Local partner spotlight: Bourke and District Children's Services (BDCS)

Published

Monday, April 13, 2026 - 12:00 PM

Local partner spotlight: Bourke and District Children's Services

Bourke and District Children’s Services (BDCS), a remote Early Childhood and Care (ECEC) service in NSW, partnered with Restacking the Odds (RSTO) in 2024 to support shared learning and strengthen how they understand and respond to the needs of local children and families.

RSTO recently sat down with Amanda Bell, Project Director of Connected Beginnings at BDCS, and Emma Stephens, BDCS’ Acting Preschool Director, to learn more about their experience partnering with RSTO.

What does continuous improvement look like in practice for your team?

Listening to families and staff, making small changes often, checking what works, working together, and celebrating success.

How has the partnership with RSTO supported your team’s confidence or capability? 

Learning together and building skills, facilitated by the RSTO team, and identifying weaknesses in the team’s understanding of data. We use the RSTO action plan template to design projects to test and follow through with reflection that is based on the numbers and data collected as well as staff observations of changes in children.

What changes have you tested to strengthen quality, quantity or participation at BDCS? 

As for quality, we’ve brought in staff training to support the team in making meaningful observations of children’s development and adding this information into daily programming. The leadership team also contributes to service Assessment & Rating self-assessment, ensuring all quality improvement programs undertaken at BDCS are reflected, for example Connected Beginnings (CB) and Indigenous Employment Strategies.

Childcare and preschool have full enrolment, with an enormous waitlist for childcare. BDCS and CB advocate to state and federal governments to increase places available to all Bourke children. We also seek funding for capital works to build the physical space needed and for staffing the additional educators needed.

To strengthen participation, BDCS’ Aboriginal Liaison Officer (ALO) connects with families to promote the benefits of early education and to identify any barriers to children attending. Working in partnership with the Connected Beginnings leadership team and family services, we overcome these barriers.

We also share with the families and wider community the activities of the week at preschool on social media and to families via a printed newsletter. We are currently testing preschool, childcare, mobile, Connected Beginnings and corporate services contributing one Facebook post each week, more where appropriate, and following the engagement with each post.

The Indigenous Employment Strategy, sitting within BDCS, was developed to address long-standing challenges in recruiting and retaining First Nations staff in local early learning services. The Strategy supports First Nations participants by providing access to training, work placements, career guidance, and practical pre-employment assistance. Our RSTO data has showed that having a workforce that reflects the makeup of the community leads to increased trust and participation.

What are you most excited about in continuing to use (or support your team to use) data to guide action? 

The skill building within the teams and the newfound awareness that each action in service has a measurable outcome. Put plainly, that the hard work the team does is making a long-term difference to the children in our community.

Anything else you'd like to add? 

RSTO has led BDCS on an incredible journey that ultimately improves the experience children, their families and our team have in early education. This is a journey that we would not have had the direction to take alone, and the design of the project facilitates real and measurable outcomes. It has taken ideas in our heads and made them come alive.

Find out more about the BDCS and RSTO partnership