About Healthy Start Achievements
Healthy Start achieved three major tasks during the first development phase:
Building leadership involved identifying leaders in each Australian state and territory to help set up Healthy Start in their local areas. These leaders completed online studies in parenting with intellectual disability through the University of Sydney.
Over the first three and a half years of Healthy Start, over 400 practitioners were trained in evidence-based parent education and support programs. Workers received training in Parenting Young Children and Healthy and Safe: An Australian Parent Education Kit.
During this phase Healthy Start also developed and evaluated two new innovative resources: Healthy Start for Me and My Baby and the Australian Supported Learning Program: Me and My Community.
Read more about these resources.
The second phase of Healthy Start saw a strengthened focus on local practice network conveners as leaders on parenting with intellectual disability. During this phase Healthy Start was active in the following ways:
The third phase of Healthy Start focused on strengthening collaboration within the national practice network to encourage greater interaction and exchange between practice network members and to increase the capacity to share resources. Our vision was to support service providers and community leaders who are confident in their capability to advocate for families, and to promote use of best practice programs and service delivery to families.
Phase three also included supporting the Healthy Start practice network through training, online study opportunities and to develop local resources. At the same time, the Parenting Research Centre and University of Sydney teams conducted a research program to develop new Healthy Start resources. Research topics included:
During phase three the Healthy Start website was revamped to improve usability and to introduce a service for practitioners to easily make contact with colleagues. The addition of a network platform on the website was provided to support professionals, practitioners, and researchers in communicating and collaborating to share ideas and resources for working with parents with learning difficulties.
The Healthy Start online practice network is designed to allow users to sign up and connect with others, join discussions or share information and invite colleagues in their networks to join.
During the new funding phase, Healthy Start will continue to increase service system capacity to better enable practitioners to support parents with learning difficulties and their children. The project will do this by providing ways for service providers and practitioners, researchers, and policy makers to:
