The Grow­ing Dead­ly Fam­i­lies Strat­e­gy is Queensland’s Abo­rig­i­nal and Tor­res Strait Islander mater­ni­ty strat­e­gy that aims for all women birthing Abo­rig­i­nal and Tor­res Strait Islander babies to be able to access cul­tur­al­ly safe, con­ti­nu­ity of care through their mater­ni­ty journey. 

It is well estab­lished that when moth­ers are healthy and sup­port­ed through­out their preg­nan­cy, their babies are more like­ly to be born at full term and at healthy birth weight. Invest­ing in the health of moth­ers and babies con­tributes to the best start to life, lead­ing to bet­ter life­long out­comes for those moth­ers and babies.

The intro­duc­tion of the Grow­ing Dead­ly Fam­i­lies Strat­e­gy high­lights the sig­nif­i­cance of birth as a cul­tur­al and cer­e­mo­ni­al event. The first ever First Nations Mid­wifery Direc­tor in Aus­tralia, Reg­is­tered Mid­wife and proud Gurind­ji woman Meli­na Con­nors leads the imple­men­ta­tion of the Grow­ing Dead­ly Fam­i­lies Strategy.

Melina’s involve­ment in the strat­e­gy began in 2021 when, as a Clin­i­cal Mid­wifery Con­sul­tant, Meli­na led the scop­ing that informed future work on imple­ment­ing the Grow­ing Dead­ly Fam­i­lies Strat­e­gy. Meli­na trav­elled over 100 thou­sand kilo­me­tres through­out the state, look­ing for part­ner­ships with­in com­mu­ni­ties and ser­vices and co-design­ing mod­els of care that sup­port­ed the strategy’s vision.

An Abo­rig­i­nal woman, a Mum to three daugh­ters and a Mimi to two grand­chil­dren, Meli­na knows first­hand the impacts of receiv­ing mater­ni­ty care in a mod­el that wasn’t built for her. ​“My jour­ney into mid­wifery came about from my own mater­ni­ty and birthing experience.

As the inau­gur­al First Nations Mid­wifery Direc­tor, Meli­na has a unique under­stand­ing of the Grow­ing Dead­ly Fam­i­lies Strat­e­gy Imple­men­ta­tion, hav­ing worked years on the ground, direct with Mid­wives, Abo­rig­i­nal Health Work­ers, Gen­er­al Prac­ti­tion­ers, Obste­tri­cians and a range of oth­er health pro­fes­sions involved in deliv­er­ing mater­ni­ty ser­vices. Meli­na has tak­en the time to speak with health pro­fes­sion­als, con­sumers, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and fam­i­lies to under­stand their views. She knows one size will not fit all in achiev­ing cul­tur­al­ly safe care for First Nations women and families. 

“We are expand­ing Grow­ing Dead­ly Fam­i­lies at the moment, and it is very excit­ing to see that as a col­lec­tive we are recog­nis­ing the need for First Nations gov­er­nance of that strat­e­gy, through imbed­ding lead­er­ship posi­tions to guide and strength­en our approach.” A major goal of the strat­e­gy, says Meli­na, is to con­tin­u­al­ly increase the num­ber of Abo­rig­i­nal and Tor­res Strait Islander peo­ple trained across all the areas of mater­ni­ty care. ​“Women have told us time and time again that they want to be cared for by the same per­son through­out their preg­nan­cy and that they want to be cared for by peo­ple who are cul­tur­al­ly capa­ble.” The Grow­ing Dead­ly Fam­i­lies Strat­e­gy and its imple­men­ta­tion is sup­port­ing addi­tion­al posi­tions with­in hos­pi­tal and health ser­vices, as well as pipelin­ing the incom­ing work­force and pro­vid­ing addi­tion­al cul­tur­al sup­port for the exist­ing work­force. ​“We’re throw­ing our best at it from all angles and it’s an hon­our to play a role in the imple­men­ta­tion of this strat­e­gy and show what it can achieve,” says Melina.

Meli­na pre­sent­ed the Grow­ing Dead­ly Fam­i­lies Strat­e­gy at the recent CRANAplus con­fer­ence in Octo­ber in Naarm. Dur­ing the ses­sion, Melina’s mes­sage was ​“If we get it right for First Nations women, we will get it right for all women”.