It takes a village: how the CRE helped shape FASD policy and practice

FASD Research Australia CRE investigators from across the country, at an Early and Mid-Career Researcher Workshop in Sydney, 2019

The FASD Research Australia Centre of Research Excellence (CRE), which ran from 2016–2021 and was led by Co-Directors Professor Carol Bower at Telethon Kids Institute in Perth, and Professor Elizabeth Elliott at the University of Sydney, substantially built the evidence base around FASD and had a significant impact on advocacy, policy and practice during its five years of operation.

A key aim of the FASD Research Australia CRE was to turbo-boost Australian FASD research and translation of that research into policy and practice.

Looking back, Co-Director Professor Carol Bower – who headed the Perth arm of the CRE from the Telethon Kids Institute – believes the countless people who worked within and in collaboration with the CRE over its lifetime more than achieved this goal.

“It’s wonderful to see the continuation and expansion of research and practice across the nation now that the CRE has wrapped up. “The Pilbara FASD project, building on the CRE and many other sources to work with Elders on resources, and the Bigiswun Kid Project – a follow-up of the Lililwan (all the little children) Project – are great examples.”

Professor Bower said that in addition to the policy outcomes and increased awareness achieved by the CRE, she was pleased at how it had helped to shape a talented pool of young and emerging researchers.

“I am inordinately proud of the post-doctoral fellows and PhD students we recruited, supported and nurtured as part of the CRE, and the national collaboration of researchers that we established, and who continue in advancing our FASD knowledge and practice beyond the life of
the CRE.”

Director of Aboriginal Health at Telethon Kids, Glenn Pearson – one of many investigators on projects associated with the CRE – said the Centre had been a magnificent collaborative endeavour which had left a deep impression on everyone involved with it.

“The champions that were involved in the CRE were a group of world-class researchers that were deeply disturbed by the circumstances of unborn children in this state, through something that was completely, 100 per cent preventable,” Mr Pearson said.

“Without blaming or losing the bigger picture around the circumstances for these families, they brought their skills, their research and their deep thinking to work with government and communities at all different levels to change those circumstances in favour of the children, and of the unborn kids. I think it’s just amazing.”

Mr Pearson said the multi-disciplinary program of work undertaken by the CRE had brought into sharp focus an issue that had previously struggled to garner either attention or commitment and investment in actions to prevent FASD and improve quality of life.

“Research comes with responsibility – the CRE is an example of how research can’t just be conducted in and of itself, it comes with responsibility to do something meaningful
with it,” he said.

“Thanks to this work FASD is now on the national agenda.

“Going forward, the national Closing the Gap agreement, and the early years and child protection national strategies that underpin that, potentially augur well for a more developed and sophisticated conversation and agreement to action on a range of issues confronting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children – particularly those confronted by the reality of FASD.”