In 2024, Associate Professor Aveni Haynes and her team, from the Rio Tinto Children’s Diabetes Centre, were awarded a Channel 7 Telethon Trust Research grant. This grant funded a project codesigning a fit for purpose model of care to ensure children in WA with early stage type 1 diabetes (T1D) have accessible healthcare to support physical, mental and familial wellbeing.
Currently children identified with early-stage T1D, and their families, live with the knowledge that they are at very high lifetime risk of symptomatic T1D, which comes with the lifelong need for treatment with insulin. Up until now there has been no clinical pathway for these families to access support or education whilst in this period prior to clinical diagnosis.
This project aimed to co-design a new clinical pathway for WA children with early– stage T1D. To understand what support families need upon receiving the news of positive screening results and to understand the best and safest way to monitor children identified with early-stage diabetes. We wanted to design solutions in consultation with the community to meet the needs of families. The project included workshops and focus groups with community members and health care providers.
Find out more about the project and the next steps in the video. If you would like more information on the project email diabetes.research@health.wa.gov.au