Southern Moreton Bay Islands (SMBI) programs

About the SMBI Community Impact Initiative

The Southern Moreton Bay Islands (SMBI) Community Impact Initiative delivers a community-driven, cross-sector, place-based approach to improve the health and development of children residing on the islands. 

The Southern Moreton Bay Islands (SMBI) are a group of four islands—Karragarra, Lamb, Macleay, and Russell—located near the southwest point of North Stradbroke Island and 20 minutes by ferry from Redland Bay. The islands are home to around 750 families and 10,000 people.

There are numerous challenges associated with delivering health care services to the SMBI area, and health data indicates that children residing on SMBI experience a higher than average percentage of development vulnerabilities. For this reason, Children’s Health Queensland, Metro South Health, Brisbane South PHN and the SMBI community are working together to improve the health and wellbeing of children aged from birth to 8 years old, including improving maternity care, through the SMBI Community Impact Initiative. 

Working with communities for health transformation

Since early 2019, over 1,000 community conversations have occurred through the SMBI Initiative. These conversations have informed the development of a collective Action Plan for the initiative that identifies 4 key focus areas: 

The 4 focus areas of the initiative are: 

1. health and child development, early childhood support and school readiness 

2. a strong and connected community 

3. healthy family relationships 

4. wellbeing programs and recreational activities for school-aged children. 

The ‘place-based’ solutions being trialled on SMBI

Through the SMBI Initiative, several changes are being trialled in local health services to improve maternity care and child health and development systems, including: 

• a focus on relationship-based maternity and child healthcare, ensuring that families have the same midwife and child health nurse. 

• having a SMBI-only phone number for families to contact Child Health 

• providing information about child development and child health services in a way that local families understand 

• more effective support for families to get GP referrals to access specialist support 

• allied health support to enable children with developmental concerns to obtain timely services. 

Data and information are collected to indicate whether the changes were successful and should be permanently implemented or need to be revised to achieve better health outcomes. 

Learning by doing: The SMBI Community Initiative approach

Commissioned by Brisbane South PHN, the Institute for Social Science Research at the University of Queensland investigated the role and value of the learning approach adopted by the SMBI Community Initiative and found that a ‘learning by doing’ approach—investigate, listen, try, test, learn, iterate, and adapt—led the community group to build capability and enhance collaborative ways of working for improved community outcomes.

The SMBI Community Initiative governance group was inspired by the Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) [1] approach to:

1. investigate the problem

2. reflect on the data and the lessons learned by those involved in the initiative; and

3. determine how to respond differently.

Read the summary findings and full report on the links below:

• Learning approaches for place-based change: The SMBI story (2024)

• The SMBI Community Initiative Learning by Doing Approach: Review report (2024)

Delivery partners 

Bay Islands Community Services Inc.	Department of Child Safety, Youth and Women
Bay Islands Multi-Sport and Recreation Association	Department of Education
Benevolent Society	Metro South Health
Children’s Health Queensland	Redland City Council
Yulu-Burri-Ba	Running Wild