Recruiting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants for a new study

Clients: The University of Melbourne, FlashGM Study Team in collaboration with Australian Government, National Health and Medical Research Council

Impact: Informed decision making for potential participants

Voice-over and stunning animated visuals go hand in hand to communicate information about the study, which is on track to recruit 100 participants by December, 2022. This group were ethically engaged from around Australia for this National Health and Medical Research Council funded study by the Melbourne Medical School—contributing to more comprehensive understandings of the best ways to support First Nations people with diabetes.

Process: Facilitating culturally-informed collaboration

The Indigenous led FlashGM research team approached Learning Environments to create an engaging resource to help their team inform potential research participants about the requirements and implications of the study they were undertaking.

Centring the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was key to the project and underscored every choice.

Our award-winning screenwriters worked alongside the research team to create a concise and informative script, voiced by Tracey Hearn, a Yorta Yorta woman and member of the research team. While this was occurring we sought out Gumbaynggir man and artist, Bernard Kelly-Edwards, to create the illustrations for the project in collaboration with animators at Brown Dog productions. Bernard explains that he was inspired by river rocks from his Country in the creation of the images.

There’s a place up here called the Promised Land and it’s quite a tranquil place that’s very beautiful and pristine. And pretty much it’s got a still lovely clear fresh water and when you’re up in that place you get a sense of a timelessness, an experience. There’s all these beautiful rocks and ... the rocks for me became really really important because they’re kind of like the blood flow of the river system. Even though they’re not in movement, what they do is hold the channel together for the blood to flow.

— Bernard Kelly-Edwards

Through the collaboration between Learning Environments, the FlashGM research team, and animators, we created a final result where the script and animated visuals work together seamlessly to achieve the project’s purpose.