Role Title: The Flourishing Child: Targeted tools for West Australian parents
Organisation: The Kids Research Institute Australia
Internship Period: Winter (June - July)
Location: Nedlands, Perth Children's Hospital
ORIGINS is a decade-long collaborative initiative between the Joondalup Health Campus and The Kids Research Institute Australia, to establish a Western Australian (WA) birth cohort of 10,000 families, enrolled during pregnancy. It is currently funded to follow up participating children and their families into early childhood. Comprehensive data and biological samples are collected from participants at up to 15 different timepoints, from the first antenatal clinic visit. This information is collected to study the origins of non-communicable disease and the health and wellbeing development of children and family in the first years of life.
The Flourishing Child project will focus using the 'voice of the child' to better understand how children evaluate their own flourishing. The work proposed within this project will build on this formative research carried out by the research team. Extensive community consultation and a review of the literature have led to the development of a Flourishing Assessment for use with parents of children aged 0 - 5 years. The team is now interested to learn how children themselves conceptualise their own flourishing and express this in a measurable way. In this study, we will recruit 3 - 5 year olds to engage in drawing and narration activities which can then be analysed to report on their self-reflections on their personal flourishing. The student will also explore aspects of family mealtimes from a child’s perspective
The Kids Research Institute Australia is based within the Perth Children’s Hospital, and is one of the largest, and most successful medical research institutes in Australia, comprising a dedicated and diverse team of around 1,000 staff, students and honoraries. We've created a bold blueprint that brings together community, researchers, practitioners, policy makers and funders, who share our vision to improve the health and wellbeing of children through excellence in research.