Disaster-Related Childcare Service Disruption Data Added to the Atlas
New Dataset
A new dataset has been added to the Atlas under the 'Learning' them describing disaster-related childcare service closures in 2025. The data were provided through the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY), based on source data from ACECQA, and combined with the publicly available ACECQA registry. Indicators were derived by the ACYWA team by linking childcare closure records with information on eligible services and approved childcare places.
The dataset includes measures such as the number of closure events, the number and proportion of childcare services affected, total and average closure duration, approved childcare places affected, approved place-days lost, and average approved places affected per closure event. Indicators are available by closure reason, including all disasters, bushfire, cyclone and flood. Outputs are available at SA2, SA3, SA4, LGA and State/Territory levels.
The dataset includes Long Day Care and Preschool/Kindergarten services, including services that also provide Outside School Hours Care. Outside School Hours Care-only services and Family Day Care services were excluded. Approved childcare places should be interpreted as a measure of service capacity affected, rather than a direct count of enrolled children. Reason-specific totals should not be summed to derive the overall total, as one closure event may be associated with more than one disaster reason. Suppression was applied where the number of services affected was greater than zero and less than or equal to four.
Click here for a list of all sub-themes and indicators within the theme of 'Learning'.
Click the button below to explore the newly added dataset in the Atlas platform. Find it under the 'Learning' theme —> Early childhood education and care. Open the data filters to navigate to other indicators and datasets.
