CHLD Network: Child Health, Learning and Disability

About the Project

The CHLD Network is a collaboration between Griffith University, community, and industry partners to help all children have a healthy and happy start to life. We work together through research, student placements, and knowledge sharing to make the ‘biggest difference’ in the lives of children with developmental vulnerability and their families, focusing on southeast Queensland.

Lead by Associate Professor David Trembath, Deputy Research Director at The Hopkins Centre, the CHLD Network, formed in January 2020, as a research collaboration with community, university, and industry partners to address community-raised needs related to developmentally vulnerable children and their families. The CHLD Network strives to connect researchers across a range of disciplines to work together on questions that are relevant to the community, and aims to facilitate the translation of knowledge to address real-world problems.

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Our Story

Children who are well prepared, and have accessible and affordable support have a better start to school – and a better start to life.

In 2016, Griffith University was approached by the Nerang Alliance, a group of six public state schools, one Catholic school, and 23 early childhood education centres and community partners, to assist in their goal of improving school readiness and improving the transition into school for developmentally vulnerable children in the Nerang area of Southeast Queensland. The Nerang Alliance formed in 2011 in response to Australian Early Development Census pilot data that identified a high prevalence of developmental vulnerability in prep-aged children in Nerang and its surrounding suburbs.

Hence, a pressing community need was identified, and a Griffith University-Nerang Alliance collaboration commenced. Research-practitioners across speech pathology, nutrition and dietetics, occupational therapy, exercise science, physiotherapy, and education developed impact initiatives to address concerns, gaps in knowledge, and research questions generated by the schools and early childhood education centres in the Nerang Alliance. These include basic research studies and student-led clinics.

In 2019, a Menzies Health Institute Queensland Capacity grant was obtained to grow this network of collaborators and connect research and clinical practice to community-identified needs, and the CHLD (Child Health, Learning, and Disability) Network was born. 

Our Vision
 
Our vision at the CHLD Network is to address the most pressing community identified developmental needs of children, families, and the community at large, by supporting significant industry, community, and university research partnerships.

The CHLD Network strives to connect researchers across a range of disciplines (speech pathology, physiotherapy, nutrition and dietetics, occupational therapy, education, exercise science, basic science, and psychology) to work together on questions that are relevant to the community and their needs. 

The CHLD Network aims to facilitate the translation of knowledge between skilled researchers and community-identified needs through inter-disciplinary collaboration, so as to best address real-world problems. 

FOR RESEARCHERS connection to a network of collaborators, across university, industry and community & a platform to share evidence-based knowledge

FOR COMMUNITY access to quality research in child development and a place to raise concerns, questions, and communicate with experts in child development

FOR PEOPLE a space to interact with up-to-date research findings, information on development and referral pathways.

For more information please visit https://www.chldnetwork.org/

Learn more about Professor David Trembath HERE.