In New Zealand, monitoring of child health have been systematically developed through Plunket and Public Health nursing services (MOH, 1998). The focus has been the use of Well Child Health book (WCH). Over the years, the WCH book have developed from growth monitoring using weight, height and age to a comprehensive booklet to cover growth monitoring, immunization, nutritional status, records of sickness episodes and other reasons for use of health services. The latter version has also included health promotion materials for mothers and health care workers.

The wide use of the WCH book has not been accompanied by stringent research to assess its efficacy. That is, the book has been wide

There was mixed feelings about the size of the book. For the mothers with 2-4 children, they felt the book was too thick and unnecessary extra weight to carry around especially when it's the same thing. One respondent said:

· To explore Tongan mothers attitudes towards the Well Child Health book and it's usefulness

This project is a pilot study qualitatively assessing the use of the WCH book among Tongan mothers. There is no ethnic specific data available to examine ethnic specific aspects of use of the WCH book among communities wherein English is a second language. This study will also contextualise the knowledge, attitude and practice of the WCH book of Tongans in Auckland.

Majority of the participants liked aspects of the book. All stated that they did not like the cartoon type pictures and the dull colors. One said:

According to the research findings, 3 of the 5 participants had a very good understanding of the book. One had a fair idea of what the book was about and one participant had no idea of what the book was used for except for immunization records. The five participants had different level of understandings, which depended a lot on who and how the information was explained to them.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2625
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)