Family and Community Health Research Group (FaCH)

Our research

The FaCH Research Group is a University Research Group incorporating staff from the Schools of Nursing, Psychology, Biomedical and Health Sciences, and Business. FaCH brings a unique multidisciplinary perspective to its work on six distinct yet complementary research streams that are bound together through the theoretical concepts of resilience and capacity building.

These streams are:

• Support for vulnerable families
• Chronic and complex care
• Workforce education research in nursing (WERiN)
• Aged care and graduate workforce issues
• Nurturing parents and parenting (NIPPER)
• Exploring pregnancy outcomes (ExPO)

Support for vulnerable families stream

The key goal of this stream is to contribute to the health, welfare and social capital of the people of Greater Western Sydney and beyond, through the conduct of high quality research that responds to areas of need and provides a framework for testing and evaluating interventions to build the health capacity of vulnerable families and individuals. Current projects include family support studies around self harming adolescents, child protection, working parents of children with chronic illness, older people living in the community, routine health screening for women, and improving the quality of postnatal care, breastfeeding support and health outcomes for new mothers, infants and families.

Chronic and complex care stream

The key goal for this stream is to contribute to an evidence base to improve the ability of individuals, their families and communities to deal with the increasing burden of chronic diseases. Chronic diseases such as cardiovascular, respiratory and mental health conditions remain responsible for significant burden to individuals and communities. Current projects include lifestyle management of patients with coronary heart disease, tap water vs normal saline on wound management in palliative care, cardiac care, dementia and associated condition, adolescent mental health, models of care delivery within a context of chronic and complex care.

Workforce Education Research in Nursing: Sustainability, health and practice development (WERiN) Group

The Workforce Education Research in Nursing (WERiN) group undertakes research into diverse areas affecting the nursing workforce including: identification of issues influencing workforce supply of nurses locally, in NSW and Australia; identification and testing of sustainable options to improve the working lives of nurses; exploration of aspects of the health and well-being of the nursing workforce; provision of  evidence to help inform strategic decision making, and  the development of workforce and occupational health policy; and, fostering practice development to enhance care delivery and the career satisfaction of nurses. To-date a number of projects are underway including,

• "Understanding whistleblowing in the health sector: Experiences before and after the event" and
• "Post-registration experiences of NESB nurses entering through completion of a compressed program".

Aged Care and Graduate Workforce Issues group

The Aged Care and Graduate Workforce Issues group comprises a mixture of experienced and new researchers with an interest in aged care and graduate workforce issues. The research areas of interest and capacity are in

• Aged care and dementia.

Areas of focus are enhancing capacity of staff to provide care through development of models of care. Specific areas include advance care planning, communication regarding end-of-life care and symptom management for dementia

• Bereavement.

Developing the role of the community and practice nurse in bereavement care for caregivers of spouses who received palliative care.

•  Graduate workforce issues.

Quality improvement research that aims to identify characteristics of high performing nurse graduates so that this information can be backward mapped to university teaching programs. Currently, members are undertaking research with an international group to establish a database to provide a total picture on nursing workforce issues.
 

Nurturing Parents and Parenting: Enhancing family, community and organisational support for parents through Research (NIPPER)

The Nurturing Parents and Parenting (NIPPER) group focuses on enhancing and supporting services provided to parents by their families, their communities and social service organisations. The program of research is supported by a team including, SON staff, industry collaborators, Adjunct fellows and higher degree students. Three research themes are currently supported by funded research: supporting parents and parenting, strategies to increase initiation and duration of breastfeeding, and creating sustainable health services to meet the needs of parents. Some of the current projects include:

• “A healthy start: a study to design a new model of postnatal care in South West Sydney”,
• “The Baby Friendly Initiative: exploring the implementation and dissemination of a global policy”, and
• “Exploring professional collaboration: a key to sustainable universal health services”.

Exploring Pregnancy Outcomes (ExPO)

The focus of the ExPO research node is to explore both the short and longer term health outcomes for women (and their infants) who have poor health or medical complications in pregnancy such as hypertensive disorders, diabetes or obesity. We aim to strengthen research collaboration across schools, build research capacity and generate new knowledge that results in improved health for mothers and babies, particularly those living in Sydney’s Greater West. This research node links researchers within the Family and Community Health Research Group and the School of Nursing with researchers from the Schools of Medicine and Biomedical and Health Sciences.

Epidemiological research will use linked data to investigate the relationship between maternal poor health and complications in pregnancy and longer term outcomes for women’s health and the health of their infants and children. This work will be complemented by in-depth research using both well established and innovative social science methods to explore the experiences of women who have complications in pregnancy and to understand the way in which health services and professionals respond to their needs.

The Family and Community Health Research Group (FaCH) emphasises student involvement, and has a strategic focus on developing local, national and international collaborations. FaCH aims to achieve improvements to the health and well-being of individuals, families and communities through the identification, implementation and evaluation of high quality and sustainable research activities that will inform the development of interventions, to build resilience and health capacity. FaCH applies a strength building framework which involves working with individuals, families and communities to identify existing strengths and develop these strengths to prepare for and meet adversity due to health breakdown and health related social inequity.

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