Grow together – Setting the stage for a healthy future

The NSW Health First 2000 Days Framework outlines the importance of the first 2000 days of a child’s life.¹ From conception to the age of five, a child experiences 90% of their brain development.² The experiences a child has during this period, can have lifelong impacts on their cognitive, physical, social and emotional health.

Child and family health nurses provide health and developmental checks for infants and young children, promote responsive parenting, and support emotional wellbeing. Current practices are siloed between hospitals and community health, resulting in poor transition of care that is detrimental to the child's long term health outcomes. Referring maternity and child and family health nursing service staff recognise that the First 2000 Days Framework is an opportunity for implementing sustainable change for collaborative partnerships.

Every child deserves access to timely and equitable care

Early engagement with health in a child's life results in a significant decrease in government spending over their lifetime.³ Approximately 40% of families within Western Sydney Local Health District (WSLHD) do not access the Child and Family Health Nursing Service for the universal 1–4 week Personal Health Record (Blue Book) check following the birth of their baby.

The Grow Together project focuses on increasing engagement with families following a birth at Doonside Community Health Centre. This centre sits within the Blacktown Local Government Area (LGA), one of the fastest growing LGA’s within NSW. Blacktown LGA Futures Matter data identified that 34% of children under five years of age are classed as vulnerable.^4,5

Grow Together aims to improve the rates of engagement as every child deserves timely, equitable and accessible health services during the first two thousand days to reach their full potential. The project streamlines transition of care between maternity services and child and family health nursing services. Families will be empowered to engage with child and family health nursing, and staff will confidently support families with the transition of care and ongoing access of the service.

Limited referrer knowledge and client understanding of service

The project team undertook extensive consultation with key stakeholders (consumers, managers, nursing staff, multicultural health staff, midwives, maternity managers) through process mapping, focus groups, interviews, surveys, and data analysis. The diagnostics phase found three, interconnected key issues:

• limited referrer (maternity) knowledge
• minimal client understanding of the Child and Family Health Nursing Service
• non-standardised client communication processes within the Child and Family Health Nursing Service.

Combined, these issues resulted in clients feeling overwhelmed once they left the hospital with their baby, as they did not receive timely and reliable information about the service. Three solutions were identified and developed in consultation with key stakeholders.

• Education and training for maternity staff about the Child and Family Health Service.
• Client education provided during antenatal discharge process and ​improving promotional material for clients.
• Standardising child and family health nursing communication to clients for initial contact through the existing GoShare platform.

The project team is supporting the implementation of solutions, with a full project evaluation to be undertaken in December 2025.

View this project's poster from the Centre for Healthcare Redesign graduation November 2024.

References