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…

Childhood is an important time for healthy development and learning, and for establishing the foundation blocks of future wellbeing, but it is also a time of vulnerability. While a positive start in life helps children to reach their full potential, a poor start increases the chances of adverse outcomes for the individual, society and possibly…

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…

Prior research provides mixed findings on the prevalence of sleep problems and mental health difficulties experienced by gifted children, with findings largely based on studies of small clinical samples. In a large, prospective, longitudinal, community cohort, the current study aimed to examine parent report of child sleep problems at ages 1, 2, 3…

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.,…

Child care centre attendance is associated with an increased risk of concurrent ear infections, but what is less clear is whether there are any positive or negative long-term effects of early child care attendance on the incidence of ear infections in later childhood. This research assessed the impact of early child care attendance on concurrent…

The majority of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (hereafter referred to as "Aboriginal") people live in urban centres. Otitis media (OM) occurs at a younger age, prevalence is higher and hearing loss and other serious complications are more common in Aboriginal than non-Aboriginal children. Despite this, data on the…

Childhood is an important time for healthy development, learning, and establishing the foundations for future wellbeing. Most Australian children are healthy, safe and doing well. However, childhood is also a time of vulnerability and a child's outcomes can vary depending on where they live and their family's circumstances. This brief brings…

This study aimed to assess the prevalence of depression and anxiety among (12) Iraqi refugee children, 6 males and 6 females (aged 7-14) who had fled ISIS and are residing in Jordan awaiting resettlement. The authors used four scales to measure depression, field observation, and structured interviews with the mothers to examine exile-related…

Background: Spasticity and dystonia in children with cerebral palsy has been treated with intrathecal baclofen therapy (ITB) at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia (RCH) since 1999. Methods: The records of children having received or still receiving ITB during the period September 1999 until August 2005 were studied to evaluate…

Despite increasing demand for wellness approaches from disability advocates and consumer groups, they are not implemented routinely in childhood disability services. Interviews were conducted with 23 allied health therapists and managers working within four Australian childhood disability services. They described attempts to embed wellness…

Both Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) and divorce are very prevalent in western societies, and they may occur together. AD/HD is generally viewed as a neurobiological disorder, which has led to a commonly held belief that social-environmental factors play little role in the symptom profile of children diagnosed with the disorder.…

In 2009, the Australian Government introduced the Get Up and Grow (Commonwealth Government, 2009) guidelines for healthy eating and exercise in early childhood as one element of a range of initiatives aiming to curb childhood obesity, a problem affecting an increasing proportion of Australia children. Included in the policy recommendations are…