Safeguarding the mental health of families in rural communities affected by environmental threats

Regional and rural areas are disproportionately impacted by environmental threats and ongoing hardship, which can exacerbate economic and social disadvantage, mental illness, and family violence. Compounding this, regional and rural communities often experience inequitable access to mental healthcare due to workforce shortages, vast geographical distances, and privacy concerns associated with local service delivery.

Our two-year project will trial Family Foundations (FF), an existing evidence-based family intervention. FF specifically targets caregiver mental health and conflict in families with young children (0-12 years), engaging all caregivers to strengthen their skills in navigating stressful life circumstances. To overcome the unique challenges of implementing programs in rural settings, an innovative implementation model has been co-developed with regional, rural and metro health service partners. Our model incorporates co-delivery by regional and metro health services to build capacity and overcome system barriers (e.g., telehealth delivery to span large geographic areas; options for metro services to address privacy concerns; targeted engagement for families in isolated areas).

This initiative marks the first randomised controlled trial of FF in Australia, assessing its effectiveness and cost-effectiveness with regional and rural families. The project will also evaluate implementation quality and capacity-building outcomes for regional and rural health partners. Ultimately, we aim to generate vital evidence to support the scalability of FF, ensuring that families in regional and rural communities have timely and equitable access to care, fostering their recovery and resilience against existing and future environmental threats.