Raising Children Network

Raising Children Network operates the Australian raisingchildren.net.au website launched in 2006. It is funded by the Australian Government as a means to produce and maintain educational tools and resources for families raising children in Australia.[1]

History

The raisingchildren.net.au (originally "Raising Children") website, which was launched in May 2006, is a resource for parenting information in Australia. It is a comprehensive website covering information required for raising children provided to new and expecting parents.[2]

As a companion to the Raising Children website and to extend its reach, the Raising Children DVD was produced in 2007.[3] In November 2007, Australia became the first country in the world to initiate a universal parenting education program when it started distributing the companion Raising Children DVD to every family in the country, at the birth of their child in the hospital.[4] Over 250,000 are distributed each year.

The Raising Children DVD contains five hours of content — divided into three short movies: Newborn, Baby, and Child as well as a section called ‘What About Me?’ which focuses on parental feelings. It takes advantage of basic DVD technology to provide users with a fully interactive experience which enables them to opt into extended content topics and demonstration clips while watching the main videos.

Its effectiveness, according to the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) independent evaluation, is due to a combination of factors including: the quality of production, the primary use of documentary style parent interviews, a comedic host and the inclusion of visual demonstrations of key skills, like breastfeeding and safe bathing.[5]

In 2007, the Raising Children website and DVD swept the relevant interactive media awards in Australia.[6] The Raising Children DVD won the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA) award for the Best Learning & Education category. The expert judges commented that the DVD is,

“in essence an interactive documentary for parents & carers, allowing them to explore and engage with information about parenting that enables the active construction of knowledge.”

The Raising Children website won the AIMIA award for the Best Non-profit & Government category with judges commending the site’s innovative features:

“The pop-up glossary terms are a fantastic solution to get information quickly and effectively to the user without sending them to a whole different page, and Make a Book is an invaluable function for tired parents to be able to refer back to without logging on.”

The Raising Children website also won the NetGuide Australian Web Awards Best Parenting Website and took home their highest honour, 2007 Site of the Year as well. According to NetGuide, RCN “takes a huge topic — parenting — and presents masses of useful and reliable information in a well-designed site that’s a delight to visit”.

In 2009, the Australian Government announced funding for the Raising Children website to extend the parenting content to include parenting adolescents and teenagers up to 16 years of age, which became available in 2010.

In 2017, the website claimed a total of over 14 million visitors.[7]

Network structure

Three non-profit organizations formed the consortium behind the Raising Children Network:

  • The Parenting Research Centre,[8] which was responsible for content development & quality assurance,
  • Smart Population Foundation, which was responsible for design, web development, content optimization & communications, and
  • The Murdoch Children’s Research Institute’s Centre for Community Child Health at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne (RCH), which was responsible for project and stakeholder management and evaluation.

The Smart Population Foundation later left the consortium, and the RCH and Murdoch Children's Research Institute became members individually.[9]

References
  1. "Centre for Community Child Health : Raising Children Network". www.rch.org.au. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  2. Yvette Nielsen (2007-12-03). "How the web can help create a better you". The Sydney Morning Herald (smh.com.au). Retrieved 2009-07-30.
  3. Goldie, David; Court, Divonne Holmes a (2007-08-20), Raising Children: A Guide to Parenting from Birth to Five (Documentary), Smart Population Foundation, Goldie Media, PNMG, retrieved 2022-04-14
  4. Stephanie Peatling (2007-08-21). "You spent the bonus, now here's the DVD". The Sydney Morning Herald (smh.com.au). Retrieved 2009-07-30.
  5. AAP (2007-08-20). "New parents to get DVD help". Brisbane Times (brisbanetimes.com.au). Retrieved 2009-07-30.
  6. Simon Canning (2008-03-13). "Unlikely innovators bag interactive awards". The Australian (theaustralian.news.com.au). Retrieved 2009-07-30.
  7. "Raising Children Network reaches new milestone". Parenting Research Centre. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  8. "Parenting Research Centre". Parenting Research Centre. Retrieved 2023-09-04.
  9. "Raising Children Network: our organisation". Raising Children Network. Retrieved 2023-09-04.
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