Congratulations to Professor Carrington Shepherd and the Indigenous Health Research Program team from Curtin Medical School on being awarded $2.89 million through the Medical Research Future Fund’s (MRFF) Preventive and Public Health Research 2024 Maternal Health and Healthy Lifestyles (Round 3) for the project ‘Community-driven remodelling of bereavement care services for Aboriginal perinatal loss’.

The Curtin-led project will work in partnership with Aboriginal Elders, communities and healthcare providers to undertake a comprehensive examination of bereavement care services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families who have experienced a perinatal loss. It aims to enhance the understanding of their experiences in bereavement care, explore the needs of healthcare providers in providing optimal care, and develop an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-specific model of perinatal loss.

The outcomes will support improvements in the health service system and patient-centred care, providing critical support to families experiencing the significant grief that results from a stillbirth or neonatal death. While the work will primarily engage with, and focus on, communities on Noongar Boodja (south-west of Western Australia), the findings and outcomes have potential application to other regions of Western Australia and nationally.

This project partners with the Armadale Health Service, The University of Adelaide, The Kids Research Institute Australia, Murdoch University, The University of Western Australia, Red Nose Australia, the Women and Newborn Health Services and King Edward Memorial Hospital for Women.