$4.4 million for parenting website
The Raising Children website will be expanded to include parenting information on pre-teen and teenage years with the help of a $4.4 million Australian Government grant.
Funding will also enhance the site to target people with low literacy and numeracy levels and the Indigenous community, through the addition of new and innovative visual based and interactive information resources.
Celebrating Families Week, the Minister for Families Jenny Macklin said this funding will enable the expanded Raising Children website to be a valuable tool to help parents with the day-to-day raising of their children from birth through to their teens.
The Raising Children website already offers up-to-date, research-based material on more than 800 topics spanning child development, behaviour, health, nutrition and fitness, play and learning and sleep.
The site, which currently caters to parents of newborns to eight years, is a valuable resource for Australian mothers, fathers, grandparents and anyone else who cares for a child.
Parents have found the website to be informative, interesting, well-researched and user-friendly. The site also helps connect people through discussion forums.
A recent survey confirmed the benefits of Raising Children, with 97 per cent of users agreeing the website was useful, clear, comprehensive, credible and easily navigated.
Ninety-one per cent felt the website could make them more confident as a parent and 95 per cent would recommend the website to parents or carers.
The Raising Children website has received more than 9.5 million visits since it was launched in May 2006.
The Raising Children Network is a consortium made up of three early childhood organisations Smart Population Foundation, the Parenting Research Centre and the Centre for Community Child Health at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne.