Stillbirth and miscarriage grants announced to help support high-risk groups
The federal government has announced more than $5 million in grants to better support families in high-risk communities through their grief after a stillbirth or miscarriage.
Key points:
- The $5.1 million in government grants is focused on helping high-risk communities
- It will be split across three organisations that provide support and resources for families experiencing loss
- Red Nose Australia says the funds will help provide more in-language resources
The money, which will be given out during the next three years, will be split between three organisations — Red Nose Australia, Centre for Research Excellence in Stillbirth and Rural Health Connect — to allow them to extend or expand the services they offer to their particular communities.
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the stillbirth rate has remained between seven and eight per 1,000 births for the past 20 years.
In Australia, stillbirth is defined as the death of a baby before it is born at 20 weeks gestation or more and/or weighing 400 grams or more.
While stillbirth and miscarriage can happen to anyone, the rates of both are higher for particular communities, including First Nations people, those from culturally and linguistically diverse families, refugee and migrant communities and people living in rural and remote areas.
Red Nose Australia will receive the bulk of the funding, $3.2 million, to put in place its "Healing Through Community" project, which aims to work with local communities to make sure all Australians, regardless of their location or language spoken, know about their services.
Red Nose chief executive officer Keren Ludski said the money would go toward making the organisation accessible to as many people, from as many backgrounds, as possible.
"What we found is, despite our best efforts, there is still a gap in terms of ease of access, or for people to get that bereavement support," she said.
"And we know how important that individualised bereavement support is, it's not a one-size-fits-all model of care.
"[So we're] really looking at what how do we make sure that it doesn't matter whether it's someone in a remote Indigenous community, or whether it's someone in metropolitan Melbourne that speaks no English, to everything in between has access to the same level of support."
Ms Ludski said that included expanding the translation services on offer, recruiting more interpreters with lived experience and working with community organisations to make sure families know what services are on offer.
"The premise of this whole program [Healing Through Community] is co-design, so going out to these communities, linking with different organisations, difference agencies that are supporting families," she said.
"To really determine what ease of access looks like, rather than making assumptions, because that kind of shared care referral pathway is everything.
"You know, we can do everything we can to get the message out there that it is a free service, but if people don't know about it, they're going to fall through the gaps.
"They're going to be those people who feel so alone and unsupported, isolated, in their grief and that's what we want to stop."
The Centre for Research Excellence in Stillbirth will receive $980,000 to expand its education program for healthcare workers who work with families experiencing stillbirth and miscarriage.
It will also use the money to develop new resources on cultural safety for First Nations, South Asian and African-born families.
Telehealth psychology for rural families
Rural Health Connect will use its $850,000 in grants to provide telehealth psychology sessions to families in rural and remote areas who have lost babies, and to create a new online training resource for psychologists on best-practice bereavement care.
Assistant Health Minister Ged Kearney said the government was committed to helping people nation-wide who were impacted by stillbirth and miscarriage.
"Stillbirth can have a devastating impact on women and their families, resulting in ongoing grief, anxiety and depression as well as social and financial losses," she said.
"Our government is committed to reducing the tragedy of stillbirths on our nation, and particularly to support those in our community who experience stillbirth and miscarriage at a disproportionately high rate to receive timely and appropriate care."
Assistant Minister for Indigenous Health, Senator Malarndirri McCarthy — who chaired a senate committee into stillbirth research and education — said the money would help families at what is often "the most challenging moments of their lives".
"The support provided by our government will go a long way in helping families through the grief of stillbirth including those disproportionately affected in rural and remote, Indigenous, and culturally diverse communities," she said.