Healthy Start is an Australia-wide strategy to support parents with learning difficulties and promote a healthy start to life for their young children.
Healthy Start will do this by:
1. Building active interagency and multidisciplinary networks at local, state and national levels.
2. Promoting research-informed practice through an information-rich website; online professional development; workshops in every state and territory; and, the dissemination of proven parent educational resources designed for parents with learning difficulties.
3. Leading the field forward through new research and development addressing critical issues for policy makers, practitioners and families.
Healthy Start helps all families with a parent with a learning difficulty, including parents with a diagnosed intellectual impairment. For more information, read or print the full project description.
May 2009 Congratulations to the Learning Hubs that have been awarded Healthy Start Development Grants
Ten Learning Hubs across the country were recently successful in their applications to secure Healthy Start Development Grants to support activities in their local community.
April 2009 Understanding and Planning Support (UPS) resource to be trialed through Healthy Start This is the final call for practitioners interested in using the Understanding and Planning Support (UPS) resource. The UPS is an engaging resource for understanding and planning support for parents with a learning difficulty. Find out more
March 2009
Opportunity to participate in Healthy Start DVD study The Healthy Start team are looking for practitioners that have been trained in ‘Parenting Young Children’ to participate in a trial of two exciting new resources.
September 2008 Healthy Start Evaluation findings now available Evaluation of the Healthy Start strategy has been conducted over the first 3.5 years by collecting information from practitioners, learning hubs, and website users. Summaries of the evaluation findings for Healthy Start are now available.
Healthy Start for Me & My Baby (HSMMB) and Australian Supported Learning Program (ASLP): Me & My Community are innovative new resources developed by the Healthy Start Team. They have both been piloted across Australia, and are now available for wider community purchase and use.
We are pleased to announce that the Federal Government is continuing its funding for the all the Early Childhood-Invest to Grow projects, which includes Healthy Start strategy for another 12 months (until June 2009).
For information about various Healthy Start resources click on the links below:
Step by Step DVD The Step-by-Step Baby Care DVD is a resource to support the specific needs of new parents who have learning difficulties. The DVD can be used as an interactive teaching aide and left with parents to use at home. Find out more.
Strengthening Every Family A DVD, Strengthening Every Family, is available to order from the Parenting Research Centre. The DVD presents interviews with parents with learning difficulties who have asked to remain anonymous, so their faces are obscured.Find out more.
Find a Learning Hub This section of the website contains information on existing Learning Hubs across Australia. Summary details about each Learning Hub are available, including links to every organisation involved, the location of each Hub, and contact details of the Learning Hub Convenors. If you are interested in becoming part of a Learning Hub please contact the relevant Learning Hub Convenor. Find a Learning Hub Now
Hubs in profile
The Local Stories page can be found in the Learning Hubs section of the website, and features real life stories about events and resources that Learning Hubs have been working on as part of their Local Area Action Plans (LAAPs), as well as links to all the Learning Hubs that have been previously profiled as part of the Hub of the Month feature.
Healthy Start is committed to providing a website that is both information-rich and user friendly. To help us do this we would be most grateful if you could take some time to complete our website feedback form.
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This website provides
information about Healthy Start which is funded by the Australian
Government's Early Childhood - Invest to Grow Initiative.
However, the Australian Government is not responsible for
the overall content of the website.
