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Nurturing children's health together: A collaboration between early childhood education and care (ECEC) educators and parents on active play and eating well

Indigenous peoples globally have incurred significant harm resulting from colonisation and the forced removal of children from their families, culture, communities and Country. Over the last two decades in Australia, there have been calls for significant reform and there has been a raft of policy changes in child protection services. However the problems are intractable, and the numbers of Indigenous children being removed from their families continues to rise.

Caregiver-mediated supports in general have shown mixed evidence for enhancing language outcomes in infants at higher likelihood of autism. While caregivers play a substantial role in caregiver-mediated supports, little is known about whether caregivers' own subclinical autistic features - known as broader autism phenotype - may moderate infant language outcomes. 

Family Day Care (FDC) is an essential service supporting Australian families requiring convenient, versatile, and quality education and care for their children. FDC educators’ mental wellbeing (MWB), often overlooked, is vital to ensure optimal education and care. This study aimed to gauge Australian FDC educators’ MWB and identify factors positively or negatively affecting MWB.