Let's Start
Let’s Start is a targeted group program primarily for Aboriginal children and their parents. Based on developmental principles, it focuses on enhancing children’s social and emotional learning, reducing problem behaviour, improving parent-child interaction and enhancing parenting skills.
Adapted from Exploring Together, a program first developed at Victoria’s Austin Hospital, Let’s Start responds to the diverse social and cultural circumstances of Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory. It follows on from the successful Ngaripirpliga’ajirri program, which was the implementation of Exploring Together for 6 to 12-year-old children on the Tiwi Islands from 2004 to 2006.
The implementation and evaluation of Let’s Start will provide vital information on how to support and implement evidence-based intervention strategies in the health and education sectors in the Northern Territory.
Currently being rolled out to Indigenous preschools across the Tiwi Islands, Darwin and Palmerston, Let’s Start is supported by the Northern Territory Department of Education and Training (NT DET).
Project Leader: http://www.cdu.edu.au/sspr/profiles/garyrobinson.htm
Program funding: Co-operative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health (CRCAH), Commonwealth Department of Family, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FACSIA), Northern Territory Department of Education and Training (NT DET)
Program evaluation funding: Australian Research Council linkages program (ARC linkages)
Partners: NT DET, NT Department of Health and Community Services, Catholic Education, participating schools and communities, Institute of Child Health Research, University of Western Australia.
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Robinson, G. and B. Tyler (2006). Ngaripirliga'ajirri: An early intervention program on the Tiwi Islands, Final Evaluation Report (.pdf). Darwin, School for Social and Policy Research, Charles Darwin University
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