"The House in Ollie's Tummy" is getting translated!

This is a moment we really have to pinch ourselves. With funding from generous grantmakers, over 4,900 copies of "The House in Ollie's Tummy" have so far been distributed to maternity hospitals, libraries and into the homes of bereaved families. It feels amazing to be able to support families at this most challenging time with a resource that is sensitive, age-appropriate and well-loved.

But what if you can't read or speak English that well? Maybe English is your second language, or your third or fourth - and, wonderful as this book is, it's just not useful to you in English. That's why we sought funding to translate our book. Not into those languages you might commonly expect - Spanish, French, German - but into languages whose speakers tend to have low English proficiency in Australia.

Guided by data from the latest census, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and input from maternity hospitals around the country on the languages their patient cohort most frequently requested interpreters for, we came up with a list of 15 languages. Speakers of these languages would see the greatest benefit from a translation, as they tend to speak and read English comparatively poorly.

While speakers of other languages would still benefit from reading the book in their native tongue, many are generally judged to understand English well enough to be able to use the original version of "The House in Ollie's Tummy" for now.

Translated versions of "The House in Ollie's Tummy" will be published as e-books later in the year and made available to bereaved multicultural parents via a referral pamphlet from their local maternity hospital or GP.

Stay tuned for more updates!