This paper presents child data generated in a pilot project of the ACCESS Study of Child and Family Services, a research program of how child and family services align with the interests and needs of local families. Underpinned by social capital theories, the pilot study was undertaken by a partnership of local early childhood services within an inner urban precinct of Brisbane. These services included two child care centres, two kindergartens/preschools, one playgroup, and one primary school. Seventy-six children aged three to eight years were asked, in informal conversations with their caregivers, to comment on their experiences in the service and to consider possible advice they might give to newcomers who were to take part in the service. Theoretical perspectives from the sociology of childhood are used to examine children's accounts of their lived experience in early childhood services.