The Well Child programme is a free service offered to all New Zealand families/whanau for children from birth to 5 years. The early years of life set the foundation for lifelong health and wellbeing, and Well Child services help families/whanau to improve and protect their children’s health.
Services provide an important gateway to access other targeted and specialist health, education and social services to support additional needs of children and families.
Well Child services can include home visits, breastfeeding support, immunisation, dental, vision and hearing referrals, nutrition advice, family care and parenting support.
Well Child services focus on:
- Providing knowledge and skills to respond to a child’s needs at the different stages of their development
- Providing reassurance that a child is developing normally, through growth and development assessments
- Informing about and providing immunisation
- Supporting and helping to identify needs of parents, linking with community and other services