Baby news!

Jacinta Dermentzis, our Project Officer who commenced maternity leave in March, has welcomed her third child, Connor, who arrived in April, and is loving the attention from his siblings!

What work is being undertaken to support scalability and sustainability of Hubs?

Scaling up: Government relations

In late April, Government submissions were completed for the National Early Years Strategy, which include the recommendation for expansion of Child and Family Hubs, appropriate funding and national coordination and support through the National Child and Family Hubs Network. Submissions were made through both the Centre for Community Child Health and additionally coordinated with 20 other members of the National Child and Family Hubs Network.

Child and Family eHub update

Work is well underway to develop the Child and Family eHub minimum viable product (MVP) that will ‘go live’ in July. The eHub aims to provide a digital platform to help better connect families, with children aged 0 – 12 years, to information and services to meet their child and family needs. This online site seeks to complement the valuable work taking place by service providers at the child and family hub sites in Marrickville and Fairfield in NSW, and Wyndham Vale in Victoria. 

We are planning to recruit 90 caregivers from each of the three trial sites in Marrickville, Fairfield and Wyndham Vale to evaluate the usability and acceptability of the eHub. Caregivers will be recruited using a number of methods, such as opt in QR codes on posters and flyers, as well as via mailouts to patient at physical hub sites. Consent and, baseline and 6-month surveys will all be completed by caregivers online. Caregivers who choose not to sign up to be involved in the evaluation study will still be able to access and use the eHub in each site.

The eHub evaluation will also use anonymous data collected via the eHub site to inform the evaluation, such as the number of users reaching the eHub site, pages visited, and satisfaction with information provided.

Requirements are starting to be gathered for possible future phases of the eHub.

Researchers in Residence

Welcome to our newly recruited Researchers in Residence (RiR) based at our three Victorian Community Health Services (CHS)!

• Natalie White (IPC Health & DPV Health)
• Kelly Naess (Sunraysia Community Health Service)
• Alicia McCoy (Key Assets Australia)

The Brian M Davies Foundation will support these health services to co-design, implement and embed local evaluations around a Child and Family Hub over the next 2 years.

Embedding these RiR roles will create a collaborative learning partnership between these CHS, supporting them to better meet the needs of families.

Advocacy and Communications

In June, the CRE held a 2-day Adversity Symposium asking "What should Australia do about childhood and family adversity?" from services, policy, and research perspectives. We had over 50 guests (experts in areas of health, education, social care, justice, and lived and living experience) attend the symposium, with over 200 ideas generated and we have been busy curating them into an online Resource Allocation survey aimed for dissemination nationally next month.  

Feedback from this event has been very positive!

"It was very well run, and excellent mix of people attending."
"Cross-sectoral collaboration and the action-oriented approach"
"I felt that my lived experience was highly valued and I was able to participate in the workshops without feeling prejudiced, not being employed in the mental health sector."

If you would like to stay up to date with the outcomes of the survey, please register here.

Pictured above: (left to right) Anne Hollands (Children's Commissioner, Australia Human Rights Commission), Sharon Goldfeld (Director, The Centre for Community Child Health, Royal Children's Hospital) , Penny Dakin (CEO, Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY)) at the Adversity Symposium in June 2023.

Achievements in the CRE!

Congratulations to Tess and the team on their new publication! 

Co-designing an Integrated Health and Social Care Hub With and for Families Experiencing Adversity

Hall T, Loveday S, Pullen S, Loftus H, Constable L, Paton K, Hiscock H (2023) 'Co-designing an Integrated Health and Social Care Hub With and for Families Experiencing Adversity', International Journal of Integrated Care, 23(2):3,      https://ijic.org/articles/10.5334/ijic.6975

In short, this study aims to outline the process, principles and tools to co-design an integrated health and social care hub for families experiencing adversity.

Method

The Child and Family Hub was co-designed in four stages:

(1) partnership building and stakeholder engagement,
(2) formative research,
(3) persona development and
(4) co-design workshops and consultations.

Local families, community members and intersectoral practitioners were engaged at each stage. The co-design workshops employed a human-centred design process and were evaluated using the Public and Patient Engagement Evaluation Tool (PEET). 

Key findings

121 family participants and 80 practitioners were engaged in the Hub’s co-design. The PEET highlighted the co-design team’s satisfaction achieved by community members working alongside practitioners to generate mutual learning. Resourcing was a key challenge.

Human-centred design offered a systematic process and tools for integrating formative evidence with lived and professional experience in the Hub’s co-design. Applying community engagement principles meant that a diverse range of stakeholders were engaged across all stages of the project which built trust in and local ownership of the Hub model.

Next steps

Future co-design research with families experiencing adversity in an integrated care context should develop strategies for language, engagement, team composition and resourcing decisions.

What is something people don't know about you? 

I am a big fan of street photography and completed a “365 Days of Photography Project” a few years ago. Some of these photos were on display at my workplace at the time.

What do you hope the CRE will achieve? 

An effective and integrated community health model that promotes equity in healthcare and social care, as well as improves the overall wellbeing of families.

What are you currently working on in the Centre?

I have been working on the evaluation of the integrated hub model, using a qualitative approach. My favourite part of this work is interviewing families who are the users of the hub and listening to their experiences and unique insights into the services they receive.

What inspires your work? 

I am inspired by the pioneering work of our project, which encompasses many key elements, including the integration of cross-sector services, co-design with stakeholders, a focus on workforce training, ongoing evaluation, etc.

Please continue to send any general queries relating to the CRE to our team inbox: childhoodadversity@mcri.edu.au

Recent publications 

Hall T, Loveday S, Pullen S, Loftus H, Constable L, Paton K, Hiscock H (2023) 'Co-designing an Integrated Health and Social Care Hub With and for Families Experiencing Adversity', International Journal of Integrated Care, 23(2):3, https://ijic.org/articles/10.5334/ijic.6975

Honisett S, Cahill R, Callard N, Eapen V, Eastwood J, Goodhue R, Graham C, Heery L, Hiscock H, Hodgins M, Hollonds A, Jose K, Newcomb D, O’Loughlin G, Ostojic K, Sydenham E, Tayton S, Woolfenden S and Goldfeld S (2023) 'Child and family hubs: an important ‘front door’ for equitable support for families across Australia', National Child and Family Hubs Network, https://apo.org.au/node/321543

Loveday S, Balgovind M, Hall T, Sanci L, Goldfeld S, Hiscock H (2023) 'Emotional work of getting help: a qualitative analysis of caregiver-perceived barriers to responding to childhood adversity', Archives of Disease in Childhood, https://doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2023-325473

Loveday S, Balgovind M, Hall T, Sanci L, Goldfeld S, Hiscock H (2023) '“A multitude of things”: A qualitative analysis of practitioner perceived barriers to identifying and responding to childhood adversity', Mental Health & Prevention, 30, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mhp.2023.200276

Lin P, Eapen V (2023) 'New insights into the link between childhood adversity and epigenetic changes', The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 7(8), https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-4642(23)00106-2

McLean K, O'Connor E, Ong R, Joseph C, Skinner R, & Goldfeld S (2023) 'Psychosocial assessment tools for children and young people aged 5–18 years: A rapid review of the literature', Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, 59(2):218–228, https://doi.org/10.1111/jpc.16324

For a full list of CRE publications, see our website.