Pilot OSHC program finds that co-design and agency boosts children’s social wellbeing

A pilot outside school hours care (OSHC) program that allows children to engage in the design process and gives them a voice and role to shape their own experience of OSHC is showing promise, with analysis showing that this model of OSHC can play an important role in building children’s wellbeing and social connection.

Connect, Promote and Protect Program (CP3) is the first co-designed social connection and wellbeing program specifically for primary school-aged children (five to 12 years old) in after-school-care settings. CP3 is a partnership between the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre and Uniting NSW.ACT.

The program, study lead Dr Alyssa Milton explained, is a significant one because “it allows children’s voices and needs to shine, the program is in their language and on their terms”.

Children and educators in the CP3 program work together to create unique activities that promote social and community connections, and their resilience and wellbeing, which included social, emotional, cognitive and physical domains of wellbeing. 

Children are involved in the decision-making process and encouraged to take ownership of their wellbeing. The co-designed activities are tested by children, volunteers, educators and families, and based on feedback, one activity is then selected to become a full-length program.

Each program is community driven so each participating OSHC community creates activities tailored to their specific needs. There has been a diverse range of activities suggested, from robotics, coding, cooking, dancing and knitting hats for people experiencing homelessness.

With OSHC being the fastest growing childhood education and care sector in Australia, the findings come at an opportune time, and those involved in the pilot hope it will inspire other providers to reimagine what is possible in this space. 

“When Uniting first partnered with the University of Sydney, we held a joint vision and dedication to exploring new ways to support children’s wellbeing in the often ’missed middle’ years,” explained Uniting’s CP3 coordinator Kristin Ballesteros. 

“With the pairing of the University’s mental health research expertise and Uniting Early Learning’s commitment to children, the CP3 team has been able to discover and test the very first OSHC specific wellbeing program. From here, our partnership and the CP3 program has grown. We hope the research delivers not only an evidence informed program but that our work in this area will also spark an interest and greater investment into the OSHC sector as a whole.”

The first round of results is published in JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting. Since the pilot study, the CP3 program has now been rolled out across 12 rural, regional and urban OSHC locations in New South Wales.

The study was funded by a benevolent grant from Uniting NSW.ACT. Ongoing CP3 research and write-up of the manuscript was funded by a Partnership Grant from the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre. 

Dr Milton is supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course (Project ID CE200100025).

This study was approved by the University of Sydney’s Human Research Ethics Committee. All individuals completed an informed consent process before participating in the research.

Main image credit: Uniting NSW.ACT