CPHCE
Happy Healthy Tibetan Children
Tibetan Refugee Families’ Pathways to Community Health and Family Health Services
Tibetan Refugee Families’ Pathways to Community Health and Family Health Services
The Tibetan born population are an emerging priority community in the Northern Sydney region of NSW Australia. While they have been resident in the area for 15 years, there has been additional arrivals in 2022 with significant health and social needs. As new families establish themselves in the area, they may not be aware of the child and family services and how to access them. This project takes a holistic approach to understanding the needs of the community and concerns of service providers to build and evaluate a service model of care to assist families in healthy child development.
Child and family services in Australia have been set up to support the first 2000 days (first three years) of a child’s life which can have a significant impact on health and development and the child’s life trajectory. Concern has been expressed by clinicians regarding the late presentation of Tibetan children with developmental delays to early intervention services and the low uptake of the Blue Book child development checks. However, families of refugee background, as part of the broader culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) population, face many barriers when engaging with early childhood services, including communication challenges, access to interpreters, low health literacy, complex service pathways, stigma, cultural differences, and the impact of pre and post settlement experiences. This project will work in partnership with Tibetan refugee families to co-design a model of care to improve access to culturally responsive child health nursing services and resources.
CPHCE
Health System Integration and Primary Health Care Development | Action for Equity
Dr Cathy O’Callaghan
Email: c.ocallaghan@unsw.edu.au