Sibling Needs Assessment: Executive Summary and Recommendations by Nancy Hinkley and Sarah von Schrader, Cornell University

From 'Overarching Recommendation': While the current study does much to shed light on the current sibling and agency needs, the funding and service context is changing so rapidly that interventions must be devised and implemented within the evolving context.

Key agency and sibling stakeholders should be consulted in the drafting of the plan for feedback and validation.

The strategic plan should consider available funding resources, existing policies and practices, related development needs; and human resources – especially sibling groups and other developmental disability-related groups with volunteers as resources.

The final plan should list responsible parties, provide clear timelines for implementation, and include measurement of outcomes.

Download: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/edi/download/SiblingExecutiveSummary.pdf

Improving the early life outcomes of Indigenous children: implementing early childhood development at the local level

Early childhood development is a comprehensive approach to policies and programs for children from prenatal development to eight years of age, their parents and caregivers. It is aimed at ensuring all children have an equal chance to thrive and grow.

It encompasses the interrelated or holistic aspects of children's development which includes the physical, social-emotional and language-cognitive domains of development.

This paper outlines what we know about the size of the gap in early childhood development between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians and the social determinants of early childhood development.

Report: http://www.aihw.gov.au/uploadedFiles/ClosingTheGap/Content/Publications/2013/ctgc-ip06.pdf

Listen to the Children: Kids' Grief Group Program - by Steph Shannon

What unfolds within the pages of this 40 page book is a resource for professionals working with children who are experiencing grief and loss through death. This book shares the journey of the group facilitators with great humility and simplicity but most importantly, it honours the stories, the artwork and the inner musings of some of the most delightful and profound young people you could ever meet.

Throughout this publication the reader walks with the children through the works they have produced from shared experiences of their grief journeys in a dedicated support setting. These creative and expressive outcomes have been achieved through the exploration of their many feelings and strengths within the supportive environment of the Kids' Grief Group Program of Hilda's House.

Available from Hilda's House and from here: http://www.openleaves.com.au/products/Listen-to-the-Children%3A-Kids'-Grief-Group-Program.html

Jonathan Bradshaw on Social Policy. Selected Writings 1972-2011

Jonathan Bradshaw has been a leading social policy scholar for over 40 years. He has made seminal contributions to the comparative study of child well-being, poverty and the adequacy of benefits, as well as writing on a range of important social policy issues.

He founded the Social Policy Research Unit at the University of York, UK, contributed to numerous landmark studies of poverty and minimum income standards in Britain for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and issued a wake-up call to policymakers worldwide by producing the first international 'league table' of child well-being.

This volume brings together Bradshaw's best writings and demonstrates his clear, humane thinking based on systematic evidence and analysis. It will interest social policy students, practitioners and policy makers and is required reading for anyone who wants to understand how and why poverty and low child well-being persist in the twenty-first century.

For free download, visit: http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/spru/pubs/jrb.html