The Let’s Start Parent-Child Program was a therapeutic parenting program that helped support the social and emotional needs of children as they began the transition to school. Let’s Start was the only program of its kind for Aboriginal children and families evaluated and demonstrated to work.
Let’s Start brought together expertise about child development, early learning, and parenting to support the emotional wellbeing of parents and children. The program worked with local organisations like schools, preschools, health care centres, childcare centres, and child protection services to ensure that parents were supported in their local communities.
Let’s Start evolved over 10 years of working with Aboriginal children and families in both remote and urban settings. It is respectful of kinship, culture, and Aboriginal family values, and great care was taken to adapt Let’s Start to meet local needs. Since 2006 Let's Start successfully delivered programs to families across a range of remote and urban NT communities. The program was initially developed and delivered on the Tiwi Islands and later expanded to four communities in the Victoria-Daly Rivers Shire (Nauiyu Nambiyu, Nganmarriyanga, Nganambala and Peppimenarti).
Chief investigator:
For further information:
Email Professor Gary Robinson.
Funders:
- Australian Government Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet