What do you do when an issue is so complex? When the disadvantage is so great? And when so many others have tried and failed?

"Start at the very beginning," says child health expert and Telethon Institute for Child Health Research Director Fiona Stanley.

The topic Fiona talks of is Aboriginal child and maternal health and a recently-produced video, available for viewing here, showcases the successes the Institute and its partners have achieved in this area.

"Our child health institute has done the biggest survey of its kind into Aboriginal health and welfare, involving 5,300 Aboriginal children under 18 in Western Australia."

"We've been talking for years about the lack of sustained intervention. It was frustrating that the people who needed to respond to our research weren't doing it."

Back in 2003, the Institute, its Kulunga Research Network and the Rio Tinto WA Future Fund came together with the Commonwealth and the State Governments of Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory to form the Rio Tinto Child Health Partnership.

Different partners delivered the programmes in different ways, but the goal was clear, to improve wellbeing; build capacity and share knowledge.

Since then the partnership has initiated or contributed to the development of 14 child health programmes across the three states.

Rio Tinto Iron Ore Chief Executive Sam Walsh says the partnership has been beneficial to the Aboriginal communities it has touched and to the partners involved.

"Our iron ore business is Western Australia's largest employer of Aborigines outside government. In the Pilbara, we provide scholarships and apprenticeships for Aboriginal people but it always leads back to health," says Sam.

"We get a lot of assistance from the child health institute and being involved in the partnership - it helps us understand Aboriginal culture."

"If we all sit down together in a couple of years, what will we have hoped to achieve? We'll be looking for positive interventions. It's part of a package of improving Aboriginal wellbeing in the communities in which we work."