An early intervention education program that improves child behaviour and school performance by increasing parents’ confidence is being expanded to help more Territory children.

Menzies School of Health Research launched the final evaluation report of the ‘Let’s Start’ program at the Northern Territory Library, Parliament House, today and announcing the next phase of the program’s development.

The evaluation report is the culmination of five years’ research into the outcomes of the Let’s Start program, which aims to help children aged four to six years adjust to starting school, support parents and enhance the social-emotional wellbeing of NT families.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Good used the launch to call on governments to stop implementing policies in Aboriginal affairs “designed on the back of beer coasters”. Menzies School of Health Research Director Professor Jonathan Carapetis called for robust partnerships between government and the research sector to implement truly evidence based interventions to support children’s school readiness and development.

Research has shown the Let’s Start program reduces child behavioural problems including aggression, shyness, withdrawn and anti-social behaviour. It helps parents engage with their child, cope with the child’s behaviour, manage conflicts and stress in the family and teaches the child social skills.

Let’s Start followed on from the Exploring Together program which was originally run for primary school children on the Tiwi Islands as part of a suicide prevention program following a high rate of suicides and increased family violence.

Since 2006, more than 250 Indigenous and non-Indigenous children aged four to six years have been referred to the Let’s Start program from 40 urban and eight remote Territory schools. The program has been run in Darwin and Palmerston, Palumpa, Jabiru and the Tiwi Island communities of Nguiu, Pirlangimpi and Milikapiti.

For two hours over a 10-week period, Let’s Start’s trained leaders brought parents and children together for activities to help parents learn how to support their child in developing key social, emotional and communication skills while gaining confidence in managing difficult behaviour and establishing healthy boundaries.

Let’s Start program Project Leader Gary Robinson said the program had significantly reduced aggressive and anti-social behaviour in participating children at the end of the program and six months after completion.

Associate Professor Robinson said parents participating in the program showed significantly less psychological distress, depression and feeling of hopelessness as well as increased confidence and assertiveness in dealing with their children’s behaviour and in managing the family issues that impact on it.

“For the parents there was increased capacity to deal with their own personal, emotional and mental health issues,” he said. “We had reports from parents and teachers that the children were less aggressive. Many parents were happy that they did not need to be called into the school as often to cope with their child’s behaviour.”

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda said it was vital to research the outcomes of programs like Let’s Start.
 
“The program works because it strengthens families from the inside - by helping parents to support their child's development of key social, emotional and communication skills, in the most appropriate and sensitive ways,” Mr Gooda said.
“We are building Aboriginal affairs marked by policy and programs designed off the back of beer coasters. I call it the streaker’s excuse – it seemed like a good idea at the time.

“This is a very important program because it meets those standards I think we need in Aboriginal affairs, it is well based in research and it’s been developed with people, it hasn’t just been done to people.”

Menzies School of Health Research Director Professor Jonathan Carapetis said the program be expanded to more remote and urban schools in the Territory.

“We can come up with all the vaccines we want, all the better diagnoses and treatments for disease that we want, we can improve our health systems so they are responsive to the health needs of Aboriginal people but until we deal with the real determinants of poor outcomes we are just tinkering at the edges.

“If there is one single thing we can do that would make the biggest difference to Aboriginal health and wellbeing, it will be to give kids a formal education to get them through school in a good position to get jobs have careers and to go on maybe to higher education.

“Let’s Start has shown promising indications of the effectiveness of structured interventions that relate to parent mental health, to parenting and child development in the school and health sectors.

“The Northern Territory is littered with histories of programs that have been rolled out, sometimes devised on the back of the coaster, and, almost without exception, without rigorous evaluation, with the result that a few years down the track we don’t know what worked and what didn’t.”

Lisa Moreen, from Milikapiti on the Tiwi Islands, went through the Let’s Start program with her five-year-old daughter.
 
“They would come out and do different kinds of things - making posters, doing drawings, reading books and telling stories,” Lisa said. “We’ve been talking about how they react at school and how they react at home, do they listen to us at home, and what they do at school differently than at home.
 
“They talk to us a lot, encourage us more and I’ve started putting my head up. So it is my choice to turn around and be there all the time, all day for my daughter, until she grows older and makes her own choice.”

Millner mother Michelle Parker’s son was referred to the Let’s Start Program by his pre-school teacher at Driver Primary School because of his angry behaviour.

“The program taught me that there were tools you can use to help change and cope with your child’s behaviour,” Michelle said. “They helped transform him from an out-of-control kid to a calm, loving and well behaved little boy.”
 
The event was hosted by Tiwi Education Board Chairman Marius Puruntatameri, who is also a member of the Let’s Start Steering Committee. Guests include families involved in the program from Tiwi Islands, Darwin and Palmerston, school principals and education and health workers.

Contact: Penny Baxter, Michels Warren Munday 0437 522 532

Short Background of the Let’s Start program

Let’s Start is a multi-group program based on the effective Exploring Together model, developed at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne {Littlefield L et al, 2000}. The program helps families by strengthening the bond between parents or carers and children through play and collaborative learning. 

Before the Let’s Start: Exploring Together Indigenous Preschool Program was launched the Exploring Together Primary School program, known as Ngaripirliga’ajirri, was introduced on the Tiwi Islands.

Ngaripirliga'ajirri is a Tiwi word meaning “helping each other to clear a path”. The program was chosen by the Tiwi Health Board to be delivered in the Tiwi Island primary schools between 2001 and 2004. This program emerged from a series of workshops on suicide prevention in response to a perceived crisis among young Tiwi people after the NT Coroner’s report on four suicides in Nguiu in 1998.

In 2006 the program name changed to Let’s Start with the focus on younger children, and was expanded to include children referred from 40 different schools including Darwin, Palmerston, Palumpa and Jabiru.

The Let’s Start program, which began with the School of Social Policy Research at Charles Darwin University (CDU), has transferred to the CDU-affiliated Menzies School of Health Research and will be conducted under the Indigenous Family and Parenting Research program within its Child Health Division.

The Let’s Start program was funded by the Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health.

The program’s evaluation was supported by the Northern Territory Department of Education and Training, the Department of Health and Families and the Australian Research Council Linkages Grant Program. The final evaluation report can be found at: www.cdu.edu.au/letstart

Research-proven Rationale Behind Let’s Start:
• Early childhood is a time of maximum growth and development that is critical to a child’s future health, learning, social and cultural outcomes.
• Behavioural problems in childhood can cause long-term difficulties for children and families, with problems becoming entrenched by adolescence. Intervening early reduces the long-term risk of mental health disorders, improving children’s paths through life including their attendance and performance at school.
• Programs aimed at improving parental early care can have significant and enduring effects on children’s wellbeing.
• In Australia, almost one-quarter of Aboriginal children aged four – 17 years are at high risk of clinically significant emotional or behavioural difficulties, significantly higher than for non-Aboriginal children.