What we do

MCRMC works across three interconnected areas to close the gap between evidence, policy and real‑world experience:

Educating and Equipping Maternity Care Providers
- Develops and shares free, evidence‑based resources that translate research on migrant women’s experiences, racism, and respectful care into practical guidance for clinicians, managers and services.
- Provides training on culturally safe, trauma‑informed practice, including: recognising and addressing implicit bias; working effectively with interpreters; supporting shared decision‑making; and accommodating traditional practices where clinically safe.
- Promotes models that are known to reduce inequities—such as continuity of carer, community‑based antenatal care, multidisciplinary teams and meaningful community partnerships.
Supporting and Empowering Migrant Women and Families
- Produces accessible, multilingual information to help women understand the Australian maternity system, available care options, and their rights to respectful, non‑discriminatory care.
- Builds peer support networks that counter isolation, replace the lack of extended family support, and foster confidence and self‑advocacy.
- Offers tailored education and navigation support on topics such as antenatal booking, birth choices, postnatal care, and complaint pathways, helping women move from passive recipients to active decision‑makers in their care.
Advocacy, Systems Change and Community Partnership
- Works alongside multicultural communities and migrant‑serving organisations to document experiences of racism, discrimination and mistreatment, and bring these to the attention of health services and policymakers.
- Advocates for policies that eliminate financial and administrative barriers to care, strengthen interpreter services, mandate respectful maternity care training, and embed person‑centred, culturally safe models.
- Conducts, leads, and collaborates on high-quality health and medical research focused on maternity care for migrant and culturally diverse women—through consumer-informed studies, qualitative research on lived experiences, evaluation of culturally safe interventions, and mixed-methods projects addressing systemic disparities. This research directly informs our education and advocacy efforts, generates new evidence to influence national policy and practice, and ensures interventions are co-designed with and grounded in the priorities and voices of migrant women themselves.