Access to Early Learning for professionals

Overview

Access to Early Learning (AEL) is an early intervention program that helps young children to take part in early childhood education and care programs.

AEL is a targeted program for three-year-old children from families with complex needs. It aims to make sure that these 3-year-old children get the full benefits of attending a quality kindergarten program.

Through AEL, degree-qualified facilitators can connect families to quality education and care services that provide a quality kindergarten program.

Families referred to AEL have complex needs that can affect children regularly attending kindergarten programs. AEL gives these families extra support to help enable regular attendance and access to 15 hours per week of free kindergarten.

Facilitators also work with families in their homes to explore learning activities they can do with their children.

AEL facilitators:

help children to access 15 hours per week of quality Three-Year-Old Kindergarten programs for free or at low cost
help families to find ways to support children to attend kindergarten regularly
visit families at home to help parents and carers with activities to build on what their child is learning at kindergarten
provide mentoring and professional learning for kindergarten program educators.

AEL benefits both families and early childhood educators by:

making sure children who would benefit the most can take part in early childhood education and care
helping families to better understand their child’s learning and development. This means families are more confident and better able to respond to their child’s needs
improving educators’ knowledge of how to help priority children and families to fully engage with early childhood education, and other support services.

Eligibility

Children are eligible for AEL if they are referred by:

Enhanced Maternal and Child Health (Enhanced MCH) service
Child and family services
The Orange Door or a Child Protection professional.

Children may also be referred by other services, including a Maternal and Child Health service, or Early Childhood Education and Care service.

Professionals and/or services will refer children from families with two or more complex needs, including:

contact with Child Protection
child and/or parent/carer with disability
family violence
mental health issues
sexual trauma
alcohol and drug abuse.

Please refer to the list of providers below to see if AEL operates in your area, and contact your local AEL site if you have any questions about eligibility.

How it works

AEL facilitators work with families and services using a child-focused and strength-based approach. They are experienced in trauma-informed practice and trained in attachment theory and relational practices.

Facilitators have a strong knowledge of the local service system and often work alongside other child and family services, such as Enhanced MCH and The Orange Door.

An AEL facilitator:

proactively engages with services working with families, to identify if they are eligible for AEL
actively reaches out to children and families to understand the barriers that may prevent a child from fully taking part in a kindergarten program
if the child is not engaged in early learning, prepares the family and service to make a successful introduction to kindergarten
develops tailored ways that the family and service can support the child to take part at kindergarten
visits the family’s home regularly to help with home-learning activities, and builds families' understanding, confidence and skills to help with their child’s development and learning
observes and addresses children’s needs through meetings and discussions with families and educators
helps the family to engage with other services and supports as needed
provides kindergarten educators with support for reflection and coaching to strengthen inclusive, collaborative practices
provides kindergarten educators with access to additional training, where needed
supports children’s transition to the following year of kindergarten, or the school program, in the case of AEL-School Readiness Funding program (on this page).

Pre-Prep eligibility of AEL supported children

From 2026, children who have been supported by AEL in their Three-Year-Old Kindergarten year are eligible for Pre-Prep (more hours of Four-Year-Old Kindergarten). In 2026, services can deliver between 16 and 25 hours per week of Pre-Prep to eligible children. In 2028, this will increase to up to 30 hours per week. Learn more about Four-Year-Old Kindergarten is becoming Pre-Prep.

There are no changes to the AEL program for 3-year-olds as a result of the introduction of Pre-Prep. AEL will continue to provide one year of support for three-year-old children to access 15 hours per week of free or low-cost kindergarten.

Program guidelines

The AEL Guidelines give extra guidance and resources to support the delivery of the program for AEL providers and program partners, including family services, Child Protection, Maternal and Child and Health, and Early Childhood Education and Care services.

Proven benefits of AEL

An evaluation of AEL was completed by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI). It found the model supported high levels of kindergarten attendance and engagement from children in significantly disadvantaged circumstances.

The findings included:

Very high levels of attendance in three-year-old kindergarten with children continuing this pattern into four-year-old kindergarten in the following year. Children attended an average of 81% of enrolled hours, compared to an average attendance rate of 73% for children accessing ESK.
Families' improved understanding of their children’s learning and development.
Improved confidence in families’ ability to respond to their children’s needs. This included the quality and frequency of parent-child interactions, behaviour management and how engaged children were in home-learning activities.
Improved educator understanding of how to support children and families with complex needs to connect and stay engaged with early childhood education.
Educators highly valued the one-on-one AEL support and coaching at their services.
Stronger links between home and early childhood education and care services.
Increased collaboration between services that are supporting families with complex needs, especially when their child is eligible to start kindergarten.

‘I prefer one-on-one connection where we can chat, discuss, go back and forth and then have a bit of time to reflect on what’s been said….. The AEL program (facilitator) has come in and we’re able to discuss where the family’s at, what we can do to help each other and then take it from there and have those reflections.’ (Early childhood educator)

Aspects of the program that support strong positive outcomes include:

dedicated and highly qualified facilitators
flexible delivery of AEL, tailored to meet each family’s circumstances
provision of social, emotional and practical support that families with complex needs and their children need to engage in early learning
a child-centred, non-judgemental approach to support strong, respectful relationships between:
- AEL workers and families
- educators and families
- AEL workers and educators
- AEL workers and other professionals in the broader service system.

Download the evaluation report:

Locations of AEL providers

AEL providers operate in 23 sites across Victoria. Each site supports up to 16 three-year-old and their families each year.

AEL providers and local government areas:

For more information about AEL, contact your local AEL provider.

AEL-School Readiness Funding program

AEL-SRF provides children from families with complex needs, who may otherwise miss out on kindergarten, with a rich educational experience before they start school. Services interested in taking part in AEL-SRF can use their School Readiness Funding to implement an Access to Early Learning program in their local area.

To access Access to Early Learning–School Readiness Funding (AEL-SRF), early childhood education and care services can pool resources using School Readiness Funding (SRF) to purchase an AEL program, delivered by a suitably skilled provider.

There are some differences between AEL-SRF and AEL:

AEL-SRF can support all kindergarten-age children. AEL supports children in their three-year-old kindergarten year only, setting them up for a strong future of engagement in learning throughout Pre-Prep (Four-Year-Old Kindergarten) and their school years.
Children enrolled in AEL can access 15 hours of funded Three-Year-Old Kindergarten through the AEL grant. Children enrolled in AEL-SRF access 15 hours of kindergarten through other funding types, such as Early Start Kindergarten, Free Kinder, per capital and/or the Kindergarten Fee Subsidy.

How services can participate in AEL-School Readiness Funding

Kindergarten service providers can implement an Access to Early Learning program across a single or multiple sites in their network where applicable. They can also partner with other services in their area, through agreement to a third-party agreement or Memorandum of Understanding which would determine the program’s implementation, funding and respective roles and responsibilities across the services.

The Early Childhood Improvement Branch (ECIB) supporting SRF implementation in your regional office can link services that are interested in purchasing AEL-SRF with other interested services.

The ECIB can also suggest local services with capacity to employ and support an AEL facilitator, such as local child and family service providers or local government.

More information

Early childhood

Updated 8 August 2025