Healthy Harold calls for investment in Future Ready Kids
Wednesday, 11 Feb 2026
Life Ed Australia, and its iconic mascot Healthy Harold, is calling on the Federal Government to act now to address the escalating child health and wellbeing crisis.
Through the Australian-first Future Ready Kids initiative, the not-for-profit is using its almost 50 years of experience and impact to bridge the gaps between national health, education and social services portfolios.
The world our children are growing up in continues to become more connected, complex and challenging. We need to work together to reassess, reimagine and transform the ways in which we speak to, support and empower our next generation. We need a solution that transcends the new-age, multifaceted barriers they face.
That is why we are urging the Government to invest $13.5 million over four years in the future of our country – our children and young people. While this may seem like a big ask, the important number to focus on is $67.5 million – this is the estimated return-on-investment should the Commonwealth partner with Life Ed Australia in the development of critical preventative health education that ensures Future Ready Kids.
That is why we are urging the Government to invest $13.5 million over four years in the future of our country – our children and young people. While this may seem like a big ask, the important number to focus on is $67.5 million – this is the estimated return-on-investment should the Commonwealth partner with Life Ed Australia in the development of critical preventative health education that ensures Future Ready Kids.
Life Ed Australia is calling for this investment in light of the alarming state of our children’s health and wellbeing with:
- One in five young people report high psychological distress (ABS, 2025)
- Over half of children aged 10 to 17 have experienced cyberbullying (eSafety Commissioner 2025)
- Two in five Australians experienced at least one traumatic event before the age of 18, with 21% witnessing domestic violence and 21 % experiencing sexual assault (The prevalence of potentially traumatic events in childhood and associations with mental disorders, suicide and physical health in adulthood: An Australian nationally representative cross-sectional study, 2025)
- One in four children are overweight or obese (AIHW, 2024)
- One in three secondary students have tried vaping (Department of Health, 2024)
Like the iconic Life Ed Australia program, the proposed Future Ready Kids initiative will bring together national health, education and social services priorities. The first-of-its-kind, comprehensive program of works will achieve measurable Australian-wide impact that will position the Commonwealth as a global leader because it is built on:
- Co-design – establishing a National Child and Youth Health Literacy Alliance, or Future Ready Kids Alliance, will champion the voices and needs of children and young people by co-designing strategies to monitor and strengthen health literacy outcomes across jurisdictions, ensuring joint delivery, shared accountability, and enduring system impact.
- Capability – scaling-up Life Ed’s proven evidence-informed, curriculum-aligned and strengths-based program to tackle the rise in preventable chronic disease and mental illhealth will ensure children have every opportunity to practice health literacy across their learning journeys, as well as pass this onto future generations.
- Capacity building across communities – providing educators and families with free, accessible resources that take learning beyond the classroom will empower trusted adults to reinforce and role model healthy and safe behaviours.
- Closing equity gaps – co-designing tailored resources with disadvantaged, underserved, regional, and remote communities, with particular focus on First Nations communities, and ensuring access online through the creation of a digital Life Ed Learning Lab will reduce inequities in access to preventative health education.
At the heart of Future Ready Kids is a call-to-action to address issues in equity and accessibility in education by elevating the voices of young people.
Preventative health education is about more than just gaining knowledge. It’s about long-term behaviour change. It is not something that happens overnight, or after one Life Ed visit. It is a commitment to educating children early, often and together as they grow into different stages of their lives. That is why it is critical to the future of our nation.
Preventative health education is about more than just gaining knowledge. It’s about long-term behaviour change. It is not something that happens overnight, or after one Life Ed visit. It is a commitment to educating children early, often and together as they grow into different stages of their lives. That is why it is critical to the future of our nation.
In addition to the burden on families and communities, the challenges our children and young people face impose significant long-term costs on our health, education and social services systems. Conversely, economic modelling (Deloitte Access Economics, 2023) demonstrates that preventive health education delivers $3.20–$5.00 in return for every $1 invested, primarily through reduced health system burden and improved productivity.
Life Ed Australia is grateful to have had long-standing support from the Australian Government and community. Future Ready Kids builds on proven outcomes from Life Ed Australia’s previous Federal Government grant, Foundations for a Healthy Future, and strengthens national consistency, measurement, and family engagement in building children’s healthy literacy.
