Friends Brady, Summer and Luca having fun on the swing
Almost one in five Western Australian children live below the poverty line and the numbers of children experiencing trauma and domestic and family violence have spiked across the entire Australian population. Toxic and non-nurturing environments threaten every aspect of a child’s life well into adulthood, placing them at an increased risk of developing mental health problems and many chronic diseases in later life. This is why giving kids the best possible start in life is so crucial — and what the Minderoo Foundation and The Kids are trying to tackle through CoLab.
“We want Australia to be the most child-friendly nation in the world,” declares Nicola Forrest, CEO of the Minderoo Foundation. “We’re one of the luckiest, most prosperous and stable nations in the world so if we can’t make it work for our kids, who can?”
It was the seeds of this vision, sown in tandem with The Kids Research Institute Australia, that gave rise to CoLab, an initiative that unites the expertise of families, policymakers, clinicians, educators, practitioners and researchers, in a bid to work together to improve the learning and development of children and overcome inequality. CoLab is made possible by Minderoo’s founding commitment of a minimum gift of $1 million annually.
Philanthropist Nicola Forrest, Professor Donna Cross and CoLab Co-director David Ansell
encourage friends Emelie, Brady and Summer to have a go on the climbing frame
“Minderoo Foundation is a private, philanthropic organisation funded by Andrew and Nicola Forrest,” Hayley Panetta, Philanthropy Manager at Minderoo explains. “Prior to our partnership with The Kids Research Institute Australia I was tasked by our board to examine this issue of child development and look strategically at the entire sector and come back with some recommendations of what we could do that others weren’t doing, to contribute to some system-level change.”
Nicola adds, Minderoo’s support provides a central, collaborative platform within the Institute “that allows the Institute team the flexibility to say, ‘what can we do with evidence that we haven’t previously had the opportunity to?’ It’s research-driven by what is needed to ensure that Australian children can thrive.
CoLab co-director David Ansell says the initiative is unique as it focuses on both policy and practice. “CoLab is working to make existing and new evidence more accessible for practitioners and policymakers,” he says. “The focus of our mission is enhancing service delivery and building the capacity of communities to improve child development and learning.
“In my career I have worked in schools, the community sector, government and now research. Everyone wants to improve things for children. My experience is that things only really get better for kids when everyone aligns their efforts. Finding the best ways to get everyone working together is fundamental to the mission of CoLab.”
CoLab Director Professor Donna Cross says CoLab has three priorities – the economic understanding of early childhood, with a focus on where the best early investments can be made; providing better support to families experiencing adversity; and place-based approaches to improve the ways that families, services and communities work together.
“We know that what happens in a child’s life from conception to age two has a marked impact on their development, learning and wellbeing later in life,” she explains. “We don’t need to do any more research to understand what needs to be done — we know every child needs supportive environments at home and elsewhere and conceptually rich experiences. CoLab’s work will identify what this research means for communities, practitioners, policymakers and service delivery organisations to help them use current and robust evidence to improve children’s development and learning outcomes. CoLab’s focus is on the intersection between policy and practice.”
The importance of early childhood became evident to the Minderoo Foundation through its own philanthropic efforts in the past, Nicola explains.
Our focus has always been on children having the best opportunities in life” she says. “We’ve done a lot of work in the Indigenous space in terms of employment — based on the ethos that the best thing you can do for a child is to build the capacity of their parent.”
The findings of Minderoo reflected what much scientific evidence had also confirmed. “If it goes wrong early in life then it can be pretty hard to turn things around later,” Nicola says. “The reality is that these programs are simply playing catch up. Minderoo’s approach is one of prevention rather than band- aid.”
It may be common knowledge to researchers how critical the first years of life are for development, learning, wellbeing and quality of life, but David says CoLab is all about spreading the word. “We’re working hard to ensure policymakers, practitioners and parents know more about the importance of this period of development for children.”
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