Main: Smiling Mind is helping to create generations of more mindful Australians. Image courtesy of Smiling Mind. Bottom: Hot spot mapping in WA to target areas of need.
EXEMPLAR GRANTS Telethon Kids Institute
Smiling Mind
$406,743 over 3 years Western Australian Child Development Atlas (CDA) – Geospatial mapping of child development and social data
$342,944 over 3 years Smiling Mind for Pre-Schoolers: Developing smiling minds early in life to ensure their brightest future
This grant is for the development of the Western Australian Child Development Atlas, a resource that will bring together a range of datasets to produce geospatial maps to inform policy making, service delivery and community capacity building to enhance the wellbeing of children and families in the state.
This funding supports Smiling Mind to develop and expand their existing education program into early childhood centres through a partnership with Early Childhood Australia (ECA), supporting the mental health and emotional wellbeing of young children as they transition to school years.
This resource will develop health and social profiles using datasets from a range of Human Services Departments, overlaid with details of children’s development data – including the Australian Early Development Census and NAPLAN scores – and school attendance. The CDA will also assist in evaluating early childhood interventions and programs, building the evidence base for what does and doesn’t work for communities. This resource is the first of its kind in Australia dedicated to children’s development and will inform policy, communities and services.
Smiling Mind for Pre-Schoolers will be curriculum-aligned and developed in consultation with leading experts in mindfulness and early learning education. A series of online learning modules and lesson plans will be developed for early learning educators to guide professional learning in mindfulness meditation and mental wellbeing. Resources tailored for parents will also be developed, with the aim of developing a whole-of-community approach to mental wellbeing. This project meets strongly with the Foundation’s Education funding objectives seeking to improve school readiness of children in early childhood by promoting healthy emotional wellbeing and social competence.
Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth Limited (ARACY) $509,048 over 4 years Right@home phase 2 Right@home is a randomised control trial (RCT) of an Australian model of sustained nurse home visiting delivered from the antenatal period up until the child turns two, and is designed to promote child development and family wellbeing. The intervention involves a trained maternal and child health nurse visiting vulnerable families in the home and providing them with support to engage with their child and the wider community. The Foundation supported Phase 1 of the trial with a grant of $600,000 in 2011 to determine the impact of the intervention on the home environment. This second grant, which brings our overall support to over $1 million, will enable the project team to undertake longitudinal research with participants to determine the impact of the intervention on children and their development through to early primary. If the intervention is proven to be effective in the long term for children and parents, it has potential to be scaled, improving child development and family wellbeing for vulnerable families throughout Australia. Right@home is a research partnership between ARACY, the Centre for Community Child Health (CCCH) at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, and the Translational Research and Social Innovation (TReSI) group at Western Sydney University. The Foundation is funding Phase 2 together with The Sydney Myer Fund and The Vincent Family Fairfax Foundation (VFFF), along with the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) among others.
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