Workshop - Better health for families of multiples

Published: Thursday 05 December 2019

TRA hosted an inaugural workshop recently focusing on developing national priorities and next steps to improve health outcomes for multiple-birth babies and their families. Over 30 participants attended and affirmed their commitment to working together to elevate awareness and action in four high-priority areas. 

New findings, recommendations and actions presented at the workshop are being collated into a report to be released in early 2020. The following outlines the participants in, and aims of, this national initiative. 

Image: (left to right) TRA Deputy Director, Kate Murphy; AMBA Chair, Ashlee Tenberge; ICOMBO Chair, Monica Rankin; TRA Deputy Director (Research), Jeff Craig.   

About the workshop

Twins Research Australia hosted the National agenda-setting workshop: Driving better health outcomes for multiple-birth families at the University of Melbourne on 5 December 2019. The workshop was a collaboration of Twins Research Australia, Australian Multiple Birth Association, and International Council of Multiple Birth Organisations.  

Open to people and organisations involved in the lives of multiple-birth families, its aim was to brainstorm next steps and to create a network of passionate people to drive this agenda forward.

It follows the release of the paper, Multiple Perspectives: What support do multiple-birth families need to live happy and healthy lives? 

Workshop participants included health professionals, researchers, educators, government agencies, not-for-profit and community organisations, parents of twins and adult twins. 

The main focus was a round-table discussion looking at recommendations for action in four high-priority areas as identified by the paper:

• Create and implement improved multiple-birth-specific educational resources for health professionals
• Support the development of evidence-based research on the financial disadvantage experienced by multiple-birth families to lobby government for funding support
• Advocate for further research to better understand the unique mental health concerns of multiple-birth families
• Advocate for further research to reduce pregnancy and birth complications

Program details

The workshop included:

• Background on how and why the paper was developed
• Presentation on each of the four priority themes
• Discussion around what are the challenges and potential solutions
• Presentations from topic experts in their field
• Break-out into four working groups to develop an action list of next steps and how to take these forward
• Potential funding opportunities to implement the next stages of work

Next steps 

Recommendations, actions and next steps from the workshop are being collated into a report due for release in early 2020. Please join our Facebook (general), Facebook (researcher), Twitter or LinkedIn to be alerted to the report's release. 

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