SMILING: Sharing the Magic in Learning about Infant and Newborn Growth

The SMILING project is two separate but inter-linked projects in the Raymond Terrace and Karuah communities. SMILING focuses on families in the perinatal period. It's funded by Communities For Children, part of the Federal Government’s "Stronger Families and Communities Strategy", and is facilitated by the Family Action Centre.

The project's primary aim is to increase participation of vulnerable families in health and community-based perinatal services, including pharmacy-based child and family health nurses. It will conduct formal community consultations with families and service providers to:

* establish baseline data on the current use of perinatal services

* determine the types/ models of care best suited to the communities of Raymond Terrace and Karuah.

From these consultations, new models of health and community-based perinatal support services will be trialed and evaluated until the end of 2008.

The Pharmacy Project is an exciting initiative which aims to engage, resource and support local pharmacist and pharmacy-based nurses providing a baby-health clinic to young families. The project will be focusing on ‘harder-to-reach’ families, particularly those from low socio-economic backgrounds, adolescent parents, indigenous families and grandparents who are primary caregivers for small children.

It is intended that the end outcome will result in a more streamlined approach for pharmacists/pharmacy-based nurses to be able to refer to local support services and to ensure that consistent, reliable information be provided to families. In order to assist with this, a resource package will be developed in consultation with various stakeholders.

The Perinatal Care Project aims to improve access to and uptake of community-based antenatal and postnatal support and education by harder to reach families. Through building on existing programs and partnership opportunities, community based support and education groups will be offered to families in the Raymond Terrace/Karuah areas. The overall aims of the projects are to enhance local community resources and subsequently increase the community’s social capital.