Health and Wellbeing

National headline indicators for children’s health, development and wellbeing

“All Australian Governments are committed to improving the lives of all Australian children. It is therefore essential that Australia has the capacity to monitor investment and progress over the long term.” 

    - National Headline Indicators for Children’s Health, Development and Wellbeing Report, June 2006

Overview

In 2005 Australian Health Ministers’ Conference (AHMC) and the Community and Disability Services Ministers’ Conference (CDSMC) approved a project to develop a set of national, jurisdictionally agreed Headline Indicators.

Headline Indicators were designed to focus the policy attention of Governments on a set of priority issues for children’s health, development and wellbeing through comparison of State and Territory data, and data from sub-populations of children including:

  • children with a disability
  • children from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds
  • children living in disadvantage
  •  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children

Headline Indicators are a mechanism to assist policy and planning by measuring progress on a set of indicators that are potentially amenable to change over time by prevention or early intervention.

National headline indicators project

The Headline Indicators project, undertaken by the Statewide Outcomes Branch, Office for Children, Department of Human Services (DHS) Victoria, was one of four projects within the Child Health and Wellbeing Reform Initiative (led by the Northern Territory [NT]).

A strategic project steering group, chaired by Victoria’s Senior Child Health Medical Advisor, was established to direct the project. The project steering group consisted of experts from: 

  • WA Department of Health
  • Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s (AIHW) 
  • Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
  • Department of Human Services (DHS) Victoria 
  • Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA)

Within this project, work was undertaken to gauge contemporary thinking around the measurement of children’s health, development and wellbeing, culminating in the development of a ‘National Headline Indicators for Children’s Health, Development and Wellbeing’ report.

Headline indicators report

The project’s report, produced in 2006, outlines the process that was undertaken to develop the Headline Indicators.

The Headline Indicators build on the work of many groups reporting on aspects of children’s health, development and wellbeing. Most notably, as indicators they merge with the AIHW’s ‘A Picture of Australia’s Children’.

Through a review of all relevant literature and series of national consultations a set of nineteen priority areas were identified as Headline Indicators in the health, development and wellbeing of children, as restricted to the age range of 0–12 years of age.  The consultations involved the health, community services and education sectors in each jurisdiction, and national data groups from each sector.

For further information on the child health and wellbeing initiative and to read the full report, see: