Every child brings a unique mix of strengths, sensitivities, and ways of experiencing the world. For some, ECE is where they first feel understood. For others, it is where they first feel different. Our systems must ensure that difference is met with design, not deficit.
The ECE Funding Review (MAG 2025) is an opportunity to move from reactive inclusion to proactive funding design. True inclusion ensures that children with additional, complex, or diverse needs do not have to fight for the support and understanding they deserve.
We can’t support what we haven’t taken time to see.
1. Engage: Seeing the Whole Child
Engagement begins with recognition. Children with sensory, cognitive, or emotional differences experience the world in layered ways. A system that genuinely sees them must fund the time, observation, and training required to notice patterns and respond sensitively.
Too often, services receive additional funding only after a formal diagnosis. The Ministry of Education (2024) notes that early identification and relational observation prevent escalation and reduce long-term intervention costs. Funding must prioritise prevention and partnership.
Policy opportunity: Fund early identification and relationship-based observation as part of the base funding model.
2. Enable: Resourcing Complexity, Not Penalising It
Many ECE services struggle to sustain consistent support for children with complex needs because inclusion funding is inconsistent, short-term, or heavily bureaucratic. This creates inequity across regions and service types. OECD (2021) found that predictable inclusion funding and specialist coordination significantly improve child outcomes and educator confidence.
The Funding Review can enable complexity by:
- Establishing a baseline inclusion allocation for all services.
- Funding permanent Special Education Needs Coordinators (SENCOs).
- Providing tiered top-up funding for children with additional needs.
- Resourcing PLD in neurodiversity, sensory regulation, and trauma-informed practice.
These are not extras; they are the essentials of equity.
3. Empower: Collaboration and Whānau Partnership
No single agency can meet the full spectrum of needs. The system must fund collaboration, not competition, between education, health, and social services. Oranga Tamariki (2024) and Te Whatu Ora (2023) both highlight that inter-agency partnerships lead to earlier intervention and stronger protective outcomes.
ECE services need structures for funded collaboration between kaiako, therapists, social workers, and whānau. This could include:
- Shared data protocols that respect privacy and cultural consent.
- Co-located service hubs that integrate health and education.
- Funded whānau navigators or kaiārahi roles to bridge support systems.
Inter-agency collaboration is not an efficiency measure; it is an equity measure.
4. Evolve: Trauma-Informed and Neuroaffirmative Futures
Developmental neuroscience and epigenetics show that chronic, unbuffered stress changes the way the brain processes emotion and attention (Harvard Center on the Developing Child, 2016). Stable, attuned caregiving can reverse these effects, regulating stress systems and supporting learning (WHO & UNICEF, 2018).
Funding design must embed trauma-informed and neuroaffirmative principles into every service. This means predictable routines, sensory-friendly environments, and consistent relationships. When we design for regulation and belonging, we create safety.
Policy move: Fund national PLD in trauma-informed, neuroaffirmative practice, with inclusion of neuroscience in qualification upgrades.
Inclusion is not compliance; it is a culture of care informed by science.
Closing Reflection
Diversity of need is the human norm. When funding is designed for the margins, everyone benefits. Environments become calmer, kaiako feel more capable, and whānau experience trust instead of tension. The ECE Funding Review can be the moment we embed inclusion that breathes: resilient, relational, and responsive.
When systems breathe, children thrive.
Reflection Prompts
- What would a proactive model of inclusion look like in your service?
- How could inter-agency collaboration become standard practice?
- Where might neuroscience-informed training reshape your approach to inclusion?
Inline References
- Ministry of Education (2025). ECE Funding Review (MAG 2025). education.govt.nz.
- Ministry of Education (2024). Regulatory Review of Early Childhood Education. education.govt.nz.
- OECD (2021). Starting Strong VI: Supporting Meaningful Access and Quality in ECEC. oecd.org.
- Oranga Tamariki (2024). Oranga Tamariki Act, Section 15: Reporting Concerns. orangatamariki.govt.nz.
- Te Whatu Ora (2023). Early Years Health and Wellbeing Report. tewhatuora.govt.nz.
- Harvard Center on the Developing Child (2016). From Best Practices to Breakthrough Impacts. developingchild.harvard.edu.
- World Health Organization & UNICEF (2018). Nurturing Care Framework for Early Childhood Development. who.int; unicef.org.