This policy brief outlines the complexities involved in selecting interventions for early childhood services. It advocates for a broader method of assessing outcomes of interventions through incorporating practice-based evidence into our understanding of evidence-based practice. For services in the early childhood sector, choosing the most effective interventions for children and their families often involves a...

This literature review was commissioned by the Office for Children and Early Childhood Development, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD), as part of its Early Childhood Intervention Services (ECIS) Reform Project (Stage 2): Developing Options and Next Steps. This Project aims to significantly enhance the efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of Victoria’s ECIS system...

Parents can help children manage their emotions and behaviour through a variety of strategies including discipline, which might occasionally involve the use of negative consequences. However, physical punishment – causing a child pain or physical discomfort – is not only ineffective as a method of regulating children’s behaviour, but can also be harmful.

Feelings, moods, emotions and behaviours are all inextricably linked. They influence how we function and respond to the demands of day-to-day life. They also help us shape our sense of wellbeing, or our ‘mental health’. The foundations for mental health are formed within the early infant-parent and caregiver relationships (Centre for Community Child Health, 2009)...

Recent changes in family and society have meant that the roles grandparents take on have changed. Many grandparents are playing a bigger and more responsible part of grandchild care than they may have expected, which means additional pressures on their time, their health and their finances. The increasing importance of grandparents, particularly as carers for...