The World Health Organization recognises the quality of the early years as a key social determinant of health17. There are sound theoretical and empirical reasons for focusing mental health promotion interventions on young children to prevent a range of problems in later life18 including mental health problems, obesity, criminality, family violence, poor literacy, unemployment and welfare dependency. Prevention and early intervention is also less expensive and more effective than treatment19. In recent years, the Division’s health promotion services have invested in a number of universal and targeted multi-strategy interventions to improve social and emotional wellbeing in early childhood. These interventions have been conducted with the early childhood education and care sector, child care centres, training institutions.
