“Getting on With It”: A Course by Caregivers, for Caregivers – Pilot Overview and Evaluation Report. Commissioned by: NOFASD Australia.
Citation: Gibbs, A., Harrington, S., Robinson, C, Brooks, C. & Dedman, C. (2020). ISBN: 978-0-6488721-1-5
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Introduction
In 2017, Associate Professor Anita Gibbs, a caregiver of two children living with FASD, as well as a registered social worker and long-time educator at the University of Otago, undertook an extensive piece of work to design and deliver an evidence-based caregiver course ‘Getting on with it’ – in her home town of Dunedin, New Zealand. After running and evaluating this initial ‘pilot’ (Gibbs, 2019)1 she, with her co-facilitators, broadened the course to both a one- day version and a digital collaboration with NOFASD.
This report outlines the development of the digital online Getting on with it (GOWI) pilot between NOFASD and Dr Anita Gibbs over the course of 2019, and includes a combined evaluation report of an internal brief survey as well as an external telephone-based evaluation undertaken in early 2020 by an independent, external contractor
The idea of calling the course ‘Getting on with it’ (GOWI for short), was born out of Anita and other caregiver’s general frustrations of waiting for implementation of FASD action plans and interventions and supports, which never seemed to quite appear. For example, NZ’s first action plan has recently ended (2014-2019) with virtually no ongoing financial or other support for caregivers and those with FASD. Additionally, GOWI in Australia was specifically initiated to provide FASD-specific online peer-to-peer mentoring, support and advocacy, of an ongoing nature, which we knew was not available in either NZ or Australia.
This report will discuss how the pilot came about, the recruitment of participants, the current course aims and content overview, the course process and philosophy overview, the evaluation reports (combined internal and external evaluations), and the next steps for the future of GOWI in Australia.