Embrace Big Idea 2023 winners announced

A mental health program for medical trauma used in young burns patients will be adapted for children and young people with type 1 diabetes (T1D) after the $150,000 Embrace Big Idea Grant 2023 was awarded this week.

The winning project will be led by Embrace @ Telethon Kids Institute childhood trauma researchers Dr Alix Woolard, Professor Helen Milroy, Mx Rigel Paciente and Ms Nicole Wickens, in partnership with the Rio Tinto Diabetes Centre’s Dr Keely Bebbington, Ms Heather Roby and Dr Craig Taplin.

An independent judging panel made up of senior Telethon Kids Institute researchers, professional service providers and community members selected the grant winner following a process that involved a written submission and team presentations.

Dubbed Wellbeing-T1D by the project team, this will be the first project to create a community-led, trauma informed psychosocial intervention to improve wellbeing following a diagnosis of T1D.

It will look to adapt an existing wellbeing project being trialled with young people and children who experience a burn, another form of medical trauma, for application to children and families impacted by T1D.

The intervention seeks to support understanding and coping with medical trauma, prevent progression to more severe mental health concerns at later stages in life, and to reduce the impact of medical trauma over time.

“The point of The Wellbeing Project is to bolster the skills that participants might already have – resilience, coping strategies, the behaviours that are helpful, and those that are not,” Mx Rigel Paciente said.

Wellbeing could be the first step in really establishing mental health support – it doesn’t always have to be clinical and expensive.

“This program can help kids boost resilience and wellbeing in a way so they don’t have to get to the point where they experience so much distress they need to be in mental healthcare treatment,” Dr Alix Woolard added. “We aim to get to them before they get to that point.”

“A lot of children present with an initial diagnosis of T1D are very sick and that in and of itself is a very traumatic experience for them and their families,” Dr Craig Taplin said.

“It’s very clear that patients and consumer groups have been asking for support such as this as part of a broader model of care that addresses mental health, coping and resilience.”

Community reviewer Mairead Connolly, who sits on the Parent & Carer Community Group, said what stuck out for her from the Wellbeing-T1D presentation was the level of engagement with families, children and young people.

“If we really want to identify the needs of a group we’re hoping to support and represent, we always have to have meaningful engagement with them. The power of the voice of children and young people is sometimes underestimated.”

The second community reviewer, aspiring psychiatrist Kailin Guo, said she would encourage other members of the Embrace community to become involved in the paid award selection process.

“It’s a big privilege to be involved in having your voice heard as a young person who isn’t clinically associated with the Institute, and to have a think about what research would be meaningful to me,” Kailin said.

Embrace is supported by its principal partner, Rio Tinto.

Photo (clockwise from top-left): Dr Craig Taplin, Mx Rigel Paciente, Ms Heather Roby, Dr Keely Bebbington, Dr Alix Woolard.