ECRU Sector Support

June 2025

Be part of something nourishing 

Share how food is provided in your service by 17 June 2025

Dr Ros Sambell, Senior Lecturer from the School of Medical and Health Services at Edith Cowan University and her team are undertaking a study to co-design a Best Practice Guide for Food Environments in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services across Western Australia.

We urge services to take part in the survey below from the project team.  Your feedback will contribute to achieving the best results for improving practices in the ECEC sector. Please see further information from Ros below:

Edith Cowan University has received a Healthway grant to co-design a Best Practice Guide for Food Environments in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services across Western Australia. The project—Nurturing Healthy Futures—will support long day care (LDC) and family day care (FDC) services to create nourishing, inclusive food environments that reflect the everyday realities of children, educators, and families.

We’re starting with a simple question:
How is food provided in your service?

If you’re a director or manager at a licensed LDC or FDC service, we’re inviting you to complete a quick 5-10 minute survey. Your insights will help us build a statewide picture of food provision practices and guide the development of practical tools to support real-world service needs.

What’s it about?
This short survey asks about your service demographics, how food is currently provided in your setting—whether meals are cooked on-site, provided by families, outsourced to caterers, or somewhere in between. There’s currently no consistent data on this in WA, and your input will help fill that gap.

Survey closes: 17 June 2025

Why take part?
This is your opportunity to influence the development of resources that reflect what’s realistic, meaningful, and nourishing in your context—not just what looks good on paper. All responses are non-sensitive and service-level only. The survey includes a brief information sheet and simple consent tick box.

If you have any questions, please contact
Dr Ros Sambell
Email: r.sambell@ecu.edu.au
Phone: 08 6304 5424

Let’s build something useful, together - grounded in practice, shaped by the sector.