Award honour for Dr Claire Blewitt

Congratulations to Dr Claire Blewitt, recipient of a prestigious and highly competitive 2024 Paul Bourke Award from the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.

Dr Blewitt received the honour for her work as an emerging leader in early childhood mental health – shaping better mental health outcomes for young children. Amongst many other achievements, Dr Blewitt is known for her pioneering work on social and emotional learning (SEL) in early education, and the co-design of the innovative SEED program, with bestchance Child Family Care, to enhance educator-child interactions and improve children’s social-emotional outcomes.

The Paul Bourke Awards for Early Career Research are named in honour of the Academy’s past president Paul Francis Bourke (1938–1999), and recognises Australian researchers in the early part of their career who have achieved excellence in scholarship in one or more fields of the social sciences.

Dr Blewitt said she was very honoured to receive her award, noting the many partnerships that have been instrumental to her research outputs. We asked Dr Blewitt what this recognition meant to her and where she sees her career moving next:

What does this award recognition mean to you?

“This award reflects the work of many people in our team at the Health and Social Care Unit (HSCU) and our industry partners. We have amazing researchers, project managers and practitioners in HSCU, led by Professor Helen Skouteris, working across child development, early childhood mental health, social and emotional learning, and trauma-informed care that I have been privileged to work alongside and learn from. Our research is done in collaboration with our industry partners, in particular, our very valued partnerships with bestchance Child Family Care and the Alannah & Madeline Foundation. These organisations and their teams lead amazing work to support positive outcomes for children through early childhood education. Working in partnership means our research can be driven by their practice-based knowledge and expertise about the needs, strengths and opportunities to support early childhood mental health. I am extremely grateful to the Academy of Social Sciences for recognising the progress we have made together.”

What drives you in the work that you do?

“I feel fortunate to be in a role where I can work with amazing people, including educators, early childhood professionals, parents, researchers and practitioners, who are collectively focused on understanding what children and those caring for and teaching them need, and playing a small role in supporting that. I think it’s vital that we progress our understanding and support for children’s healthy development, including their mental health, from the earliest age possible. I also love working in a very collaborative and supportive team, where we are encouraged to listen, learn, try new approaches and expand our thinking and research.

What are you working on now/looking to in 2025?

"With a terrific team, I am looking forward to starting an ARC Discovery Project in December, in partnership with bestchance Child Family Care, focused on supporting educators to embed strategies that foster children’s social and emotional learning (SEL) into their everyday interactions. Through this project, we hope to deepen our understanding of how and why SEL can support educator practice and children's social and emotional health. It will also explore how SEL programs can be implemented effectively, to generate implementation outcome findings that will be instrumental in supporting future SEL, equity and implementation science knowledge."

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