Successful referral workshops: Insights from HEY BABY project

On 15-16 May, Bongiwe Saliwe (HEY BABY Project Manager) and Babalwa Taleni (HEY BABY Assistant Project Manager) joined us in Cape Town to share on HEY BABY project experiences relating to our comprehensive referrals systems. In any large cohort study, it is important to set up referral protocols, but we don't always have an opportunity to reflect on these protocols, share lessons learnt with other researchers, and brainstorm challenging cases.

These referral workshops gave us an opportunity to talk through the types of referrals we have (counseling, food security, and clinic referrals, to name a few), the process we follow for each, case study examples, and areas where we can improve. These workshops were with UCT Hub team researchers, colleagues from the Institute of Lifecourse Health Research at Stellenbosch University and the Children's Institute and Department of Social Work and Social Development at UCT.

Discussions from these workshops will be used to update our referral protocols, and contribute to the development of guidelines for other research projects on how to facilitate referrals in social science research. Thank you to all who joined and for your active participation!