1 in 5 kids that start school are developmentally vulnerable. Environmental risk factors at the start of life can lead to a series of developmental setbacks that affect a child’s health and wellbeing throughout life.
Recent data shows that children have better outcomes in life when they begin early intervention programs as infants or toddlers. This also breaks the cycle of disadvantage to society.
That’s why we need to take a life course approach to early childhood development, starting from conception. We must look at each stage of a child’s development and ensure it builds on the next.
Through our work, we will improve policy and practice to ensure every child has the best start to life.
Activity
All our activity is centred on getting wider access to vulnerable communities, and ensuring all families get equal access to the same level of support.
- Access
We have two programs that help us identify children in need of support as early as possible. The first is our Watch Me Grow app - a surveillance app that monitors children’s developmental progress during GP vaccination visits. During these visits, GPs assess whether there’s a need and can refer children and families via our second program: Getting in Early, Getting it Right (Happy Healthy Ready) program. This program works with non-government agencies who run supported playgroups for children from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Backgrounds to identify developmental risk early on and refer kids onto health services. A seamless care pathway is the result.
- Equity
We’re working with refugee families to ensure health and community services communicate better with these groups. We’re also encouraging better engagement with these communities, so that providers can tailor their services to different cultures, and support the health of refugee children. Through this work, we’ve spoken to 200 refugee children to understand the mental, community and emotional trauma of trying to fit into a new culture. We’re using these findings to improve care and early intervention programs.
- Clinical variability
Through SuCCEED (Supporting Children with Complex Feeding Difficulties), we’re reducing the variations in care that children with complex feeding issues receive through feeding tubes. Since the project’s launch, we’ve connected clinicians, researchers, parents and educators. We’ve progressed towards standardised, enhanced care in feeding clinics across the state. We’ve used novel research methods such as Video Reflexive Ethnography to identify what makes for “brilliant” care through the eyes of families and clinicians. We are creating new communities of practice and investigating the impact that simply connecting people can have on the most complex health issues. We have co-created the first ever Australian website by parents, for parents and families of children with complex feeding difficulties - childfeeding.org. This free website provides information and support to families any time of the day or night, exactly when and where they need it most.
- Healthy Housing Project
This project is committed to improving Aboriginal child health and wellbeing. Through it, we are developing an integrated care pathway that connects families, child health, social and housing services. The pathway will include a brief housing screening assessment and decision tree, with actions including referral to appropriate agency contact points for particular housing issues and provision of supporting information. This project is a unique opportunity for NGOs, clinicians, researchers and distinct government organisations to collaborate to improve the housing situations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children at risk of poor health due to housing problems.
- Care Close to Home
This project has been set up to improve the care that children in rural areas receive. In particular, those with complex medical conditions that need to be transferred to a local care facility. This project aims to collaborate with healthcare representatives on a shared model of care and improve communication between health and social care services by increasing the utilisation in rural and remote areas to telehealth services by CNCs (Clinical Nurse Consultants), paediatricians, PHNs and GPs to increase their professional capacity and confidence to deal with complex health needs of their patients.
Team
The ELDoH CAG is made up of professors, senior clinicians, chief executives and policy makers. Our team includes 162 members from 13 of the 16 partner organisations.
We engage front line workers, policy makers and key priority setters from a range of organisations including: the NSW Ministry of Health, NSW Department of Family and Community Services, NSW Refugee Health, NSW Department of Education, Settlement Services International, Migrant Resource Centre and Housing NSW.
We have also partnered with several refugee, justice and childhood development organisations across the country and internationally.
Through these engagements, we are listening to what patients, service providers and policy-makers want. These collaborations will ensure we develop integrated services that consider every stage of a child’s development. They will also ensure every family gets better value from early life services across the country.
