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Children 0–14 by tier (reach)
Distribution
Priority tier
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Remoteness
Children 0–14 by tier
Venue coverage by tier
The Index scores every community in Australia for the social value that children's theatre can create there — a single number from 0 to 10, so touring and subsidy can be directed to where they matter most.
The Index answers a practical question for the National Children's Theatre Initiative: with limited touring and subsidy budgets, where should children's theatre go first to reach the children who stand to benefit most?
Every community in the country is scored from 0 to 10 — higher means a greater opportunity for impact. The guiding vision is simple: Theatre for Every Child. The Index turns that ambition into evidence, so touring routes and subsidy can be directed transparently rather than by habit or proximity.
The Index blends up to four measures, each converted to its own 0–10 sub-score, then averaged using weights you control:
- Emotional Maturity (EM) — the local rate of children developmentally vulnerable or at-risk on the AEDC emotional-maturity domain, scaled against the national average (~25%). An average area scores 5; much higher rates approach 10.
- Disadvantage (D) — the area's SEIFA decile, flipped so the most disadvantaged 10% of areas score 10 and the least disadvantaged score 1.
- Remoteness (R) — 0 for major cities, rising through 2.5 (inner regional), 5 (outer regional) and 7.5 (remote) to 10 (very remote).
- Developmentally Vulnerable (DV2) — the share of children vulnerable on two or more AEDC domains, scaled against the national average (~12.5%). Off in the default model; available for models targeting compounded need.
The default weighting is EM 40%, D 40%, R 20% with DV2 off. Every weight is adjustable, and any indicator can be switched on or off — the remaining weights rebalance to 100%. Where a measure has no data for an area, it is skipped and the rest rebalance.
Precisely:
Dsub = 11 − IRSD decile
Rsub = {Major Cities 0 · Inner Reg. 2.5 · Outer Reg. 5 · Remote 7.5 · Very Remote 10}
DV2sub = min(10, DV2% ÷ 12.46 × 5)
Index = Σ(wi × subi) ÷ Σ(wi) for active indicators with data, to 1 decimal
Subsidy = floor + (ceiling − floor) × (Index − High) ÷ (Full − High)
High tier only · clamped 0–1 · rounded to 5% steps
25.17% and 12.46% are the 2024 national rates for the two AEDC measures, so a score of 5 always means "at the national average". EM and DV2 are ratio scales, SEIFA is rank-based (deciles) and remoteness is an ordered classification with imposed equal steps — a deliberate compromise for a single combined score.
Emotional maturity (child wellbeing). Children's theatre's clearest social contribution is to emotional and social development. The AEDC emotional-maturity domain is the best national, place-based measure of where young children are struggling, so it sits at the heart of the Index.
Disadvantage (access). Families in disadvantaged areas have the least access to professional live performance — cost, distance and fewer local venues. SEIFA points the Index toward communities the market underserves.
Remoteness (isolation). Remote communities have the thinnest cultural infrastructure of all; remoteness lifts their score to reflect the extra value of reaching them.
Developmentally Vulnerable (breadth). Where emotional maturity measures one dimension of need, DV2 identifies children struggling across two or more developmental domains at once — compounded vulnerability. It is kept out of the default model to avoid double-counting AEDC data, and switched on when a model deliberately targets breadth of need.
Why we sometimes remove remoteness. Remoteness and disadvantage often move together, so counting both can double-weight the same places. Turning remoteness off — a 50/50 emotional-maturity and disadvantage model — isolates developmental need and disadvantage on their own terms. The sandbox lets you compare both views.
Every figure sits on the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard, at two levels:
- SA2 — roughly a suburb or town (~10,000 people): the local community around a venue.
- SA3 — a cluster of SA2s, closer to the touring catchment a venue realistically draws from.
The geography toggle switches the whole model between the two, so you can score the precise local area or the broader catchment.
Scores band into three priority tiers — High, Medium, Low — at thresholds you set (default High ≥ 6.3, Medium ≥ 3.8).
Subsidy applies to High-tier areas only, and ramps up within the band: from a floor (default 50%) at the High threshold to full subsidy (100%) near the top of the scale (default index 8.0+), in 5% steps — so the highest-impact places attract the deepest support.
When a tour or scenario is costed, its subsidy is funded through income sources you assemble from scratch: the Children's Theatre Investment Fund, state touring grants (calculated automatically from each state's venues, and editable), Playing Australia, philanthropy and other contributions. The panel shows the balance still needed until the subsidy is fully funded, and the split flows through to every report.
There is no single "correct" weighting — different funders and purposes justify different emphases. The dashboard is a sandbox: change the weights, geography, thresholds and subsidy shape, and every area and venue re-scores instantly.
This keeps the model transparent and lets you stress-test how sensitive the priorities are to each choice. Useful configurations can be saved as named models so agreed scenarios can be compared side by side — and when a tour is built, the model in force is frozen to that tour, so negotiated subsidy figures stay stable even as the live model evolves.
Everything is drawn from official, public sources at the SA2/SA3 level:
- Emotional Maturity — Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) 2024, emotional-maturity domain.
- Developmentally Vulnerable (DV2) — AEDC 2024 summary measure: vulnerable on two or more domains.
- Disadvantage — ABS SEIFA 2021, Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage (IRSD).
- Remoteness — ABS Remoteness Areas (ASGS 2021).
- Children in the area — ABS Estimated Resident Population by age (0–4, 5–9, 10–14).
- Community profile (in "About the area") — ABS Census 2021: income, rent, employment, family type, education, First Nations population, language and housing.
Child population is used as context — the reach, or number of children a venue could serve — not as part of the score. The Index measures the intensity of opportunity; population tells you how many children it touches.
The Index supports three decisions: where to tour, where to subsidise, and how to make the case to funders.
Venues are mapped against the national picture so gaps — high-impact communities with no current venue — are visible. From there, tours are built directly in the venue list: tick venues onto a tour, set per-venue fees, confirm subsidy, and save. The Tours page tracks the whole portfolio — every company, work and tour, with committed subsidy and children reached.
Four print-ready reports carry the case outward: a funder subsidy report, a per-tour proposal, a venue-facing offer letter, and a technical specification of any model.
The tool is a live web application with sign-in for invited users — viewers see everything, administrators edit — and every change to the data is recorded in an audit log. Figures refresh as new ABS and AEDC releases arrive.
The Index is a targeting instrument, and honesty about its edges matters as much as its strengths:
- Opportunity, not outcome. A high score says the conditions for impact are strong — it does not measure what a performance actually achieves. Evaluating delivered impact is a separate exercise.
- Places, not people. Every measure is area-level. A high-scoring community contains advantaged families and a low-scoring one contains struggling ones; the Index says nothing about any individual child.
- Geography changes the answer. SA2 and SA3 give different scores, tiers and reach for the same venue. Neither is more correct — they answer slightly different questions — which is why the toggle is explicit and every figure carries its geography.
- Reach is residence, not attendance. "Children 0–14 reached" counts children living in the areas served, each area once. It is not a ticket-sales forecast.
- The data has a date. AEDC is 2024; SEIFA and Census are 2021. Fast-changing communities may have moved since. AEDC also suppresses very small areas, so a handful of communities (mostly remote) carry fewer measures.
- Thresholds are choices, not discoveries. "High ≥ 6.3" and "50% → 100%" are calibrated policy settings, recorded with every saved model — the precision of the numbers should not be mistaken for empirical derivation.
A full technical specification of any model — formulas, parameters and outcomes — is available via Report → Model report.
Sources: AEDC 2024 · ABS SEIFA 2021 (IRSD) · ABS Remoteness Areas (ASGS 2021) · ABS Estimated Resident Population · ABS Census 2021. Built for the National Children's Theatre Initiative.