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Understanding Children
What is ARACY and how can The Nest support early childhood services
Fiona Alston
Jan 28, 2026
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The Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY) has shaped the national conversation on child and youth wellbeing for more than two decades. Its flagship Nest Wellbeing Framework is increasingly used by organisations to align strategy, measure outcomes and strengthen collaboration.
ARACY was established in 2002 to bring together expertise across research, policy and practice to tackle complex challenges affecting the health, development and wellbeing of children and young people in Australia.ARACY’s founder, Professor Fiona Stanley AC, described the organisation as “the most broadly based collaborative venture ever attempted in Australia, to address a social issue of major national significance”.
At the centre of ARACY’s work is The Nest Wellbeing Framework, described by ARACY as Australia’s first evidence-based framework for national child and youth wellbeing. Developed through extensive consultation with more than 4,000 children, families and experts, The Nest sets out what children and young people need to thrive across six interconnected domains.
The six domains are:
- Healthy
- Valued, loved and safe
- Material basics
- Learning
- Participating
- Positive sense of identity and culture
For early childhood education and care (ECEC), the value of The Nest is its practicality: it offers a clear, strengths-based structure that helps translate “wellbeing” into everyday priorities, relationships, inclusion, identity, learning and participation, without reducing wellbeing to a single measure.
ARACY has published a suite of materials designed to support implementation across diverse settings.
Across Australia, organisations use The Nest as a backbone for strategy, shared language and evidence-informed decision-making.The Nest domains can be used to structure organisational goals, outcomes and reporting in a way that stays holistic rather than siloed. ARACY’s Common Approach aligns with The Nest domains and is designed to support consistent, prevention-focused practice with children and families—helpful in multi-agency work and place-based initiatives. Using The Nest as a lens can help services interpret data and identify strengths and gaps, particularly when combined with tools like the Wellbeing Atlas and the Children’s Wellbeing Index. The Nest is commonly used to align efforts across sectors, councils, community organisations, education settings and health services, so that “wellbeing” is defined consistently and measured meaningfully.
The Nest is also being adopted outside traditional health and education settings. ARACY has highlighted examples such as Monkey Baa Theatre Company using The Nest to strengthen its work with young audiences and wellbeing outcomes.
The ECEC sector is increasingly expected to demonstrate how programs support children’s holistic development, not only learning, but safety, belonging, participation and identity. The Nest offers a practical structure for that work, particularly when embedded into:
- quality improvement planning
- inclusion planning and reasonable adjustments
- family partnerships and community referrals
- service-level outcome tracking (without narrowing practice to checklists)
For organisations seeking a coherent wellbeing frame that travels across partners and sectors, The Nest provides a credible starting point, grounded in evidence and designed to be used in real-world systems.
To read more about ARACY visit their website.
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