It is funded by the Australian Government as a means to produce and maintain educational tools and resources for families raising children in Australia.
[citation needed] The Raising Children DVD contains five hours of content — divided into three short movies: New-born, Baby, and Child as well as a section called ‘What About Me?’ which focuses on parental feelings.
Its effectiveness, according to the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) independent evaluation, is due to a combination of factors including: the quality of production, the primary use of documentary style parent interviews, a comedic host and the inclusion of visual demonstrations of key skills, like breastfeeding and safe bathing.
[5] The Raising Children DVD won the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA) award for the Best Learning & Education category.
[6] According to NetGuide, RCN “takes a huge topic — parenting — and presents masses of useful and reliable information in a well-designed site that’s a delight to visit”.