Welcome to our News page, where we post updates on the progress of our study.
Read more about the study here.
Tube Feeding Picnic 2020 – Online!
The SuCCEED Tube Feeding Picnic is a time to come together as a community of people touched by tube feeding a child – family, friends, clinicians and researchers.
This year the picnic was planned for March 22nd but has been postponed due to COVID-19. That’s no reason to feel alone. We are all in this together.
Watch and share this video with your family and friends. See our amazing families playing, laughing, getting on with their days and bringing the joy back to mealtimes, no matter how they choose to feed.
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10th December 2019
4th International ProPEL Conference
A/Prof Nick Hopwood and Dr Chris Elliot presented SuCCEED methods and insights at the 4th International ProPEL Conference at University of Technology, Sydney. The theme was “Provocations and Possibilities”; perfectly aligned with SuCCEED’s focus on flipping the usual health paradigm and listening deeply to the expertise of parents and families.
ProPEL is a collaborative, multi-professional international network, launched in 2010 at the University of Stirling, to promote research and knowledge exchange in issues of professional education, practice and learning.
19th October 2019
Academy of Child and Adolescent Health
On behalf of the entire SuCCEED Team, Dr Elliot presented our preliminary research findings into Multidisciplinary Paediatric Feeding Clinics in NSW Australia and won Best Presentation of the Academy of Child and Adolescent Health Conference in Adelaide.
Congratulations to the entire team, and everyone in the 10 Multidisciplinary Paediatric Feeding Clinics who contributed data to the study. We are aiming to publish the first paper from this part of the study in 2020.
30th August 2019
Better Health Partnerships Symposium
Dr Chris Elliot delivered a summary of why SuCCEED is important, what we’ve achieved in the first two years and our vision for the future.
Thank you to Kady Moraby for this recording. This is just a quick chance to watch – an official video of the presentation will be available in the near future.
Huge thanks and acknowledgement to the entire SuCCEED team, especially Ann Dadich, Nick Hopwood, Kady Moraby, Anna Ierardo, Irene Bernard, Sonia Cvetanoska and Kate Disher-Quill as well as every single one of the amazing families and friends who have helped us along the way.
18th April 2019 The Leader Reports
The St George and Sutherland Leader sent a photographer to St George Hospital to meet Anna, her daughter Emily and Dr Chris Elliot. They accompanying article describes the study and it’s goals:
“Although feeding difficulties are common – with studies estimating that up to half of parents with otherwise healthy children worry about their child’s feeding at some stage – little is known about the best ways to care for children who experience these difficulties,” Dr Elliot said.
“This is pioneering work – tackling the gaps in current services by using novel research methods to listen to families to identify and share best practices which will improve care.”
– St George and Sutherland Shire Leader, 18th April 2019
Click here to link to the full story.
30th March 2019 Tube Feeding Picnic
We did it!
Thank you to every one of the approximately 100 people who turned up to our first ever picnic. The sun was shining, music played and we came together as a community around the incredible children and families who are at the heart of the SuCCEED Study.
A huge and special thank you to all our volunteer clinicians, entertainers, and photographers for making this such a special day. We could not have done this without you.
This picnic was another important step towards improving the lives of children with complex feeding difficulties. If you would like to give us feedback on the day, share your story, help us with our research or apply to join the research team please click here to contact us.
If you had professional photos with Kat Cvet please give her a few weeks to send out the link to them. We will update childfeeding.org with video and photos from the picnic once we have edited them all.
The message from the picnic was “you are not alone”. We look forward to walking the next steps, together.
the SuCCEED Study team
8th Feb 2019 SuCCEED Video Trailer
This is the first look at our upcoming video content. We’ve filmed three incredible parents, seven actors telling the real stories of real families, and we’ll be putting it all up on http://www.childfeeding.org within the next few months. Please watch and share widely!
5th February 2019
We are excited to announce that thanks to a charitable donation we will be hosting the first ever Tube Feeding Picnic in Sydney, Australia on March 31st 2019!
Please visit our Picnic page for more details. We hope to see you there!
5th July 2018
We’re fast approaching the end of the first year of the Supporting Children with Complex Feeding Difficulties (SuCCEED) study. The SuCCEED team have worked hard to develop this first draft of ChildFeeding.org and we’e excited to continue working on the project.
Twelve months ago we received seed funding for only 1 year, with the intention that we would apply for further funding grants while working on the project. As a team we have applied for 5 grants in the past 12 months, and we’re delighted to announce that of the three that have been announced so far (two decisions are pending), the SuCCEED group has been awarded two!
Thank you to the Early Life Determinants of Health (ELDoH) Clinical Academic Group from the Sydney Partnership for Health Education Research and Enterprise (SPHERE) for a 12-month grant of $20,000. This grant will go towards better understanding how we care for children with feeding difficulties in NSW, Australia and where we can make changes.
Thank you also to South East Sydney Local Health District who have awarded $20,000 for 12 months to expand ChildFeeding.org in Nepali. This grant gives us the opportunity to work with Nepalese families in Sydney, Australia, to understand their experiences, knowledge, and resource needs around child feeding and to create a Nepalese-language section on ChildFeeding.org.
Finally, our work with ChildFeeding.org is not finished. We are now into our second round of feedback from families of children with complex feeding difficulties and we will be making changes to the site in response to that feedback. Please visit again to see what has changed! If you have any ideas or feedback yourself, please feel free to contact us.
– Dr Chris Elliot, Paediatrician and Chief Investigator SuCCEED Study
23rd March 2018
The Supporting Children with Complex Feeding Difficulties (SuCCEED) study group have been hard at work over the summer.
We’re delighted to report that preliminary data collection for two of our four study goals is now complete:
1. Tube Education
Nine amazing families have been interviewed for our tube education element. Under the supervision of A/Prof Nick Hopwood from the University of Technology Sydney, we’re having the interviews transcribed and then we will start working to make an education package right here on childfeeding.org that matches what these families asked for.
Once we’ve made the package, we’ll be inviting families to review and comment on it to make sure it’s exactly right.
2. Brilliant Care in Feeding Clinics
The incredible staff and patients of Liverpool Hospital, Sydney, have finished the main data collection during clinic time. Under the supervision of Senior Lecturer Ann Dadich from Western Sydney University they are now finalising the reflexive feedback, which will help us start to understand what makes brilliant care in tertiary feeding clinics.
Other News
The remaining two elements of SuCCEED – identifying models of care and piloting measures of distress in parents and carers – are well underway and on track to be in their final stages by July 2018.
We have the first meeting of our Parent Advisory Group coming up in April, which the study group are very excited about.
Finally, we are in the very early planning stages for Year 2 of SuCCEED. We will be applying for funds to launch a huge new initiative, based on early research findings from our focus groups. Stay tuned for more SuCCEED news here!
– Dr Chris Elliot, Paediatrician and Chief Investigator SuCCEED Study
10th October 2017
The SuCCEED Study is grounded in the idea that we want to take better care of children with feeding difficulties, and their families.
We’re not just full of good intentions though. As with all research projects in Australia and internationally, the SuCCEED team is required to submit a detailed research plan for rigorous external, independent evaluation by an accredited Human Research Ethics Committee.
Our research proposal was reviewed by the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network Human Research Ethics Committee, and assigned the unique identifing number LNR/17/SCHN/340. We’re delighted to announce today that the study proposal has been given full approval to commence. This is a significant milestone for the SuCCEED Study, and paves the way for our research to begin.
Please keep visiting ChildFeeding.org for further updates.
Dr Chris Elliot
Chief Investigator, SuCCEED Study
9th September 2017
Feeding difficulties in children are really common – some studies estimate that 1 in 2 to 1 in 3 parents worry about their child’s feeding at some stage. For some families their child’s feeding goes far beyond worrying – their children need specialist therapy, medical support or even feeding tubes to stay safe.
Research into feeding difficulties in children is not common. Despite lots of hard work in Australia and around the world to try and help children with feeding difficulties we still don’t know as much as we would like about looking after these children. More importantly, we don’t know much at all about what parents, carers and children themselves want from their healthcare services.
The Supporting Children with Complex Feeding Difficulties (SuCCEED) Study in Sydney, Australia, is attempting to answer the question “what makes great care for children with feeding difficulties and their families?” This is a really big question, so we’ve broken it down into four parts:
- What are we currently doing in our Feeding Clinics and how should we measure the quality of care that we provide?
- How common is stress and distress in parents and carers of children with feeding difficulties?
- What do parents / carers and clinicians think brilliant care looks like?
- What do parents and carers want to know about feeding difficulties? We’re starting with those with the highest support needs; family of children who need feeding tubes.
In 2017/18 we are starting small, to make sure we are using the right methods and collecting the right data to answer these questions the right way. If we’re successful, we hope to expand the kinds of questions we ask, and where we ask them.
We invite you to follow along our progress through ChildFeeding.org. Thank you for your interest and support!
– Dr Chris Elliot, Paediatrician and Chief Investigator for the SuCCEED Study.
