It is generally accepted within Aboriginal communities that Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) are best placed to understand, design, and deliver services that respond to the needs of their communities. However, there is limited information on what evidence exists about the characteristics, implementation and impact of Aboriginal-led programs designed to improve the wellbeing of Aboriginal families and communities.

This report presents an evidence review on Aboriginal-led early support programs and services to improve the wellbeing of Aboriginal children, young people and families available across Australia or for specific communities in one or more states. The innovative approach employed by this review involves broadening the range of included evidence and assessing it using a Cultural Lens Matrix, which includes Aboriginal developed culturally informed criteria, such as ethics and cultural validity.  Additionally, the review conducted a thematic analysis which shows that Aboriginal-led early support programs with the highest evidence are co-designed, community-led, culturally safe, strengths-based, culturally-affirming, trauma-informed, healing-based, holistic, coordinated and flexible.

The report argues that the notion of generalisable ‘standards of evidence’ for Aboriginal programs is problematic, because programs operate in local community contexts. The report calls for deeper engagement with communities to assess what makes programs effective from their point of view,  what wellbeing means from an Aboriginal worldview, how Aboriginal communities assess wellbeing and what programmatic features restore wellbeing.

The independent, culturally-appraised body of evidence in this review can be used in service planning and design of culturally valid early support programs in Aboriginal communities.