Oral Presentation (max 20 mins including Q&A) National Men's Health Gathering 2025

Wati Pirniku & SMS4Deadly Dads Fatherhood Project (130652)

Michael Whitehead 1 , richard fletcher 2 , Uncle Mick Adams 2
  1. Men's Health , Ngaanyatjarra Health Service , Warburton , WA, Australia
  2. SMS4DeadlyDads, University of Newcastle, Newcastle

Background

The Wati Pirniku project is a community-led men’s health and wellbeing initiative funded to support the establishment of remote Men’s Wellness Centre’s across six remote communities on the Ngaanyatjarra Lands in Western Australia. A key focus of the project is supporting men’s change behaviour and fatherhood support.

As part of the Wati Pirniku project, the partnership with SMS4DeadlyDads will deliver support to new fathers and bolster their mental health. SMS4DeadlyDads (www.sms4deadlydads.com.au) delivers culturally aligned messages via SMS (Short Message Service) to fathers from early in pregnancy until one year post birth.

 

SMS4DeadlyDads

Since 2021 the SMS4DeadlyDads program has been funded by the Department of Health to offer the service nationally and over 700 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander fathers have enrolled from every state and territory.

Although the service has been well received it is recognised that the texts are designed to provide general information and are not tailored to specific communities and locations. 

SMS4DeadlyDads is led by Aboriginal researchers and an Advisory Group of respected Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men from communities in NSW, QLD and SA who provide oversight of the service.

 

The Aims of the project are:

 

  1. To raise awareness of fathers’ role in the development of healthy infants and children.
  2. To increase fathers’ contribution to a healthy pregnancy.
  3. To link distressed new fathers to online and local mental health support.
  4. To increase fathers’ secure attachment to his infant and emotional and practical support for his partner.
  5. To raise awareness of STIs and actions to prevent contracting or passing on STIs.

 

Intervention

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander fathers enrol via the website to receive three to six brief (160 character) texts per week. The texts use Aboriginal English to focus on three themes: father-infant attachment, father-partner co-operation and fathers’ mental health.

The Ngaanyatjarra Health Service will partner with the SMS4DeadlyDads team to create culturally appropriate texts addressing locally identified health issues such as sexually transmitted infections within families in the health service population. The messages content will be translated into Ngaanyatjarra and will include MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) which can include images and audio.

 

Expected Outcomes

This project will develop tailored information for new fathers across six remote communities which will have positive effects on their connection with their infant and support of their partner.