In 2019 the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women was 17.5 per 100,000, while the MMR was 5.5 for non-Indigenous women. The Growing Deadly Families (GDF) strategy aims to improve outcomes for women birthing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander babies within Queensland. Through the implementation of First Nations led, codesigned models of care, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander babies will have a stronger start to life.
The aim of the GDF strategy is to ensure that every woman in Queensland, giving birth to an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander baby, has high quality and culturally capable maternity services. This strategy highlights that the continuity of midwifery carer model works best when local services are supported to work together to achieve optimal care for their communities.
The strategy addresses key areas to improve maternity services for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people. When mothers are healthy, before and during pregnancy, the likelihood of full-term pregnancies and babies being born at a healthy birthweight increases. Listening to the voices of our mob we heard “We want a say in how maternity services are designed and delivered”. Our action is to form meaningful working partnerships for strong governance and leadership. “We don’t want to keep telling our same story to different people”. This requires that every woman has access to continuity of carer. “We want more of our people providing our maternity care”, which is embedding First Nations led models of care.
This presentation will share the work occurring under the GDF strategy, and the innovative codesigned continuity of midwifery carer models being implemented. Clinical outcome data will be presented from these models, including improved preterm birth rates, mode of birth and consumers’ perspective.

Objectives: The Koolangka Infant Life Saving Framework (KILSEF) was co-designed to guide the planning and facilitation of culturally responsive resuscitation education for Aboriginal parents and families.
Methods: Resulting from an Aboriginal Participatory Action Research (reference), the KILSEF was created utilising community co-design following community members attending a mainstream cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) course. By using a community co-design approach we were able to apply a decolonising research process and focus on a strengths-based approach to the research. Yarning circles were convened to facilitate community discussions to define the key considerations and concepts for the provision of culturally responsive CPR courses.
Results: The KILSEF provides four main components to be addressed when providing culturally responsive education. These encompass location of the classes, content of the classes, cultural learning and the removal of barriers. The location of classes should occur in a culturally safe place such as Aboriginal Community Controlled centres, so community members are comfortable and do not feel shame in attending. Content of the classes should include CPR and first aid, however community members also noted that pre and postnatal education relating to drug and alcohol use during pregnancy should also be included. Cultural learning should be incorporated such as storytelling, pictorial diagrams, videos and demonstrations. Educators should be patient, able to explain things in different ways and use simple terminology and refrain from including medical jargon. Barriers such as pre-readings and pre-tests should be removed due to possible limitations with time, internet access and family responsibilities.
Conclusions: Resuscitation education is highly valued and desired by the community and when provided in a culturally responsive manner improves confidence and self-efficacy in the community. While the KILSEF was co-designed by only the Bindjareb people of the Noongar nation from the south-west of Western Australia, it can used as the basis for implementing CPR education sessions in other similar Aboriginal communities.
Keywords: Infant resuscitation education, Koolangka Infant Life Saving Framework, Aboriginal community co-design.

Aim: Promoting a representative and supportive industry for First Peoples’ academic staff is a key tenet of Australian (AUS) and New Zealand (NZ) universities, and fundamental to strengthening the First Peoples health workforce. Surprisingly across both countries, information about the First Peoples’ Nursing and Midwifery academic workforce is unknown, but this knowledge is essential for developing strategies to improve representation. The aim of the study was to understand the profile of the nursing and midwifery academic workforce.
Methods: Following ethics approval, a cross-sectional study was conducted using an online survey of all 43 organisations who are members of the ANZ Council of Deans Nursing and Midwifery. Data collected were demographic, academic qualifications, and other employment details of First Peoples’ academic staff. Data were analysed descriptively.
Results: Thirty organisations responded (AUS n = 27, NZ n = 6) reporting a total of 55 First Peoples’ staff. NZ universities had between one and four First Peoples’ staff members. Ten Australian universities had none. Other Australian universities reported a range between 1 and 9 First Peoples’ staff. Staff mean age was 45.6 years (range 22-64), and 42.6% held a PhD (42.6%) qualification. Most were employed at lecturer level (72.7%; includes associate and senior lecturers) in a full-time continuing position (69.1%). There were 10 appointed into a professoriate level position (18.1%). Workload was allocated to teaching (39.4%), research (38.0%) and service/engagement (17.1%). Some universities separately allocated workload to scholarship activities (5.5%).
Conclusion: Many universities do not currently employ First People’s nursing or midwifery academic staff although NZ universities were more likely to include First Peoples academics, potentially reflecting the higher proportional population of Māori people. As most First Peoples’ staff hold lower-level academic positions, greater succession planning through increased mentorship and professional development is urgently needed.
Keywords: First Peoples, academic workforce

Aim/Objective: To develop a discrete Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ history, culture, and health subject for a suite of nursing programs using a co-design approach.
Methods: A design thinking approach was used to guide the development of the subject. To gain insights from key stakeholders and engage them in the co-construction of the new subject, academics met with First Nations recipients of health care (health care consumers), staff at the NIKERI Institute, First Nations staff in the university, and external stakeholders including CATSINaM.
Results: The subject was conceptualised using the CATSINaM Curriculum Framework for Nurses and Midwives, with input from First Nations academics and community members.
This subject exploring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ histories, cultures and health meet our accreditation requirements, and more importantly, provides a starting point for students’ learning about the richness and diversity within and between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of Knowing, Being and Doing.
A theme to emerge from students’ feedback was their recognition of previously unrecognised biases, privileges and beliefs that has the potential to impact on their care delivery. This critical self-awareness is a vital first step in developing nurses and midwives with the capacity to provide culturally safe care.
Students also valued hearing diverse perspectives from patients, community members, and health professionals. This is an element of the unit that we hope to build on in future iterations.
Conclusion: A design thinking approach was vital to ensuring academics had confidence to facilitate the subject and undertake the learning journey with the students for mutual benefit.
Keywords: Curriculum design, Nursing and Midwifery, First Nations health.