The Education Hub - Conversation with the experts

What happens when a chef, a garden therapist and a sustainability leader work together? At the Royal Children’s Hospital, a kitchen garden is doing more than growing food. It’s supporting patient well-being, changing how hospital food is experienced, and closing the loop on sustainability. We're joined by three people who made this possible, each from a very different part of the organisation. 

Kitchen garden blog page

Having surgery an be a daunting time for anybody, let alone a child with neurodiversity being placed into an unfamiliar environment and taken out of their routine. Join Grace Curran associate Nurse Unit manager of Elective surgery & Clinical Nurse Specialist in pre admissions resource clinic and Nancy Puente PARC Nurse as they discuss how to best care for children with neurodiversity as they traverse the perioperative journey.

In this episode Camille Foley speaks to two lived experience advisors Deanna Carr and Carmen Ludeman about lived experience in mental health, its origins, the importance of embedding the expertise of consumers, families, and carers into system design, policy, and practice, and how this can transform services, reduce stigma, and improve care.

Resources:

Lived experience | health.vic.gov.au

Tandem resource- Peak body for families, carers and supporters

Peak consumer advocacy service-IMHA: Independent Mental Health Advocacy | IMHA

Alternate consumer advocacy service- VMIAC: VMIAC Home Page

Housing and support service for people with significant mental health and wellbeing challenges: Housing and support | Mind Australia

Service who works with children of parents or family members with mental health challenges- Satellite Foundation: Satellite Foundation | Creativity and connection for mental health and wellbeing

Alternate service who provide support for children and young people who are supporting someone with disability or mental health challenges- little dreamers: Little Dreamers Australia – Supporting Young Carers & Their Families

In this episode, Camille Foley (Senior mental health clinician and education fellow) speaks with Adam Blake (Psychiatric Nurse Consultant) and Kate Coward (family peer-support worker) about non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in adolescents, exploring its prevalence, risk factors, relational and family impacts, and how compassionate, evidence-informed treatment and responses can move us beyond stigma toward effective support.

Resource link:

Suicide and non-suicidal self-injury CPG :

Suicide and Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in Children and Adolescents: Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Guideline

References:

AIHW (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare). Intentional self-harm hospitalisations. 2025. Suicide and self-harm monitoring.

AIHW (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare). Suicide and intentional self-harm hospitalisations among young people. 2025. Suicide and self-harm monitoring.

Usmani et al., 2025. Understanding the Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences on Non-suicidal Self-Injury in Youth: A Systematic Review.  Understanding the Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences on Non-suicidal Self-Injury in Youth: A Systematic Review - PMC

Yu-Jing Wang, Xi Li, Chee H. Ng, Dong-Wu Xu, Shaohua Hu, Ti-Fei Yuan, Risk factors for non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in adolescents: A meta-analysis, eClinicalMedicine, Volume 46, 2022. Risk factors for non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in adolescents: A meta-analysis - ScienceDirect

Melbourne Children’s Suicide and Non-suicidal Self-injury Guideline Development Group. (2026). Suicide and Non-suicidal Self-injury in Children and Adolescents: Evidence-based Clinical Practice Guideline: Melbourne Children’s. 

In this episode we are chatting with Dani Gold, who is a senior social worker in the Family Violence team at the RCH. Dani’s current work focuses on supporting healthcare workers to understand and respond to children and families experiencing Family Violence.

Today we are delving into Family Violence as well as gender-based violence, which are both health issues. As healthcare workers, by recognising and responding to Family Violence, even in small ways, we can have a significant impact on the lives of children and their caregivers. This conversation provides listeners with the tools to recognise and respond to Family Violence, including how to frame conversations and advocate for families, thus enhancing the safety and dignity of those we care for. 

Resources - (some of these are Australia specific)

1800 RESPECT 

Safe Steps Family Violence Response Centre 

No To Violence Men’s Referral Service

Djirra

WithRespect

Safer Families centre

This is the final part for our Wadja mini-series. We'll be asking our guests questions like; Why is it important to have an understanding of families and kinship systems when working with First Nations children and their families? What are the common issues that Aboriginal Children present to RCH with? What should we keep-in-mind when we care for children and young people being cared for at RCH?

Join us in hearing about the complexities that first nations people face in a hospital setting and how might staff better support them.

Hosted by Emma King with special guest A/Prof. Michelle Rodrigues

SEARCH pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov for publications around skin of colour.

Brown Skin Matters:

Dr Jim Muir, Skin of colour, ACCRM

National Eczema Society, Skin pigmentation and eczema:

Vitiligo Foundation:

Dermnet, Dermatological conditions in skin of colour:

Dermnet; Melanoma in skin of colour:

Dermnet, Ethnic  dermatology:

In this episode, host Camille Foley explores an important topic: anxiety in children and young people, viewed from two distinct perspectives. In the first section, Steph an adult, shares her lived and ongoing experience with anxiety. She is someone who has always experienced anxiety but received a formal diagnosis later in her adult life. The second section features insights from Senior Clinical Psychologists, Jesse Richardson and Georgie Cox, who offer their professional expertise on supporting young people and their supporters, clinical approaches, and evidence-based treatments for anxiety.

Links:

Guideline for staff:

Evidence-based Clinical Practice Guideline for Anxiety in Children and Young People - Mental Health Central

Family resource:

Childhood anxiety: a guide for parents, carers, and supporters - Mental Health Central

Losing a child is a really difficult time for any family. Families are given the option of organ donation to make an everlasting legacy for their child. To coincide with donate life week, this podcast features Mellissa Short CNC Organ Donation and Karen Sullivan Operating Theatres who talk about the rarity of organ donation and the incredible journey and intricacies of organ donation. 

Resources

Australia only - donatelife.gov.au

To find out more about organ donation in your country, visit your local organ donation website for details.

In this episode of Conversation with the Experts, host Camille Foley speaks with consultant psychiatrist Dr. Andrew Court and paediatrician Dr. Alex Cussen about Medically Unexplained Symptoms (MUS) in young people, real physical symptoms like pain or fatigue that don’t have a clear medical cause. The episode also provides suggestions for service delivery for MUS presentations and provides insights from families and young people with lived experience of MUS.