Mental health concerns often begin during childhood. We also know that supporting children’s experiences, health, and development in the first 2,000 days of life is critical.

The Department of Health and Aged Care asked the Commission to develop the National Guidelines to include mental health and wellbeing in Early Childhood Health Checks (for children 0-5 years).

All states and territories include wellbeing milestones in their early childhood health checks. However, when and how wellbeing is explored varies. Introducing National Guidelines supports national consistency. The National Guidelines aim to help children early, and to allow families to get timely support and advice.

The National Guidelines are not clinical guidelines or practice standards. They do not prescribe screening or assessment tools for children's mental health. The draft National Guidelines do not include significant detail regarding implementation because this will be a matter for the Department of Health and Aged Care.

Background

To develop the National Guidelines, an extensive national consultation was undertaken. This included:

Environmental scanning:

A review of research, data and evidence.

Analysis of existing work relating to wellbeing in early childhood health checks.

Consultation with Commonwealth, state, and territory governments.

Engagement with early childhood policy and practice experts.

National consultation - An online survey, workshops, and interviews. Participants included:

parents, families, and carers

GPs, nurses, and health workers

early childhood educators

Commonwealth and state and territory government representatives

service providers

peak bodies and professional associations.

A summary of the methodology and findings from the national consultation is available here

Project Advisory Group

A project Advisory Group has overseen the development of the National Guidelines. The Co-chairs of the Advisory Group are the Chair of the National Mental Health Commission’s Advisory Board, Professor Ngiare Brown, and the National Children’s Commissioner, Anne Hollonds.

A full list of Advisory Group members is available here.

Public consultation

The National Guidelines are for health practitioners, service providers and state and territory governments. There are four key themes in the draft National Guidelines:

Taking a broad and expanded view of children’s mental health and wellbeing

Creating the conditions for access

Ensuring the early childhood health checks are a safe experience

Building trust and tailoring conversations

Open for feedback

The Commission is seeking your input and feedback via submissions. Your feedback will help us to refine the final version of the National Guidelines. In your submission you may want to consider:

language used throughout the draft

whether the structure and narrative of the draft is logical and clear

anything not included that you think should be.

Submissions are open until 2 June 2024.

Timeline

July 2022 - The Department of Health and Aged Care engaged the Commission to lead the development of the National Guidelines

August 2022 to June 2023 - Environmental scan conducted

July to September 2023 - National consultation via online survey, workshops and interviews

March to April 2024 - Consultation with state and territory governments on the draft National Guidelines

May 2024 - Public consultation on the draft National Guidelines

Mid 2024 - Anticipated delivery of the National Guidelines to the Department of Health and Aged Care

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