“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” – African proverb.
Our Greater Shepparton Healthy Child Co-Design project, which commenced in 2024, has concluded and the findings and recommendations are now available.
Co-design brings together lived experience and professional experience to learn from each other to make something better for a particular cohort or to address a particular issue.
We know that cultural barriers can lead to inequitable healthcare access.
The project was developed and established to look at these barriers in terms of access to our Maternal and Child Health services and to explore ways we can better connect our multicultural communities to the MCH system.
Ten key age and stage consultations are a free MCH service provided by Greater Shepparton City Council’s qualified MCH nurses from birth through to school age, and engagement with services is an important tool to monitor and assess a child’s important development milestones.
The Greater Shepparton Healthy Child Co-Design specifically engaged with 32 local women from the Afghan and Congolese communities via the Co-Design Advisory Committee.
Four committee sessions were held with these local women.
When considering the community-based sessions, a specific approach was designed to ensure that co-design was consistently at the heart of the project.
The sessions provided a safe and inclusive environment for them to come together and discuss the barriers and challenges they experienced when accessing our local MCH services.
The sessions were held at African House and have been a beautiful mix of women, their children, delicious food and rich storytelling.
As a result of these sessions, eight main ‘challenges’ and ‘possible’ solutions were co-designed by the participants from the Congolese and Afghan community, along with MCH nurses and employees from GV Health.
These challenges and solutions have been compiled into a final report that has been presented to project partners and council’s MCH service representatives.
Greater Shepparton Foundation will continue to work with council’s MCH service and relevant partners to support implementation of the recommendations where possible and will provide you with updates when available.
You can read the final report and recommendations on the ‘Major Projects’ page of our website, go to greatershepparton.foundation
We extend our thanks to our financial supporters of this project, H&L Hecht Trust, Pratt Foundation and Besen Family Foundation.
And, to our project partners, Greater Shepparton City Council, GV Health, Groupwork Centre and Wise Well Women.
Until next time.
Amanda McCulloch,
Greater Shepparton Foundation executive officer
