Playwork is a recognised profession in the United Kingdom (UK) and is currently a growing area of interest internationally. However, debates about the nature and purpose of playwork have raged in the playwork field since the profession was invented in the early adventure playgrounds. This study is the first to capture data about what the now…

This occasional paper is the ninth in a series on the National Quality Framework (NQF). The Education and Care Services National Law and National Regulations govern the minimum standards and requirements that all providers of NQF regulated services must meet, including health and safety requirements. Quality Area 2 of the National Quality Standard…

Priority-setting is a collective responsibility centred around inclusive engagement and alignment with the needs and desired outcomes of the community. In this study, we leveraged the collective expertise of stakeholders from the child and family service system, to identify priorities for supporting the health, education and wellbeing of children…

This paper explores schools' new role in promoting children's mental health, as a key focus for policy makers across the global north. An education policy analysis is conducted for England and Australia, two nations advocating a 'bottom-up' approach to mental health promotion, granting flexibility to schools and municipal authorities. Here it is…

The NOURISH:ECE project explored the role of maternal and child health nurses (MCHNs) in early childhood education and care (ECEC) through the design and pilot of professional learning (PL) regarding responsive feeding practices. Eight focus groups were conducted in Queensland (MCHNs, n = 20; educators, n = 29) to explore attitudes regarding…

The National Quality Framework (NQF) was established in 2012 to create a more efficient and cohesive approach to regulating early childhood education and care, and outside school hours care in Australia. The NQF provides a shared vision for governments and the children's education and care sector, and an agreed tool for measuring and monitoring…

Purpose: Active school travel (AST) programmes aim to change commuting behaviour to improve children's physical and mental health. However, very limited health education programmes for children use segmentation to create tailored solutions that understand the specific characteristics of each group of children and their caregivers in order to yield…

Objectives: This study explored a new telehealth educational and development psychologist (EDP) service 10 provided as part of a multidisciplinary team to rural families. We aimed: (1) to examine the role and process changes made in telehealth consults compared to in-person consults, and (2) to evaluate the satisfaction of key stakeholders with…

UNICEF Innocenti's Report Card 17 explores how the 43 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and/or the European Union (EU) countries are faring in providing healthy environments for children. Do children have clean water to drink? Do they have good-quality air to breathe? Are their homes free of lead and mould? How many…

Developmental research during COVID-19 suggests that pandemic-related disruptions in family relationships are associated with children's mental health. Most of this research has focused on 1 child per family, thereby obfuscating patterns that are differentially operative at the family-wide (i.e., between-family) versus child-specific (i.e.,…

Introduction: Inadequate caregiving conditions interfere with successful health and development outcomes. Access to appropriate information can result in improved health and development outcomes in children. Health promotion text messaging, a primary mHealth strategy, has been implemented in various countries to reach communities where the…

Objectives: This study aimed to explore the impact of early health risks on young Aboriginal children's attendance in playgroups and their early learning outcomes. Design: The study used a cross-sectional design to identify associations between children's early health characteristics, their attendance at a Families as First Teachers (FaFT)…

Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services are vital in the establishment of optimal infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices and long-term health. This qualitative study, informed by Social Cognitive Theory, aimed to describe ECEC infant feeding environments. Nineteen formal long day care and family day care ECEC services and 124…

All Australian children and their families have an equal right to access quality early years education. To achieve this, rationalisation of the Australian early childhood (EC) sector in 2007 saw the introduction of mandated governing frameworks, including the National Quality Framework (NQF), designed to regulate and assure quality practices…

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised huge concerns for the mental health of an entire generation of children. But the pandemic may represent only the tip of a mental health iceberg -- an iceberg we have ignored for far too long. For the first time, "The State of the World's Children" examines the mental health of children and adolescents.…