Making a World of Difference: The First 1000 Days for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Children

Venue: Ian Potter Auditorium, Kenneth Myer Building

Presenters: Professor Kerry Arabena

6th Vera Scantlebury Brown Memorial Lecture

Making a World of Difference: The First 1000 Days for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Children and the launch of Dr Heather Sheard’s life of Vera Scantlebury Brown ‘A Heart Undivided’

The rates of death and illness common in the early twentieth century have decreased dramatically, due mostly to preventive strategies implemented by Vera Scantlebury Brown and her colleagues.

Australia is a signatory to covenants that protect the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children including rights to culturally determined health and wellbeing and to be cared for in safe homes and families. Whilst this is the experience for many of our children, there are still those who experience vulnerability.

International research has shown that health in the first 1000 days of life, from conception to age two, has great impact on later life health. The First Thousand Days is a global movement addressing child development, nutrition, immunology and cognitive development.

Just as Vera Scantlebury Brown set out to improve the health of children in Victoria after the First World War, Professor Kerry Arabena is building a preventive approach to closing the gap for Indigenous children and communities in Australia.

The Australian Model of the First 1000 Days will offer families an Indigenous-led, holistic and ecological framework of twelve interventions to improve the health and wellbeing of their children.

from
https://events.unimelb.edu.au/events/6599-making-a-world-of-difference-the-first-1000-days-for