Improving Outcomes for Regional Families in the Early Years: Increasing Access to Child and Family Health Services for Regional Australia

Jessica Appleton (), Deborah A. Stockton, Marie Dickinson and Deborah Debono
Additional contact information
Jessica Appleton: Tresillian Family Care Centres, Mackenzie St., Belmore, NSW 2192, Australia
Deborah A. Stockton: Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia
Marie Dickinson: Tresillian Family Care Centres, Mackenzie St., Belmore, NSW 2192, Australia
Deborah Debono: Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW 2007, Australia

IJERPH, 2024, vol. 21, issue 6, 1-17

Abstract: Providing child and family health (CFH) services that meet the needs of young children and their families is important for a child’s early experiences, development and lifelong health and well-being. In Australia, families living in regional and rural areas have historically had limited access to specialist CFH services. In 2019, five new specialist CFH services were established in regional areas of New South Wales, Australia. The purpose of this study is to understand the regional families’ perceptions and experiences of these new CFH services. A convergent mixed-methods design involving a survey and semi-structured interviews with parents who had used the service was used for this study. Data collected include demographics, reasons for engaging with the service, perception, and experience of the service, including if the service provided was family centred. Triangulation of the quantitative and qualitative analysis uncovered three main findings: (i) The regional location of the service reduced the burden on families to access support for their needs; (ii) providing a service that is family-centred is important to achieve positive outcomes; and (iii) providing a service that is family-centred advances the local reputation of the service, enabling a greater reach into the community. Providing local specialist CFH services reduces the burden on families and has positive outcomes; however, providing services that are family-centred is key.

Keywords: child and family health (CFH) services; early childhood development; first 2000 days; regional and rural health; mixed methods; family-centred care; health consumer experience; healthcare access (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/21/6/728/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/21/6/728/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:21:y:2024:i:6:p:728-:d:1408476

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().