Early childhood development for Indigenous children

While in Sydney I attended a Closing the Gap Clearinghouse event titled: Early childhood development: Understanding the evidence to inform parenting, early learning programs, and access to services for Indigenous children. The Closing the Gap Clearinghouse is a clearinghouse for evidence-based research on overcoming disadvantage for Indigenous Australians. The event was chaired by Associate Professor Karen Martin from Griffith University.   

The papers that were presented were:

• Early learning programs that promote children’s developmental and educational outcome by Professor Linda Harrison (Charles Sturt University) and Associate Professor Sharon Goldfield (Centre for Community Child Health, Royal Children's Hospital and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute) 
• Parenting in the early years: Effectiveness of parenting support programs for Indigenous families by Dr Robyn Mildon (Parenting Research Centre)
• Improving access to urban and regional early childhood services by Dr Daryl Higgins (Australian Institute of Family Services)

Afterwards, members of the Collaborative Research Network in Early Years Education had lunch with Associate Professor Karen Martin from Griffith University who is the Deputy Chair of the steering committee for the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children. We had a rich conversation about the importance of Indigenous knowledge to understanding our world.

Front: Felicity McArdle (QUT), Karen Martin (Griffith U), Lysa Dealtry (CSU)
Back: Sarah Verdon, Linda Harrison, Sharynne McLeod (CSU)