Why we're consulting

In Wodonga, more than 5,700 children are in their early and primary years (aged 0–9), with around half of them under the age of five. We know that the early years are some of the most important in shaping a child’s future health, wellbeing and development.

Our current Municipal Early Years Plan is now due for an update. With Council’s recently adopted plans highlighting the importance of children and families, this is the right time to create a new vision that reflects what our community needs today - and for the years ahead.

The intention is for the updated plan to guide how Council, services, and community partners work together to support families with young children who live, learn, play or visit Wodonga. We want this plan to reflect real experiences and aspirations, and to help create a community where every child can thrive.

We want to hear from parents, carers, early childhood educators, health professionals, community organisations, and anyone supporting young families.

Your feedback will help shape priorities, identify opportunities, and ensure the voices of Wodonga’s children and families lead the way.

We invite you to take part in the consultation and complete the survey below. Your voice is essential in building a strong, connected and child‑friendly Wodonga.

Background

We’re refreshing our Municipal Early Years Plan (MEYP) to help children aged 0–9 learn, grow and thrive. We want to hear from you about what you hope for our children’s future, and how well local early years services are supporting families.

This plan will focus on the things we can improve together at a local level - like making services easier to find and use, helping providers work together, strengthening inclusion, and creating child‑friendly spaces across our community.

Some issues are bigger and sit with state or national systems. While the MEYP can’t fix those directly, we’ll use your feedback to advocate to state and federal governments for improvements to the broader early childhood system.

How does this link with our Council Plan

This plan aligns with Council’s Community Vision and Council Plan priority to support liveable and connected communities.

How your feedback will be used

This is just the beginning of the development of the Municipal Early Years Plan; we don't have a direction locked in yet.

The final plan will be influenced by many things that we already know - legislation, participation trends, demographic data and the like - however, it also needs to be influenced by the real-life experiences of the community. The community includes children, parents, caregivers, service providers, regulatory authorities and businesses.

We have developed a set of questions using Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth's NEST Wellbeing Framework which will help council decipher the experiences, needs and wants of the community into a structure that will inform the creation of the plan.