This month, we are celebrating our team member Kerry Britt on successfully submitting her PhD!

Kerry’s PhD has adapted the ENVISAGE-Families program into one aimed at service providers; ENVISAGE-SP. This program supports service providers (SPs) to develop their competence and confidence to work collaboratively with families.

The aim of Kerry’s PhD research was to explore and contribute to changing the way SPs think, talk about, and approach childhood disability. Her PhD involved three studies:

1. a scoping review of professional development programs for service providers targeting family-centred service
2. a study exploring the knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of SPs working in childhood disability
3. a study to co-design and evaluate the impact of a professional development program for SPs targeting holistic, strengths-based, capacity-building family-centred service.

Kerry has been working on this PhD for three and a half years. It was situated within an international collaborative research team who are involved with a broader body of research, the ENVISAGE Program. The ENVISAGE program, co-developed by researchers, clinicians and parents in Australia and Canada, aims to empower families of children with a neurodevelopmental disability to make choices, informed by contemporary ideas, to enhance child and family well-being. This project involved co-design with the input of parents and caregivers involved in the ENVISAGE program of research.

We are delighted to have seen the project develop, and are eagerly awaiting the next steps.

Well done, Kerry!