Healing the Past by Nurturing the Future: Trauma-integrated perinatal care to improve health outcomes for Indigenous parents and infants in a rural setting

The AIM of this indigenous-led program is to strengthen support for indigenous parents experiencing complex trauma during pregnancy, birth and the first two years after birth.

In partnership with the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency (VACCA), we leverage established partnerships and >$40M of complementary research funding, including four years of co-design research, to address the desired outcomes of this grant opportunity: to demonstrate effective approaches for improving the quality, research capabilities and impact of interventions within primary care (maternity and family care).

We do this through: (i) translating evidence into practice in indigenous-led primary care and other sectors of the health system (ii) improving access to essential primary care through novel (trauma-integrated) health system interventions in an underserved rural area, and (iii) involving primary care workers in research to ensure clinical and community relevance of research projects.