The team led by the Parent Infant Research Institute (PIRI) at Austin Health received the ‘Minister for Health’s Award for improving maternal, child and family health’ at the Victorian Public Healthcare Awards on the 20th November 2019.

Prof Milgrom said her team were thrilled to have been recognised by the Minister for Health for their work on MumSpace, an initiative of the Perinatal Depression e-Consortium (PDeC). “MumSpace”, is a website which serves as a digital hub for mums with depression and anxiety that gives pregnant women, new mums and their families access to tools, resources and online treatment programs.

“It was created to provide a ‘one-stop-shop’ by integrating a range of digital resources and increase awareness of the services available to assist mums and their families, with funding from the Australian Government.”

“MumSpace offers emotional support to women to help them manage the challenges of perinatal depression and anxiety, in their own time and their own way, and has attracted 50,000 visits since being launched in 2017 by Federal Health Minister, Greg Hunt,” Prof Milgrom said.

“The site includes the MumMoodBooster online treatment programs that have also been shown to be just as effective when used to treat people with more severe depression and anxiety symptoms in the real-world setting as in clinical trials, with over 3,000 new and expectant mums having registered so far.”

“We hope the MumSpace site will continue to empower women and prevent and reduce the impact of mental illness,” she said.

Pictured, PIRI team, left to right: Director, Prof. Jeannette Milgrom AM; eMental Health Program Manager, Dr. Andre Rodrigues; Psychologist, Jennifer Ericksen; Director of Research, Dr. Alan Gemmill; and Austin Health CEO, Sue Shilbury.