Mother & Child Health Research

Home

Research Program

Staff and Students

Research Publications

Annual Reports

Newsletters

Education and Capacity Building

MCHR is engaged in a range of continuing education and capacity building activities for researchers and practitioners in our field.

Developing public health research capacity

COMPASS was a five-year National Health and Medical Research Council Capacity Building Grant in Population Health Research ($2,333,750), awarded in October 2006 to the Centre, in partnership with the Primary Care Research Unit in the Department of General Practice at The University of Melbourne and the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Families Research Group at Murdoch Childrens Research Institute. COMPASS commenced in April 2007 and concluded in March 2012.

COMPASS had a major interest in the health and care of mothers and children. The focus for COMPASS was building public health research capacity for:

conceptualising complex questions;
working with populations who are often excluded from research, including Indigenous communities, immigrant and refugee women and women experiencing intimate partner violence; and
designing and evaluating complex interventions in diverse settings ranging from hospitals to primary care and communities.

The grant provided us with the opportunity to develop a program of continuing education and development for postdoctoral staff in the transition from completing a PhD to becoming independent researchers.

COMPASS Lead Investigators were: Prof Rhonda Small (MCHR, La Trobe Universty), A/Prof Stephanie Brown (Healthy Mothers, Healthy Families, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute), Prof Jane Gunn (Primariy Care Research Unit – PCRU, Department of General Practice, University of Melbourne), Dr Karen Willis (University of Tasmania), A/Prof Jeanne Daly and Prof Christine MacArthur (University of Birmingham); [and Prof Judith Lumley – until 2008]

COMPASS Team Investigators over the five years were: at MCHR, Dr Angela Taft, Dr Lisa Amir, Dr Della Forster, Dr Helen McLachlan, Dr Fiona Bruinsma, Dr Lyn Watson, Dr Arthur Hsueh, Dr Mridula Bandyopadhyay, Dr Mary-Ann Davey, Jo-Anne Rayner, Dr Karalyjn McDonald and Mr Paul Agius; at PCRU, Dr Renata Kokanovic, Dr Victoria Palmer and Dr Jennifer Terpstra; and at Healthy Mothers Healthy Families, Dr Jane Yelland and Ms Tanya Koolmatrie.

Workshops & Short Courses

Lunchtime seminars

Journal Club

Workshops and Short Courses on topics relevant to our research are held from time to time and advertised in MCHR News and through public health, women's health and maternity services' networks.

For example, past workshops have been held on the design and conduct of perinatal trials, the uses and abuses of focus groups, as well as specific workshops held to launch and discuss study findings.

Past short courses have included a Short Course on Reproductive and Perinatal Epidemiology and a Short Course on Complex Interventions in Public Health.

Open lunchtime research seminars are held at MCHR on the first Wednesday of every month from February to December from 12.30-1.30pm.

Click here for the current seminar program.

MCHR has an active Journal Club held monthly, which provides staff and students with an opportunity to review, critique and discuss journal articles relevant to their research.

Content Approved by: Director, Mother and Child Health Research
Page maintained by: Administrator
Last Updated: May 30, 2012