ChildFeeding.org

Welcome to the SUCCEED Annual Report for 2025, our first ever annual report! 

This year has been an enormous leap forward for SUCCEED.  We have made significant progress in most of the four main activities that we have been focusing on since our origin in 2017 as a group of passionate people brought together by a research grant: 

1. SUCCEED Tube Training Program 

2. SUCCEED Tube Feeding Picnic 

3. SUCCEED Tube Friendly Venues 

4. SUCCEED Healthcare Innovation and Research 

Tube Training Program 

The year began with the publication of our “Gold Standard Nasogastric Tube Feed” paper, led by SUCCEED Director Prof. Nick Hopwood.  This paper is the first of its kind worldwide, and we are especially proud to see the names of parents and carers of children who tube feed, who do not have previous academic publications or healthcare qualifications, included in the list of co-authors.  This is highly aligned with the way SUCCEED values lived experience. 

Following the successful pilot of our Tube Training Program in 2024 our volunteers, especially Nick and Director Anna Ierardo, along with me at times, traveled around Australia training clinicians and carers in nasogastric tube feeding.   In total we have now delivered our Tube Training Program to more than 150 people in Sydney, Tamworth, Brisbane and Adelaide.   

Highlights of the travels included training brand new foster carers in regional Australia, daycare workers in suburban Sydney, and passionate clinicians in Adelaide and Brisbane.   

Tube Feeding Picnic 

We again welcomed families from around New South Wales and even Queensland to our annual Tube Feeding Picnic.  Enormous thanks again go to Anna Ierardo who is our lead organiser for all the picnics.   She does an incredible job and the results are always spectacular. 

In 2026 we will be exploring how to make these picnics more local and accessible for more families. 

Tube Friendly Venues 

We did not make much progress with our Tube Friendly Venue program this year.  This idea has been warmly received by familes, clinicians and venues and we remain committed to creating a network of places around the world that know just enough about tube feeding to be a welcoming place for children and their carers. 

You can read more information about the program here: https://childfeeding.org/tube-friendly/  

Healthcare Innovation and Research 

Directors Prof. Hopwood and Prof. Dadich have both been engaged in healthcare research based at St George Hospital, Sydney, in collaboration with myself and the amazing clinicians I work with here.  There is exciting new work in progress aimed at improving the healthcare experience of children and families while they access hospital-based care. 

Congratulations to Anna Ierardo! 

No report of the year could be complete without offering Anna our warmest congratulations on being announced as a finalist in the Westfield Local Heroes Competition, 2025!  Out of hundreds of applicants, Anna was one of only three finalists at Westfield Miranda.  On October 18^th she won SUCCEED a $5,000 donation from Westfield.   

On behalf of SUCCEED, Anna and I attended a ceremony at Westfield to share our thanks for this generous (and well-deserved for Anna!) award.  We also extended our congratulations to the other two finalists who are doing amazing volunteer work in their own communities.  

You will see the $5,000 Westfield donation reported in SUCCEED’s 2025-26 financial year report. 

Thank you to Anjana Regmi  

Just as this report was being prepared, we received written notice of resignation from the Board from our amazing Director and Secretary Anjana Regmi.  Anjana has been an incredible supporter and volunteer with SUCCEED since 2018.  As well as being our first Secretary she worked tirelessly, with Nick Hopwood, to create “Khushi Meals”, our feeding research and resource for Nepali Families.  Thank you Anjana for all your passion, hard work, expertise and encouragement.  Anjana will remain a member of SUCCEED so you will still see her around. 

Looking Forward 

Looking ahead to 2026 it is hard not to feel optimistic about the work and impact that SUCCEED is hoping to achieve.  Our immediate strategic priorities are to improve our response time to inbound enquiries about our Tube Training Course and to increase the sophistication of our data handling and administration support.  This will allow our volunteers to have better coordination and our community to have more reliable and timely engagement with SUCCEED.  

If you would like to join us in any way, please reach out!  There is a form on childfeeding.org/contact or email hello@childfeeding.org and we will get back to you as soon as we can. 

I wish you and your families a very safe and joyful summer, no matter how you all choose to feed. 

Dr Chris Elliot 
Chair of the Board 
SUCCEED Child Feeding Alliance 

SUCCEED’s world-first Tube Training Course is coming to Brisbane on November 3rd, 2025.
We’ll be at Unit 16, 121 Newmarket Road, Windsor, Brisbane 4030

We are offering THREE course times: one course each for Clinicians only and Carers only and one blended course for anyone:

09:30 – 11:00 Parents / Carers only
11:30 – 13:00 Clinicians / Professionals only
13:30 – 15:00 Open to everyone

Register Here:

Please complete this form to register your interest. Further details on venue and timing will be sent directly to you once you’ve registered.

https://utsau.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_86cRAZbqup1Mnhs

Want to learn more?

Click here for more information on our Tube Training Course!

In May 2025 we were honored and delighted to be invited to bring the SUCCEED Tube Training Course to Adelaide.

Anna, Chris and Nick spent two days meeting some of the absolutely amazing clinicians at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, GPEx and Lively Eaters. The level of passion for care of children who use tubes at mealtimes was inspiring, and (as always) we took away as many ideas as we shared.

Thank you especially to our host Kady Moraby who organised our visit. Kady is a co-founder of SUCCEED who relocated to Adelaide several years ago and who continues to be a leader in our field.

We have now shared the SUCCEED Tube Feeding Course with about 100 participants and have learned SO MUCH about our first version. SUCCEED is working with a graphic designer and videographer to level up the resources we use for the course.

There are more trips around Australia planned for 2025, so please continue to follow along with our mission to create a world where children with feeding difficulties thrive!

We are a fully volunteer-run organisation who relies on the generosity of our donors to keep traveling and working on our mission. If you would like to make a tax-deductible (in Australia) donation we make every dollar go as far as it can. Thank you!!

Please join us for the 5th Annual SUCCEED Tube Feeding Picnic!

Anyone – friend, family, clinician – anyone at all who has been touched by a child who tube feeds is welcome.

SUCCEED Tube Feeding Picnics are a way to come together with people who really “get” what it means to tube feed a child, and then to forget all about that and just have a great time.  There will be games both quiet and loud, space to feed and space to sit, chat, observe and just be around a whole community who tube feed.

The venue is indoor and outdoor. There is air conditioning, toilets, a kitchen and plenty of space even if it’s a wet day. Click here to visit the Mortdale Community Centre website.

Please bring anything you like for a picnic!  Bring a rug, your own food / blends / formula.

The event will be run by SUCCEED with our own volunteers, so all you need to do is show up.  There will be free kid-friendly entertainment and giveaways on the day.

This is a free event!  We ask you to get tickets just so we have an idea about how many people are coming.

The world’s first SUCCEED Tube Training Pilot Courses are coming to Sydney, Australia this August and September 2024.

Based on years of feedback and more than 4 years of hard work, SUCCEED has developed a 2-hour training course for ANYONE who needs to learn one safe way to use an NG (nasogastric) tube.

• No prior experience required
• No need to learn on a real child. We use mannequins for all the training
• Developed by families, for families, in collaboration with clinicians and researchers to ensure it is safe and reliable

Everyone is welcome, no matter if you are a tube-feeding expert curious about a new resource or a carer who has never touched a tube before (or anyone in between).

There are five dates. Everyone who attends will not only learn about tube feeding and have access to all our course materials, you will be helping us make sure this course is ready to help children and families all over the world.

Each session is limited to eight people only

Please search through the dates available below. We can’t wait to meet you!

Please join us for the fourth annual SUCCEED Tube Feeding Picnic.
We will be celebrating Feeding Tube Awareness Week and launching our Tube Friendly Cafe initiative.

Bring a rug and your favourite formula, blended food and/or oral snacks. There are facilities on site and we’ll play games, have music and just hang out.

If you’ve missed our previous picnics you can see what they’re like by clicking here.

Date: Sunday 11th February 2024

Time: 10am – 4pm

Where: Mortdale Community Centre (**new location**)
2b Boundary Rd MORTDALE NSW 2223

RSVP: Anyone touched by tube feeding a child is welcome. We would love to know numbers please so RSVP here. If your numbers change a bit on the day that’s ok!

Late July 2023 saw the world-first pilot of our Tube Training Course.

Parents have been telling SUCCEED for years about how much pressure there is on the (often) one adult in a family who knows how to tube-feed their child.

In 2018 two of the parent co-founders of SUCCEED presented an idea to source some training mannequins and set up a short course to teach more adults how to tube feed.

Mothers, Fathers, Aunts and Uncles, Grandparents, nannies, childcare workers – anyone.

After years of fundraising and the generous support of Adam Rouilly and the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation as well as dozens of carers, clinicians and a research team led by Prof. Nick Hopwood, we were delighted and emotional to pilot this course.

The goal is to make a 2-hour hands-on workshop in tube feeding accessible to families around the country and the world, backed up by innovative, free online resources to make the leap into tube feeding as easy as possible.

While this course won’t be finished until 2024, we are working on the online videos and information right now – so please come back soon and check on our progress!

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