On Thursday 15 June, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute’s Centre for Research Excellence in Childhood Adversity and Mental Health, with the support of Beyond Blue, hosted a two-day symposium which brought together over 50 people with lived or living experience, practitioners, researchers and policy makers from health, education, social care, and legal sectors, across state and national organisations, to identify national priorities for the prevention of child (antenatal to 12 years) and family adversity in Australia over the coming 5 years.

Over the two-day symposium, we discussed the prevention of child and family adversity as solutions aimed at:

• tackling the upstream drivers of adversity (primary prevention)
• reducing the impact of adversity on children currently experiencing adversity (secondary prevention) and
• better support for children detrimentally impacted by adversity (tertiary prevention).

We’re so grateful to those who attended and contributed their time and expertise, and we look forward to continued collaborations in the future.

Work is currently underway to create a resource allocation survey as part of the outcomes from the symposium.

Register your interest here to receive the outcomes of the symposium

The CRE acknowledges the generous support of Beyond Blue and the National Health and Medical Research Council that has enabled us to conduct our 5-year research program (2019-2023) and convene this symposium.