Supporting a healthy start to school: a case study of the Griffith University-Nerang Alliance initiative

Developmental vulnerability in children often impacts social, educational, and health outcomes that then determine a child’s developmental trajectory into adolescence and adulthood. It is widely accepted that early detection of vulnerability and implementation of targeted educational support can optimise children’s outcomes, particularly when implemented via a holistic, cross-institutional approach with community and multi-stakeholder engagement. However, developing and sustaining community collaboration on the scale necessary to achieve such an outcome is challenging, and communities seeking to do so may be able to learn from others where such outcomes have been achieved. It is in this context that we describe the formation and activities of the Griffith University-Nerang Alliance (GU-NA) collaboration, a co-designed community-wide endeavour aimed at ensuring every child has a healthy and successful start to school in Nerang and surrounding suburbs in southeast Queensland, Australia. Using the Knowledge-To-Action Framework, we reflect on the process for establishing and sustaining the collaboration focussing on supporting children’s transition to school, including challenges and lessons learned. We highlight the importance of a systematic, co-designed approach to collaboration, and share processes and lessons learned with the view to supporting similar collaborations in other communities.