Parents are overwhelmed online. This was the feedback the Raising Children Network gathered from research way back when they first began in 2006. With a deluge of information raining down on us all, on all manner of platforms, the organisation provides a reliable source of evidence-based material, with a team of experts and researchers supporting the cause.
Derek McCormack has been involved with Raising Children Network since the beginning and Director for the past three, enjoying making active change, working with a team to build the infrastructure and information that parents, carers and early years professionals can rely on.
Along with an app, the organisation has videos, podcasts, webinars, engaging infographics and articles. There is an abundance of easily accessible insights, created to make the lives of parents and carers easier.
We caught up with Derek to learn more about how these resources support families, playgroups and the early years community.
Raising Children Network is foremostly an easily accessible online tool for parents. How has your website and communications developed over time? In what ways will playgroup families or people running playgroups benefit from your content?
Raising Children Network has produced a website over those years and more recently introduced other products, like the Raising Healthy Minds App, also webinars and podcasts for parents. The way I would summarise it: what we have done with these products is work with experts from the beginning, developing topics, simple ideas and tips for parents and those who work in early education and care. The way we do it is, we have an ongoing list of gaps we want to fill and then we focus on the gap. This might be play and technology for example, then we will start working on what they key messages we want to provide to parents or professionals about that topic. We connect with a subject matter expert, they help us decide what we will cover then we draft the material- an article, a video or illustration or animation, whatever it is- we will get a first draft going and then we will send that to two more experts for their comment and their job is to say, does this reflect the best knowledge that we have at the moment or does it need to be tweaked- then we have a scientific advisory board who approve what we create. One of our members of the scientific advisory board will see a new piece of content on play and technology and they will know other experts have been involved to make it, and other experts have been involved to review it, so they can give it the green light for publishing.
When all that is done, it gets dressed up and made easy to consume, very engaging for parents so they can quickly digest those ideas and tips on their phone or when they have got a free moment.
That is the general approach to how we get messages distilled or simplified out of the evidence, into a form that is useful for anybody who is caring for children.
What we most often hear from parents and early educators is they say, ‘Oh, I wish I had known about this earlier’. We are going to spend the next year or two making extra effort to promote this and make sure it is used.
Essentially, it is a free and reliable toolkit for anybody who has a question related to children’s development or children’s emotions or behaviours.
Parents are thinking about the mental health of their children and how to support that. Sometimes that is a tricky area to navigate. How does the Raising Healthy Minds app provide support?
Mental health and the mental wellbeing of young children and school age children has been a real big topic over the last few years, during Covid and after Covid-19. It was around the same time that we conducted a national poll of parents and how they felt about their children’s mental health. It was conducted out of the Royal Children’s Hospital and it was focusing on parents mental health literacy and how parents were feeling about children’s mental health. What was fascinating about that poll was that only 35% of parents who were surveyed said that they knew exactly, that they felt confident that they could read the signs of difficulty with their child, if their child was having a mental health difficulty. Only 35% of parents felt like they had a good grip on spotting those early concerns.
Another finding out of that survey told us that 27% of parents don’t recognize that ongoing physical complaints can actually be a sign of a mental health difficulty. Such as tummy aches or other kinds of physical symptoms. Parents weren’t really familiar with those things and how they could be an early sign of a mental health concern. So on from that really interesting research, led us to develop a new app, Raising Healthy Minds, which aims to help parents think about and spot early signs or difficulty, or just if they are curious and they want to learn more about their children’s emotions and behaviours and what they might mean. Simple short tips and ideas- the other thing that app does as it will tailor its messages based on your child’s age and based on what you are interested in. If you jumped into the app, you might type in, my child is biting or my child has a tummy ache and what you will get is a bunch of short, simple pieces of information related to that query and then some other stuff that is kind of related that you might be interested in and all of it will be tailored to the age of your child, if you have provided the age of the child.
Professionals, like playgroup professionals, can simply use the app for all ages and receive tips and ideas, get messages sent to their phone if they wish, which are for all ages, not just one child.
How does Raising Children Network support families of different cultures, languages and abilities?
Within the app we have covered the key topics related to emotions and behaviours and then we are constantly offering links through to the main website. The website has material in 11 different languages. Not all topics, but a good range of topics are translated and so are the videos into different languages for different cultures. The other thing around the app is that we are doing a lot of content that is not really relying on text- so videos and animations that don’t require English literary but are more engaging and non-text kinds of information- but then of course they will also link back to the main website that has translated content as well.
The other thing we are doing right now, we are halfway through a project where we have partnered with an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander expert group and we are reviewing how the app is culturally safe and appropriate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and that is fascinating work. It means that we will be able to alter what we do in the app but also outside the app- what we do in other products and other ways of reaching communities with messages based on what we are learning from those communities.
Catherine Liddle, who is the CEO of SNAICC, the national body, puts it beautifully, she says, This country has 60,000 years of successful parenting and child rearing through kinship and law and culture and we should celebrate and make the most of that. I think as we go into the future, we have an opportunity to really listen and learn from our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities about the successful parenting they have been doing for all those years.
In your work, how have you found play to be a beneficial tool for children to learn, develop and establish relationships in different ages and stages of life?
I’ve been lucky enough to work in this space for 19 years and over those years I have got to meet with lots of researchers and experts on child development and it has really inspired me to learn about the importance of play.
Play is not something that is just for fun, although it often is fun, play is a kind of really serious thing for children because it is how they learn to negotiate with others, it is how they learn to problem solve, it is how they develop imaginative skills and imagination tools, it is physically very important for them to play. In terms of emotions, behaviours and actual physical development, play is a central part of being a developing child.
Over the years we have managed to work with those experts and researchers to distill that message into a simple form for parents- and professionals who work with parents.
How can the Raising Healthy Minds app aid professionals and help them to take it into real experiences in playgroups? Often it is that families and carers confide in the playgroup facilitator. Do you think the app would be a valuable resource to help them?
I really do. Those people, like playgroup facilitators, who have relationships with parents, they are critical champions for evidence-based resources being used by parents. Yes, a parent might jump on the internet and google something and find an answer in our material, but many parents will not. Many parents may be aware of things like Raising Children or Raising Healthy Minds, but they won’t go searching.
At playgroup, like in any early education and care setting, what they will have is a conversation, they will be in a conversation with an important professional or another adult and in that conversation there is a real opportunity- it could be a proactive opportunity for the facilitator to say, Oh I see you have a concern about this or maybe you are thinking about this, here is some really helpful material, it is right here and it is free and it is ready to use. Or it might be more reactive, where they are listening and hearing what a parent is saying, and they say, Well if you want to talk about that more, here are some things you can look at later and we can talk about it next time I see you. Here is an article or video on early signs of anxiety, for example. Have a look and we can chat about it next time if it is helpful. That relationship and that conversation is just golden in terms of helping parents access reliable, trustworthy information that is based on evidence. Facilitators and teachers and maternal child health nurses and librarians and basketball coaches, all these adults are perfectly placed to have that conversation.
When there is that opportunity, there is also that opportunity to remind that parent that they have support if they need it and where they can get further support if they need it.
Everything we do in our work is primary prevention. We have good messages that are helpful when you are just considering getting help with a topic, but then of course you might need more help as a parent and then we make sure that we are helping parents decide what’s next- should I chat to the GP about this topic or should I got further with more peer support and parents needing to get help for themselves as adults is quite often a big issue.
Our key offering is that we will continue to keep this material evidence based and keep it up to date and now we have to do something else as well and adapt it to different kinds of channels. Generation Z may be using Instagram or Tiktok or other platforms to seek out advice, so we are looking to get our messages in there so those reliable messages are going into other channels where there is a lot of disinformation.
What is the best bit about your job and what do you hope for the future of Raising Minds Network?
My favourite bit of this work is those moments when we manage to get something that is a little bit complicated and translate it and simplify it for parents, or for facilitators or any other carers. It is a real satisfaction when we take for example a topic like autism therapies and we make it easier for people to select what they are going to access if they are going to access a therapy. That is my favourite bit, doing the science communication and doing it by collaborating with people, with experts, because there is nothing better than working with clever people.
With Raising Healthy Minds, what I hope for the future, looking forward for the Raising Heathy Minds app is to continue to tailor what it does, so it is tailored for age and it tailors its messages based on what interests parents and professionals who use it- but I am looking forward to tailoring it further and doing more so that when a person uses Raising Healthy Minds, they are getting particular answers and ideas that really match where they are. Maybe it is based on where they live or what their interests are.
Download the free app now from Google Play or the App Store or go directly to: raisingchildren.net.au/rhm
Learn more on the Raising Children Network website here: raisingchildren.net.au
Article by Sinead Halliday