Submission: Support for new parents and babies in NSW

Title: Support for new parents and babies in NSW: the importance of parenting support
Author: Parenting Research Centre
Published: 2017

Our submission to the NSW Legislative Assembly Committee on Community Services into supporting new parents and babies says that the vast majority of parents are capable of parenting well, given the right support.

The ‘right’ support means effective, accessible parenting support, which is central to creating widespread improvements in outcomes for new Australian parents and their children.

Watch the Committee report video summary

The NSW inquiry focused on ways to improve physical health, mental health and child protection outcomes for new parents and babies. As part of this, it examined models of support for new parents in other jurisdictions and the role of technology in enhancing support services.

Our submission makes the distinction between parent support – which aims to improve children’s outcomes by enhancing parent wellbeing – and parenting support, which aims to improve child outcomes by influencing the nature and quality of parent-child interactions and relationships.

Building parents’ capacity empowers them to become confident, autonomous and capable of dealing with future challenges. Our submission highlights a way forward to ensuring that parenting support is both effective and accessible.

Learn more

• Read the  Submission (PDF, 1.58MB)
• Read the final Committee report