New partnership tackles urgent issues for older people

Published November 21 2023

We are proud to be the first community health service to partner with the Melbourne Ageing Research Collaboration (MARC).

Led by the National Ageing Research Institute, MARC is a collaboration between health, research, aged care, and advocacy organisations. It aims to provide practical, innovative solutions to urgent issues affecting older people, their carers and health professionals.

Together, we developed a new training resource to help aged care staff recognise the signs of prolonged grief disorder and support older people more effectively.

Prolonged grief disorder affects 21% of bereaved older people. The resource is part of the PG65+ project to improve knowledge of prolonged grief disorder among aged care staff.

The training features 10 micro-learning lessons of 5-10 minutes and is available on the EdApp mobile app. Merri Health collaborated on content development, resource testing, data collection, analysis and reporting.

Surveys results showed staff increased their knowledge and confidence to support adults with prolonged grief after completing the training. Results also show the app is user-friendly and an efficient way to learn.