Since inception, FDCA has provided an effective voice for the family day care community in relation to government policy as well as support to the program in terms of research, information and resources.

We have delivered successful strategies to raise the profile of the program including Federal election information about family day care and its issues, lobbying campaigns to maintain family day care funding and the promotion of family day care at a national level through family day care conferences and forums.

Our organisation made major contribution to the development and introduction of National Standards for family day care and had significant input to the development and introduction of the Family Day Care Quality Assurance system.

A customised public liability insurance product was negotiated to meet the specific needs of the sector and a range of family day care insurance products and resources have been tailored for carers and staff.

We established our magazine JiGSAW - the only family day care specific publication in Australia, and our e-newsletter Family Day Care Matters. Our national e-list enables carers, scheme staff and others to receive up to the minute information about issue affecting the program.

The national education program we initiated for carers and schemes on the introduction of the GST and other major changes to the taxation system provided family day care workers with critical support to manage those requirements. Our Tax Guide – Getting it Right continues to position carers to understand their tax obligations from day one.

We developed detailed information and a comprehensive paper about the impact of the Child Care Support Broadband Redevelopment, which has seen the Australian Government carefully consider its future plans for family day care and to retain network funding, albeit subject to a new occupied places-based formula.

Our national research project, which looked at the conditions under which carers operate, provided a better understanding of the work environment for this group and will enable us to more confidently represent them.

We conducted key research to support the introduction of in-home care and ran pilot studies on quality assurance, innovative care and sick care.

We developed a food and nutritional kit specifically for family day care and published family day care specific resources.

We have moved from an incorporated association to a company limited by guarantee and worked with success to adequately resource the Board. Taking a proactive approach to strengthening our internal structure, we sought an external evaluation of our operations in terms of human resources, governance and management.

We introduced measures to build on the cooperative and productive work environment for our staff and formalised our planning by developing and releasing our 2004 - 2007 Strategic Plan.
In 2006 we changed our name from the National Family Day Care Council of Australia to Family Day Care Australia and launched a new logo and a new mission statement.

A national marketing campaign saw the launch of a new logo and brand for family day care, followed by a suite of branded recruitment tools accessed via the FDCA website. A national recruitment campaign ‘Let’s get building’ was run in parallel with three Welfare-to-Work pilots funded by the Department of Workplace Education and Training.

We launched the inaugural National Family Day Care Achievement Awards at the 5th National Family Day Care Conference.