Kurt is joined by Julia Riches, Research Officer for the Learning with FASD initiative. They discuss the Learning with FASD project which aims to provide primary school teaching and support staff with evidence-based resources to understand and support children with FASD in Australian primary schools.
You can access the Learning with FASD resources on this page of the NOFASD website: https://www.nofasd.org.au/service-providers/education/
This webpage also provides a wide range of other resources designed to assist educators to become more FASD-informed and confident in using strategies that can assist students who have FASD,
This is a link to the Learning with FASD website: https://learningwithfasd.org.au/
For more information about FASD, please go to: https://www.nofasd.org.au/
For information about the National Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Strategic Action Plan which is mentioned in this podcast please see: https://www.nofasd.org.au/strategic-action-plan/
Producers: Kurt Lewis, Louise Gray and Julie Flanagan
Interviewer: Kurt Lewis
Interviewees: Julia Riches
Narrator: Frances Price
The copyright is owned by NOFASD Australia.
All rights reserved – No reproduction or use of this content without written consent of Kurt Lewis and NOFASD Australia. The views expressed in this podcast are those of the interviewee. NOFASD makes every effort to ensure all content is free from judgement and stigma. NOFASD’s mission includes reducing stigma for families and individuals impacted by FASD.
Biography
Julia is the Research Officer for the Learning with FASD Initiative which is being coordinated by the Matilda Centre at the University of Sydney. She completed a Bachelor of Psychological Science (Honours) at the University of Queensland while simultaneously working as a Research Assistant for the University on a joint project with the Centre for Health Brain Ageing (CHeBA) – the Social Cognition Ageing Study .Julia is currently studying for a Master of Public Health degree.
Transcript
Frances Price (00:02):
How much do you know about the effects of alcohol during pregnancy? The reality may surprise you. Alcohol exposure while in the womb can damage the brain of the developing baby, causing it to develop Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder or FASD. It may lead to lifelong physical, and/or neurodevelopmental impairments, such as problems with memory, attention, cause and effect reasoning, and difficulties in adapting to situations. For such an impactful disorder it is rarely spoken about in the popular media. NOFASD Australia’s podcast series is designed to raise awareness and understanding of FASD by giving listeners an opportunity to hear from those who have the deepest understanding of the impacts of FASD.
This is Pregnancy, Alcohol and FASD – The Surprising Reality.
(01:05):
In May this year NOFASD Australia presented our second online conference. Just like The FASD Forum in 2022, The FASD Forum ’24 brought together parents, carers and individuals with lived experience, with researchers, health professionals and policy makers. Once again, this conference included a session entitled “The Three-Minute Thesis” in which researchers were asked to provide an engaging summary of their research, explaining the premise of the research and the outcomes within the strict time-limit of just three minutes. Prizes were awarded for the best presentations in this conference session and in this podcast series we’ve invited the three prize winners to discuss their research in more detail with our podcast host, Kurt Lewis.
(01:57):
Our first guest is involved in a project developing resources to assist educators in schools to become more FASD-informed. The NOFASD team knows that educational settings can often be problematic for children with FASD – especially where staff don’t have the benefit of understanding the varied ways that FASD can present.
We encourage you to review the resources for primary school educators described in this episode, and, if your child is younger again, we encourage you to review the “Through Different Eyes” resources which NOFASD developed in association with Early Childhood Australia to assist staff working in early childhood settings to become FASD-informed. We’ll include the links to access these free educational resources in the show notes accompanying this episode.
But that’s enough from me for now – I know that Kurt is waiting in the wings and eager to introduce his guest for this episode.
Kurt Lewis (03:05):
Welcome. welcome to this episode of Pregnancy, Alcohol and FASD: The Surprising Reality. I’m your host, the friendly neighborhood podcaster, Kurt Lewis. Today we are talking about Learning with FASD, an initiative funded by the Australian Government Department of Health. To tell us more about this interesting program is the wonderful Julia Riches. How are you doing, Julia?
Julia Riches (03:33):
I’m good, thank you. How are you, Kurt?
Kurt Lewis (03:35):
Oh, all the better to have you on the podcast. Julia, you’re research officer at the Matilda Center at the University of Sydney. I wonder if you could tell us something about your career journey – what has led you to your work in the Matilda Center and your focus on FASD.
Julia Riches (03:53):
Yeah, absolutely. So I did my undergraduate degree in psychology up in Brisbane and I’ve worked in research for about eight years now. When I started, I actually worked in aging research, which I found really interesting and rewarding in that space. When I first really learned about FASD, when I started at the Matilda Centre in 2020, and I was really surprised to see how much that could be done in this space and how important this work is. And I feel really privileged to be involved, cause there is kind of a lack of resources and support out there, so it is really important I think. So yeah, I find this work really rewarding and I find the research translation element of this project in particular something that I’m really passionate about because there is this sometimes very long pipeline from the research to actually translating it into practice. So this project and Learning with FASD feels really important and special to be able to get important information out into the community. So in my current role, as you said, I’m a research officer at the Matilda Centre. So what that involves is really all the day-to-day running of the project on Learning with FASD and I’m also currently actually completing my Master of Public Health, which I just feel is really broadening my knowledge and skills and capacity in this space and something I’m really passionate about moving forwards.
Kurt Lewis (05:20):
So you are like the person on the ground kind of thing? You are the one who manages the project?
Julia Riches (05:23):
Yeah, exactly. All of the day-to-day stuff. So I’m managing our stakeholders, running consultations, drafting resources for the website, all of the practical stuff that’s really involved in running the project falls to me and that’s what I really love about my job, doing all those day-to-day things.
Kurt Lewis (05:43):
Before running this kind of project, did you know much about FASD or did you become informed while doing the project?
Julia Riches (05:46):
Yeah, I first really learned about it when I started in this role, which was over four years ago. Now time flies and as I said, I was really surprised to learn about, like I said, how much there is to be done in this space. The lack of information and knowledge and awareness in the general community, I was really surprised to learn about, and that’s why I said it feels like such a privilege to be involved in working on things related to FASD because it feels like such an important position to be in and it feels like a privilege to be involved in this space.
Kurt Lewis (06:27):
Well, we’re privileged to have you and Learning with FASD around really. I know earlier this year you presented a summary of your recent research project during the “Three-Minute Thesis” session at The FASD Forum conference, and you were a joint winner of the “People’s Choice Award” for your presentation. How did it feel to win this award for your presentation?
Julia Riches (06:46):
It felt incredibly special. I think sometimes with research you can feel like there’s a little bit of a disconnect with what you’re doing and whether you can feel like it’s reaching the community and the impact that you’re having. So for Learning with FASD in particular to be recognised by the people that attended The FASD Forum, it was so special to be recognised and sort of valued by people who were so across this space, and so invested in making improvements for people with FASD. So it was really just a cherry on the top of this project for sure.
Kurt Lewis (07:19):
Yeah, because the “People’s Choice Award”, that’s a number of people with lived experience acknowledging that your research is valuable at the end of the day.
Julia Riches (07:27):
Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, really special to be recognised and to get that confirmation that it is hopefully making an impact and valued by people that are going through these experiences.
Kurt Lewis (07:39):
Well, as we talked about, you are the research officer for this project for Learning with FASD. For those who are unfamiliar with Learning with FASD, whether you didn’t attend the forum, or you’re not familiar with some of the resources you offer, can you tell us more about the focus and the goals of this project?
Julia Riches (07:55):
Yeah, absolutely. So in 2020, the Australian Government Department of Health really recognised that there were some important gaps in educators’ skills and knowledge relating to FASD, and we know that it is seldom apparent at birth. It might often not be noticed until a child reaches school age when sort of learning or behavioural challenges become more evident and teachers and support staff can play that really vital role in recognising neurodevelopmental concerns, connecting families and health services, and providing supports in schools to ensure that children with FASD are supported in their ongoing education. So, the Matilda Centre was funded to create Learning with FASD. So at its core, it’s a website that provides primary school teaching and support staff with easy to access evidence-based resources to help them understand and support children with FASD in Australian primary schools. So the goals really are to help teachers understand the impacts of FASD on learning behaviour, recognise students that might be showing potential indicators of FASD, and then to facilitate the appropriate referral and – for diagnosis and support. But we also really want to improve the capacity of teachers to adopt a strength-based approach to encourage greater participation in the education sector and to enable them to work effectively with children with FASD and also their parents or caregivers and families.
Kurt Lewis (09:25):
Wow, that sounds pretty interesting. You’ve mentioned resources. What type of resources does Learning with FASD have to offer educators and other individuals who work within the education sector?
Julia Riches (09:34):
So we’ve tried to provide a whole variety in terms of resource types. So we have things like short videos, fact sheets, webinars, quizzes, longer guides, kind of the whole gamut of things that you could hope for, and it’s a combination of evidence-based resources that we’ve developed by the team at the Matilda Centre, but we also house other high quality externally developed resources. So the idea is that it’s like a central repository that educators can go to access all types of evidence-based resources, and we focused on three main areas with the website.
So the first is understanding FASD. The second is classroom strategies, and the last one is family engagement. So all the resources that we developed, they were based on the findings of a scoping review, which we did right at the start of the project to determine what was already out there in the space. And we also did sort of extensive consultations with educators, with FASD and education experts, with parents and caregivers to determine what was going to be most useful. So we really wanted to create resources that would best serve the needs of educators and also children with FASD in the school system.
Kurt Lewis (10:50):
It sounds like you’ve got a real sweep of resources right there, right across the board, including parent engagement, which is important for that kind of stuff, as well as education resources, which is good for the teachers on the ground, looking to help these kids who may, or may not, have FASD, or may have some sort of neurodevelopmental issue.
Julia Riches (11:09):
Yeah – and the resources focusing around engaging with families was actually something really driven by the educators themselves. That was something when we ran those consultations that yes, they really wanted those practical classroom strategies that they could implement, like you said, for children with FASD and also for children with lots of different neurodevelopmental disorders, but it was the educators themselves that were really saying, we want more information about how to work with families effectively, how to support them, how to sensitively communicate and engage with them. So that was a really valuable thing that came out of the consultations as well.
Kurt Lewis (11:47):
Well, it’s interesting you should mention effectiveness, because during your “Three-Minute Thesis” presentation, you mentioned that you had evaluated the effectiveness of the “Learning with FASD” website through a survey. Could you tell us about the results of that survey? How effective has your website been in getting this vital information out there?
Julia Riches (12:09):
Yeah, absolutely. So like you said, we ran a survey cause wanted to look at the acceptability and utility of the website, but also the impact that we were having and the newly developed resources were having on knowledge, confidence, and behaviours – and we really wanted to make sure we’re getting things right. Obviously we have a really strong research background, and we’re in the research space, but we’re creating things for educators, and we really value their insight because they’re working in this space every day and we want to make sure that what we’re providing is going to be useful for them. So we had 74 educators complete the survey, which included a diverse range of roles. So we had teachers, school psychologists, education assistants, principals, from metropolitan, regional and remote areas. So that was really important to us as well, making sure we were getting an accurate representation of all different kind of spaces where people are coming from.
(13:08):
The website was really well received by educators, so almost 90% indicated they had a really positive experience using the website, and they considered it to be really useful for primary school staff. But I think what was most encouraging is that we found access to the website was effective at increasing knowledge and confidence. So participants who were low in knowledge about particularly the prevalence or the presentation of FASD, reported improvements in their knowledge from baseline to the follow-up survey that we ran six months later. And teachers also reported increased confidence in their ability to recognise and appropriately refer a student who might be showing potential indicators of FASD, and also increased confidence in their ability to teach and support those students. So it was really encouraging findings that just having access to these resources over a six-month period could have those impacts on knowledge and confidence.
(14:06):
But I think also what was most exciting for me was that we also saw actual behaviour change amongst educators. So educators were reporting that they were actually implementing these strategies in the classroom to support behaviour and to support learning. And for those that hadn’t had the chance yet, a huge percentage was still intending to implement these behaviours. So that was really rewarding to see that the website was having those real, real-world impacts I think. You also asked about actually getting the website out there, making sure we’re reaching the audience that we need to reach. So as of June this year, we’ve had over 29,000 visitors to the website, and we’ve had about 62,000 page views, and the resources have been downloaded over 6,000 times. Most of our site users are based in Australia, but about 30% are actually coming from international. About 30% are international visitors, so mostly from the USA and Canada, which I just think is another sign of how important it is and how necessary these resources are for educators.
(15:25):
So when we did first launch in 2022, we actually sent a hard copy letter and an email to every primary and combined school in the country, which was a huge undertaking. cause it was almost 8,000 schools, but really important just to try and get that information out there. And we do a lot of other promotion activities. So we’ve been at 14 conferences. We send regular e-newsletters to our subscribers, and we also host webinars to provide training and learning opportunities for teaching and support staff. So we’ve posted about six webinars now. We’ve had over 4,000 views, which is really encouraging to see the reach that we’re getting. There is clearly a need there, and it is being well received by the people that are using the website. So it’s really exciting to see kind of these figures and this information coming back to us that what we’re doing is useful.
Kurt Lewis (16:24):
That’s awesome news. You must be really ecstatic by those results, just that people are clearly using the resources and it’s clearly the word about it spreading around.
Julia Riches (16:31):
Yeah, definitely. It’s really rewarding to put something out into the world and seeing it being taken up by the people that need it, and hopefully it is having those really positive flow-on impacts for those students that do need that little bit of extra support in school.
Kurt Lewis (16:46):
I know that Learning with FASD team recently were successful in achieving a funding for an extension to your existing resources. Can you tell our listeners something about what is planned now? What are you going to do with that funding extension?
Julia Riches (16:58):
Yeah, so we were really excited to receive additional funding from the Department of Health and Aged Care earlier this year to also include information and resources for the secondary education sector. So the current website is focused on primary school aged children and primary school educators, but we know that the challenges faced by adolescents with FASD and their families are really different for those faced by children in primary school. So what we’re working on at the moment is we’re actually doing another review to see what is already out there for secondary school educators in relation to FASD, and then we’ll develop a new suite of resources that will hopefully assist those secondary school educators to better understand and support young people with FASD. It is really early days, but what we’re seeing with the review already is that there’s even less out there for secondary school educators than there was for the primary school space, and that was already quite minimal.
(18:02):
Clearly, like I said, a lot more work to be done in this space. And we’re actually currently in the middle of a consultation phase, so we are talking to educators, we’re talking to parents and caregivers and those experts as well, to really identify those priority areas for resource development, and we will be running more consultations later in the year when we have those drafts ready to go. So really focusing on that co-design process and trying to create things that are going to best serve the needs of the secondary school teachers and also the students that they’re supporting.
Kurt Lewis (18:37):
That’s a very big sector secondary school, and it’s a very big milestone for people with FASD and teenage years can be somewhat troublesome for people with FASD.
Julia Riches (18:48):
Yeah, absolutely. And like I was saying, so many more things come into play when you’re an adolescent compared to primary school. So there’s things like even just the transition from primary school to secondary school. When you’re in secondary school, you’re moving classrooms every class period. You have different teachers, you’re starting to think about transitioning into the workforce. Adolescents are more likely to use alcohol and other drugs. So there’s just a lot more things happening for adolescents. So it’s really important to have those resources specifically for them and specifically for the educators that are supporting them in schools.
Kurt Lewis (19:20):
That’s great. Julia, reflecting on your time working and researching on the topic of FASD, are you aware of a growing awareness in the wider community about FASD over that time? And do you think there is more that educators or other professionals could be doing to help people with FASD and their families?
Julia Riches (19:41):
I think what’s really encouraging in this space and what I’ve seen in the time that I’ve been in it, is the growing awareness and action that we are seeing, particularly from sort of a top-down government level. So we’ve got the National Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Strategic Action Plan. We’ve had the Senate Inquiry, there’s the national awareness campaign that’s being run by FARE, and there’s funding for projects like ours, and the Strong Born campaign, which is trying to raise awareness of FASD among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. So it is really encouraging, but I think there is a lot more that can be done in the whole community. We know that raising awareness in the education sector is really important, as we’ve seen even with our own research, that knowledge and awareness can be quite low. And we are really, really aware that educators have so much on their plate already, and whenever we talk to them, they have so many competing priorities.
(20:43):
They’re trying to manage so much in schools, which I think why things like Learning with FASD are so important, because we have the opportunity to make these resources available to educators in a really easy to access way, and we’re trying to provide them tools to better support children with FASD. So I think with the increasing awareness that we’re seeing across the whole community, I’m really hopeful that we are sort of addressing existing gaps in awareness and available resources and supports for, not only the education sector, but the health sector, other professionals. We’re giving them the tools so they can better support children with FASD in Australia.
Kurt Lewis (21:30):
Thank you so much, Julia, for sitting down and just talking about the Learning with FASD initiative. It’s really important. I really hope your work continues and you continue to make awesome resources for educators, particularly in the secondary school. Sounds like it’s much needed out there.
Julia Riches (21:44):
Yeah, I mean, thank you so much for having me on. Like I said, I am really invested in this space and I feel like it is a real privilege to be able to create things that will hopefully have that real world impact. So it’s been lovely to come on and tell you a little bit more about what we’re doing.
Kurt Lewis (22:00):
Thank you.
Frances Price (22:01):
Thank you for listening to this episode of Pregnancy, Alcohol and FASD: The Surprising Reality. If you like this podcast episode, please show your support by leaving a rating and review on iTunes. We appreciate your feedback. All rights reserved. For more information about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder please visit NOFASD Australia’s website: www.nofasd.org.au