Currently South Australia lacks an overarching or unifying vision for children and young people’s health, and therefore a way of aligning cross government and community efforts to a common set of goals and actions. Our future depends on investing in healthy children, families, and communities, and that starts with an overarching vision that can ensure policy and decision making prioritises investment in children and young people with a plan that builds on existing evidence, policy and partnerships, to repeat, enhance and expand on what we know is working, and to remedy and reform what isn’t.
Although there are significant strategies and service providers in place throughout SA, including the state’s ten local health networks, the siloed and fragmented nature of these services means we have a system that is inefficient, with competing agendas and priority areas, and with policy design commonly separated from policy implementation. The experience for children and young people and their families attempting to navigate these separated service systems across different agencies and levels of government, is ultimately frustrating and unsatisfying, and one which often does not deliver on the health solutions children and young people are seeking or should be able to expect.
Read the full media release here
Download the Position Policy here
