Galiwin'ku Baby Hub

Baby Hub works on recognising and focusing on the inherent strengths of all mums. We actively work to ensure that mums are empowered to have a voice and to be more able to take control of their own lives and environments. This includes providing support to develop their own goals and to access necessary resources, skills development, social connections, and services to achieve those goals. 

Here are some of the amazing things that have been happening at the Baby Hub, made possible thanks to our supporters, team, partners and the community:

• Baby Hub was involved in the pre-school and FaFT (Families as First Teachers) “Christmas Concert” in December. We brought along Christmas kids activities, decorated Christmas hats and shared some stories about health prevention prior to the Christmas holidays. 
• Baby Hub staff participated in a Yolgnu staff “Wraparound Services” meeting with Connected Beginnings (a government-funded program to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children prepare for school) to discuss how best to engage with Yolngu families to gather information and involve them in the working group’s decision making process.
• Baby Hub is delivering the  ‘strong blood and nutrition’ sessions every Tuesday to target anaemia and growth faltering in babies.
• Baby Hub staff is working with Miwatj Aboriginal Health and the MECSH (Maternal Early Childhood Sustained Home-visiting) to try and identify where many of the hard-to-reach Mums are (often in tents or camping out on the fringes of town).  The team then encourages these mums to come to the Hub for support and then refers on to the clinic where appropriate. 
• Miwatj team will also be visiting Baby Hub every Tuesday morning to provide education around health.
• Friday bush trips are running in collaboration with FaFT.  During these trips, mums and bubs visit many different homelands, hunt and cook healthy meals and participate in playgroup activities. We documented a bush trip, please go have a look at the link provided at the bottom of this email.

What the Baby Hub visitors are telling us: feedback from our three months post attending surveys reported that Baby Hub is a quiet place where mums and families feel safe and supported, where they can relax and learn new stories, tools and skills about caring for the health of their babies and their development for them to thrive.

We thank all of our supporters and continue to seek philanthropic support to provide resources to empower the community to deliver the Baby Hub program in the future.

Links:

• Bush hunting with Baby Hub in Galiwin'ku