Dr Niroshini Kennedy is a paediatrician whose clinical, policy and advocacy work has focussed on the needs of vulnerable children. Dr Kennedy works at the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service and the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne. Her clinical work involves the care of high-risk Aboriginal children involved with the child protection, out-of-home care and youth justice systems. Prior to this, she worked in tertiary forensic paediatrics for seven years.
She is a graduate of the University of Melbourne (MBBS 1999 and MPH 2008) and trained at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne. She is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.
Dr Kennedy was awarded the 2018 Jack Brockhoff Foundation Churchill Fellowship to investigate models of integrated care for Aboriginal children in statutory care. She investigated a range of innovative and renowned models of integrated care in the USA, Canada and New Zealand. She has expertise in the use of ‘medical home’ hubs: team-based care where primary, specialist, mental health and wrap-around services are delivered in community settings. Dr Kennedy’s work explored a number of innovative ways of delivering mental health care, the use of social prescribing, and trauma-informed care. Her research affirmed the strengths of the ACCHO model, the need for self-determination and proportionate investment in Aboriginal-led services.
Dr Kennedy is one of ten Churchill Fellows selected for the 2021-22 Policy Impact Program Fellowship. Her work will focus on how to centre health in the design of equitable and accountable child welfare policy to improve the health of Aboriginal children in statutory care.
Dr Kennedy is an appointed member of Victoria’s Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity. She is an active contributor to the Royal Australasian College of Physician's policy and advocacy work, and has served on Council of the Paediatric Division, the Paediatric Policy and Advocacy Committee and chaired the RACP's Congress Program Committee for 2021-22. Dr Kennedy is President Elect of the Paediatric Division of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.
Project
The Jack Brockhoff Foundation Churchill Fellowship to investigate integrated models of care for Aboriginal children in out-of-home care
Niroshini Kennedy
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