Many researchers and clinicians working in this area lack the resources to conduct the highest quality psychosocial research, particularly struggling to access genuine consumer engagement, specialist clinical psychology advice, and expertise to guide the inclusion of priority populations. The Psychosocial Enabling Platform aims to meet these needs through providing access to:  

• Consultation with a consumer engagement expert and specifically appointed consumer group
• Specialist psychosocial research expertise
• Specialist equity focussed models of care/clinical intervention and social prescribing research expertise
• Clinical psychology expertise for distress/risk management
• Aboriginal research expertise and guidance around culturally safe research practice with Aboriginal communities
• Cultural capability and Chinese and Arabic bilingual researcher access
• Specialist statistical advice
• Support/advice for developing psychosocial/equity focused grants

Studies supported by the platform focus on three key themes (below) with the capacity to extend this focus to other psychosocial studies in precision medicine.  

1. Delivering and evaluating psychosocial resources for families accessing paediatric precision medicine.
2. Supporting education and schooling in children accessing paediatric precision medicine and their siblings.
3. Enhancing mental health in children and families accessing paediatric precision medicine

Two levels of support are available via the platform:

1. Provision of general guidance and advice by platform personnel (up to 3 x1hr consultations)
2. Engagement in ongoing collaboration (e.g., development of a project protocol, ethics application, grant application/review, development of study materials, support collection of pilot data).

Platform personnel do not have the capacity to lead grant applications, manuscript write-up or manage the day-to-day running of research studies on behalf of applicants/Investigators.

Please get in touch via email (LA_PEP@unsw.edu.au) if you are unsure which level of support best suits your project/proposed project or you would like some support/advice in preparing an EOI.

To be eligible to access either type of platform support:

• The research needs to align with the platform's aim of ensuring the equitable, inclusive, and psychologically safe delivery of paediatric precision medicine and one or more of the platform's themes (listed above),
• Clear health benefit to children and young people of NSW aged 0-18 years,
• The Project Lead needs to be affiliated with or employed by one of the Luminesce Alliance partners i.e., Sydney Children's Hospitals Network, the Children's Medical Research Institute, the Children's Cancer Institute, the UNSW Sydney, and The University of Sydney,
• The research needs to involve NSW as a site (but does not have to be limited to NSW),
• The research timeframe/timeframe for seeking guidance needs to be feasible,
• The Project Lead must be willing to share information about the subsequent progress of any resulting research for reporting purposes (e.g., grant outcome, project undertaken, patient resource developed),
• The project team must acknowledge support from Luminesce Alliance provided for the project,
• For EOIs that create an ongoing collaboration, the team will need to be willing to include and acknowledge individual platform personnel in project outputs where their contribution warrants this (e.g., publications, grants).