ARC Linkage Grants supporting health and social care research

Professor Helen Skouteris came to Monash with a team of four and now leads a Health and Social Care Unit with numerous multidisciplinary researchers, educators, and support staff. Her collaborations were initially with Warwick Business School but have now expanded to include the Warwick Medical School, Warwick Manufacturing Group and Psychology, as well as collaborations across Universities of Birmingham, Coventry, Bedfordshire and UCL.

Her brief was to support the improvement of health and social care through an increased focus on prevention, health inequalities and tackling the social determinants of health, which was a priority of governments globally, as well as for Monash and Warwick. It looked at addressing:

1. the lack of integration between research, education and healthcare.
2. multiple silos, especially between health and social care; and
3. the failure to engage relevant stakeholders and the voice of those with lived experience in health and social care improvement.

Together with colleagues from Warwick, she argues that an integrative approach that embeds research and capacity building within healthcare services is of better value, as is breaking down silos to foster collective impact.

Young people residing in OOHC are vulnerable, have experienced housing instability, poverty and family or domestic violence. They are more likely to enter juvenile justice, experience mental and physical health problems, addictions and unemployment. Approx. 54% of young people who leave OOHC have experienced homelessness. The study aims to reverse the cycle of disadvantage and vulnerability faced by these young people. The project also aims to reduce financial burdens for the Australian economy by allowing young people to reach their full potential.

Professor Skouteris’ team works with community organisations funded by the Victorian government to run OOHC service delivery programs - i.e. Foster care, residential care and kinship carers. Her work will focus primarily on young people in residential home care as they are the most troubled and find it most difficult to transition into society and adulthood. Young people do have access to transition programs such as Better Future’s Program and Home Stretch (stretching their time in home care to 21) that will support them outside of residential care into the real world, however the system is overwhelmed, inadequately funded and under-resourced. The key objective of this work is to have better outcomes for a proportion of young people so that they can function well in society, with peer support and maintain employment which can largely be impacted by intergenerational disadvantage. One of the programs is also aimed at assisting them with healthy eating, living and improving lifestyle habits.

Her co-lead at Warwick Professor Graeme Currie, is a partner investigator on the ARC Linkage grant and the grant is an extension of the EXploring Innovation in Transition EXIT study which he is leading in the UK, and Professor Skouteris is also an investigator on this grant. The study looks at the transition from OOHC to adulthood or ('looked after children’ as is known in the UK). It’s about addressing best practices, innovation and reviewing what organisations are already doing to support young people transitioning from care into the real world at the age of 18. The ARC linkage grant will assist in replicating Professor Currie's work here in Melbourne.

Professor Skouteris’ Health and Social care unit looks at bringing together a more integrated and aligned approach between healthcare providers and community organisations. After the initial three years of the program, she hopes to continue the partnership and see more funding provided. These programs are crucial in assisting young people in finding meaningful, long-term housing and employment. She is passionate about this project and determined to continue this important research into the future.