart.

For further information as well as a link to the free PDF, visit The Key Worker: Resources for Early Childhood Intervention Professionals.