Arts-Health

Polyglot Theatre is proud to be working in partnership with the Centre for Community Child Health on Stage 3 of the Voice of the Child project. Together, we are testing and refining the newly launched Voice of the Child Toolkit – an evidence-based resource designed for researchers, service providers, clinicians and others keen to involve children and young people in their work.

The Centre for Community Child Health works with families, services, communities and governments to enable fairer health and development for all children. Dedicating its efforts to improving the lives of children and their families for nearly 30 years, it is both a department of The Royal Children’s Hospital and a research group of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.

The Voice of the Child (VoC) project began in July 2023. It seeks to fill a critical gap in Australia by ensuring that children are meaningfully involved in matters that concern them, specifically in research, healthcare and service delivery.

Having identified that children under 12, particularly those under 8 years old, are less frequently included or consulted, Stage 3 will focus on expanding and developing resources for involving children under 12 years. The CCCH is researching some of Polyglot’s creative activities as part of this.

Photos: Sarah Walker (feature), Ai Ueda (left), Kade Greenland (right).

With funding from Minderoo Foundation, this work will take place in five early childhood education and care settings across Australia, creatively engaging children aged 3-5 years (2025-2028).

With funding from VicHealth, we will work with children aged 3-12 years in three community healthcare settings across Victoria (2025-2026).

In these settings, Polyglot will deliver creative play and making workshops, as well as Voice Lab – our unique module for collecting the thoughts and opinions of children. Research learnings will be used to refine the toolkit and develop capacity building materials that will support and empower communities, services and other organisations to ensure they are adequately responding to the needs of young children.

Voice Lab. Photos: Theresa Harrison.

Thank You

Polyglot Theatre’s project, Creative Kids Thrive! is supported by VicHealth. This includes our participation in research at community healthcare settings.

CCCH would like to acknowledge Minderoo Foundation, for their support to test and refine the toolkit in early childhood education and care settings across Australia.