The Community Asthma Program: Building Confidence and Empowering Families

Supporting families in the north and west with information and compassion

Having a child with a chronic illness can be both stressful and emotional for families. Parents and guardians are often worried for their child, overwhelmed by the journey and confused by conflicting information and advice. When this happens, we walk side-by-side with families, supporting them with compassion and easily accessible health information and guidance.

This is what our Community Asthma Program (CAP) is all about. For over 20 years, the program has been empowering families in Melbourne’s north and west. We help families understand and manage their child’s asthma by providing them with resources, practical guidance, tools and emotional support.

“One of the difficulties is the differing advice parents have often received from different places prior to being involved with CAP,” says Emma Thomas, Nurse Practice Lead for CAP.

“We provide families with the most up to date information and best practice guidelines for asthma. We’re able to dispel any of the misinformation they may have picked up along the way and encourage families to make evidence informed decisions.”  

A year of positive emotional outcomes and improved wellbeing 

Outcomes from the past year clearly show the impact the program has on the lives of the families who complete it. At the start of the program, the emotional wellbeing of caregivers is assessed and upon completion the same questions are revisited. Across all age groups, 40% reported feeling frequently (“extremely” or “very often”) distressed that their child had asthma. However, there were no parents who reported feeling like this after completing the program. In addition, there was a substantial increase in families who felt distressed “not at all” or “hardly”.

CAP seeks to reduce anxiety in parents when they consider navigating their child’s life with asthma. When first engaging with CAP, half of participating parents felt a significant amount of worry or concern (“extremely”, “very” or “fairly”) about their child’s ability to live a normal life with asthma. This was below 10% at discharge. Through education, resources and support, CAP is helping parents imagine a more positive future for their children.

Empowering families to stay out of hospital 

A huge part of empowering clients is helping them to build confidence in their own knowledge so that they can practically manage health events. Parents feeling confident upon discharge is a key indicator of CAP’s success, so the team has been thrilled to see positive results. Across all age groups, all or most of the participating families stated they felt confident using what they had learnt using their newfound knowledge. Follow up with families tells us that this confidence is reducing ER and GP visits for asthma episodes, with families feeling able to manage these episodes at home.  

“I always love getting calls from excited parents who inform me that their child has recently been unwell with asthma, but they have managed the episode at home, without needing to present to hospital or even see their GP,” says Emma.

“Prior to involvement with CAP the families will inevitably seek a medical review every time their child is unwell, simply because they lack the confidence and knowledge to pick up on symptoms and treat them at home safely.” 

The life-changing power of community health

This outcome encapsulates why the program is such a great example of the life-changing power of community health. By equipping our clients with knowledge, tools and skills, they can build the confidence to manage their health and the health of their families. This in turn will help prevent future illness, keeping people out of hospital so they can stay in their communities with their families and friends. 

Emma says her biggest hope is that the Community Asthma Program makes life easier for families.  

“Life in general is stressful enough. I hope CAP can help parents to feel less anxiety, worry and doubt around their ability to manage their child’s asthma. I hope participants have the knowledge they need to advocate strongly for their child and avoid any of the unnecessary trips to their GP or ED that can disrupt their normal day to day family activities.”

You can read more about the Community Asthma Program in our FY25 Impact Report.