Waddell C, Barican J, White O, Berry BA, Mohns E, Thomson K, Corbett M, Catherine N (2026). Promoting Healthy Beginnings for Indigenous Children: Research Review on Prenatal and Early Childhood Programs. Vancouver, British Columbia: Children’s Health Policy Centre, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University.

Executive Summary

Early childhood experiences are recognized as crucial for the health and wellbeing of both individuals and populations. Indigenous Peoples have strong cultural knowledge and traditions to support and nurture healthy child development. Indigenous Peoples have also long resisted colonialism and are overcoming its legacies through cultural revitalization and nation rebuilding. Yet the legacies of colonialism still deeply affect Indigenous children, families and communities today.

To contribute to public conversations about Indigenous early childhood programming, we used systematic review methods and identified eight relevant reviews of prenatal, postnatal, maternal and early childhood health programs developed and implemented by and within Indigenous communities in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. All eight reviews spoke to the need to honour Indigenous voices through ensuring meaningful community leadership in choosing all aspects of the planning, development, implementation and evaluation of programs. Some reviews also focused on Canadian success stories.

Based on this review we recommend:

• Making Indigenous children a leading public policy priority for BC and for Canada.
• Committing sufficient and sustained public resources to high-quality Indigenous prenatal and child health programming — across the continua of planning, development, implementation and evaluation.
• Ensuring that all Indigenous early child health programming is led by Indigenous communities.
• Recognizing that Indigenous children deserve public investments in programs with proven benefits, with evaluations including Indigenous perspectives on child flourishing.

We are shaping the future for all children, and therefore for the population, based on the public policies we invest in today. This future starts with supporting Indigenous children, families and communities according to their needs — and celebrating their many strengths.

Read the full report.