Webuild in Australia is pleased to announce it has renewed its community partnership with Starlight Children’s Foundation, supporting the Healthier Futures Initiative across Western Australia and Queensland. 

Starlight’s Healthier Futures Initiative works to enhance healthcare experiences for children and families in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Through engaging visits from Captain Starlight, the initiative helps reduce anxiety around medical treatments and encourages greater participation in essential healthcare services.

By making clinic visits more positive through fun and play, Starlight fosters stronger connections between families and healthcare providers, ensuring more children from remote communities receive the vital medical attention they need.

Louise Baxter, Starlight CEO, said: “Since 2013, our Starlight Healthier Futures Initiative has been working with healthcare professionals to create positive healthcare experiences for children and their families in regional and remote Australia. By encouraging clinic participation through positive distraction and play, there is greater opportunity for early intervention and treatment of preventable diseases. And this improves health outcomes. We cannot do what we do without community support, so we are delighted for Webuild‘s ongoing commitment to helping us bring happiness and joy to seriously ill children and support the wellbeing and resilience of all children right around Australia.”  

Marco Assorati, Executive Director of Webuild in Australia, said: “I am thrilled for the Webuild Group to continue its long-standing community partnership with Starlight Children’s Foundation to champion the Healthier Futures Initiative. As we deliver our third Reconciliation Action Plan, our commitment to this initiative reflects our dedication to improving health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. By partnering with Starlight’s Healthier Future’s Initiative, we are not only enhancing the clinic experience for children and families but also strengthening community connections and supporting a more accessible healthcare system.”

One focus of this initiative is addressing the prevalence of chronic middle ear disease, which disproportionately affects Indigenous children. One of the core implications of the disease is its impediment to education – this can have detrimental effects on children and communities, contributing to learning difficulties, social disadvantage, and entrenched poverty.

By fostering collaborative partnerships, with Health Care professionals such as Earbus in WA and Deadly Ears in QLD, the initiative aims to reduce the incidence of the disease and improve treatment experiences, creating healthier, happier communities.

Together, we are proud to support positive healthcare experiences for children in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, to deliver on Starlight’s mission to brighten the lives of seriously ill and hospitalised children and young people. 

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About Starlight Children's Foundation 

Starlight Children's Foundation brightens the lives of seriously ill and hospitalised children and young people by replacing pain, fear and stress with fun, joy and laughter.

Since its establishment in 1988, Starlight has expanded to become the broadest reaching children’s charity in Australia and has been consistently ranked as one of Australia's most reputable children’s charities in Reptrak’s Charity Reputation Index. Starlight has also been recognised as a Great Place to Work over the years.

There is a Starlight Express Room is every major children’s hospital around Australia. In 2024, Starlight created over 4.4 million positive Starlight experiences for children, teenagers and their families, and Captain Starlight brought fun and laughter to 115 hospitals and 125 remote communities. Starlight also granted 491 wishes in 2024, and almost 170,000 online sessions on interactive platform Planet Starlight.

To learn more about Starlight Foundation and their Healthier Future’s Initiative, visit their website here.