Our Children Have a Healthy Start to Life

Childhood Development

Also covers community priority area – Our parents have parenting confidence and access to supports

Purpose
Enable the right supports at the right time for our children to have healthy early childhoods so that they can start school on track to learn and ready to thrive.

Objectives

Build on prior collective efforts of local stakeholders to collect and collate maternal and early childhood information to connect parents to milestone appropriate health checks and supports.
Increase awareness and access to early developmental screening and supports (including non-clinical and clinical interventions) to reduce the risk of children falling behind in key early developmental milestones.
Support parents, carers and educators to grow capacity and confidence to navigate support pathways and create and maintain positive environmental conditions for children to learn and develop.

Community Identified Need

Data indicates that we can do more to improve outcomes for our children. The number of children being identified as, requiring further assessment, in their prep year is increasing (AEDC 2015, 2018, 2021).

Service capacity for early assessment of children has struggled to meet growing local demand, with significant wait times for assessments experienced by parents and educators.

Social, Health and Education Sector stakeholders also identify that referral pathways to child development supports are difficult to navigate for referrers and families.

Consequences include some children transitioning to school with unmet support needs, impacting on their capacity to thrive in the early years of school, or escalating circumstances for the child and family with impacts on wellbeing.

Stakeholders

Central Queensland Hospital and Health Service (CQHHS) – Child, Youth and Family Health
Central Queensland Hospital and Health Service (CQHHS) – Maternity
Collective Growth
Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)’s
BUSHkids
Strong Communities
Queensland Education
Gladstone Response to Outcomes for Wellbeing (GROW: 2021-2022)

Childhood Assessments

Measures (click on linked measure to see current data)

↓ % children requiring further assessment

↓ % children developmentally vulnerable across 5 domains
↓ % women who are overweight or obese during pregnancy
↓ % women smoking before and after 20 weeks gestation
↑ % women attending antenatal visit during first trimester
↑ % children fully immunised
↑ # parents reporting change in parenting confidence
↑ % pre-school enrolments
↑ % children developmentally on track (prep year)
↓ % babies born with low birthweight
↓ % babies born with APGAR score <7 at 5 minutes

↓ % admissions to Intensive Care Unit/Special Care Nursery (on birth)
↓ rate of perinatal death

Methodology

This project assumes that, child development screening in the early years can enable earlier non-clinical interventions that might reduce the need for later more acute interventions, reduce waitlists, and support timely intervention where clinical intervention is required.

Historical examples including outreach into childcare centres and education of ECEC employees (conducted in childcare centres) have been identified as a good way to enable educators to identify effective referral pathways and to provide early supports to children and families, including where they may be waiting for an assessment.

Once early childhood development supports that exist locally and remotely are defined including enablers and barriers to access and participation, a longitudinal study aims to uncover where best development outcomes and readiness for school is achieved, by mapping family journeys and tracking child and family outcomes.

Understanding is also being developed in relation to the increasing number of children being identified as, requiring further assessment, in their prep year in AEDC data.

Activity to Date

Supports from conception to school age mapped and visual resource developed to help connect families to supports that enable a healthy start to life.
Child Development Supports Referral Pathway Guide developed by local child health professionals.
Local ECEC stakeholders meet in July 2024 and identified need for in-centre child development supports to enable educators to identify effective referral pathways, provide early supports to children and support parents and families through education.

Resources

Next Actions

Distribution and promotion of the resource.
Regular check ins with stakeholders to test take up/use of the resource and resulting outcomes.

Maternal Health

Also covers community priority area – Our parents have parenting confidence and access to supports

Purpose
Positive health outcomes for pregnant mothers and babies.

Objectives

Increase the number of pregnant mothers accessing early antenatal health care (prior to 14 weeks of pregnancy) by:

Increasing access to early antenatal health care in the first trimester (prior to 14 weeks of pregnancy) to improve wellbeing outcomes for mothers and babies.
Enabling the earliest possible access to maternal supports, to support parents to grow trust and confidence in the supports available to them and capacity to navigate the system, giving them the best opportunity to positively engage in their child’s early childhood development.

Community Identified Need

Interest in increased maternal supports and maternal hubs has been a discussion point of community to improve outcomes for mothers and babies. The health of our babies at birth is lower than that of Queensland babies, and less of our pregnant mothers in the Gladstone Region are accessing early antenatal health checks compared to mothers across Queensland. Evidence to support the proposed solutions still requires community testing and co-design.

Stakeholders

Central Queensland Hospital and Health Service (CQHHS) – Child, Youth and Family Health
Central Queensland Hospital and Health Service (CQHHS) – Maternity
Private Health Practitioners
Queensland Health – Statistical Services Branch
Logan Together
Queensland Community Alliance
Strong Communities
Country to Coast Queensland
Your Private Midwife
Gladstone Health Working Group

Measures (click on linked measure to see current data)

↓ % women who are overweight or obese during pregnancy
↓ % women smoking before and after 20 weeks gestation
↑ % women attending antenatal visit during first trimester
↑ # parents reporting change in parenting confidence
↓ % babies born with low birthweight
↓ % babies born with APGAR score <7 at 5 minutes

↓ % admissions to Intensive Care Unit/Special Care Nursery (on birth)
↓ rate of perinatal death

Methodology

Utilising perinatal data to inform our local understanding of how the current rate of participation in early antenatal health checks is impacting outcomes for babies born in the region.

Source and analyse perinatal data for the Gladstone LGA (SA3)
Source and analyse pregnant mother behaviours and baby health data for the Gladstone (LGA) to identify correlations
Share data for local insights and further exploration and understanding
Understand the existing supports available to identify any access (supply) challenges
Analyse perinatal data for the Gladstone Region by location (SA2)
Identify the specific cohorts relevant in the data
Engage community to understand the reasons for later access to antenatal care
Further explore existing supports available in relation to any access challenges raised
Co-design solutions to reduce any gaps or challenges to access

Activity to Date

Targeted stakeholder engagement
Perinatal data sourced and analysed to understand the number of pregnant mothers in the Gladstone Region accessing early (prior to 14 weeks of pregnancy) antenatal health checks.
Desktop comparison of demographics for the Gladstone Region and Logan, to assess if cohorts are similarly represented, indicating whether application of similarly designed solutions might provide similarly effective outcomes.
Test findings with identified stakeholders.
The Early Years, Together in Action Event Wednesday 21 February 2024 60 early childhood stakeholders and professionals reviewed the findings from perinatal data for the region and contributed local knowledge, experience, to grow collective understanding of local needs.

Comparison Case Study

The project responds to community interest in Maternity Hubs that have offered solutions in other locations such as Logan in South East Queensland. Maternity Hubs were identified as a potential solution for Gladstone through community consultation captured in The Real Deal for Gladstone Report, Queensland Community Alliance (2023).

Solution Design by Place
This project aims to demonstrate the principles of place-based design through evidence-informed and fit-for-purpose solution design by prioritising the first step in the process as understanding the need within the local context. The project considers supply and demand in the Gladstone LGA and seeks to understand cohort and location specific barriers to access, prior to considering the fit of solutions.

Using Logan Maternity Hubs as a case study, this desktop study includes a comparison of statistical data for Logan and Gladstone, to assess whether the solutions applied in Logan could have similar positive impacts for families in the Gladstone Region, or, whether an alternate approach is required to tailor efforts and investment to meet local needs.

Resources

Next Actions

Deeper data analysis into the number of pregnant mothers in the Gladstone Region accessing antenatal supports later than 14 weeks of pregnancy.

To understand the reasons why pregnant mothers are not accessing early antenatal checks, further phases of work will seek the voices of local mothers and observations of practitioners, to better understand causal factors. Lived experience will assist understand how more pregnant mothers locally might be enabled or encouraged to access early antenatal health checks.

Solution design will include pregnant mothers least likely to access early antenatal health checks, in the design stages, to ensure that solutions reach and meet the needs of those that would most benefit.