Vice-Chancellor's Gender Equality Fund Final Report 2020: BREAST - Breastfeeding and Returning to Work/Study Education And Support Technologies

The following report relates to the Breastfeeding and Return to work/study Education and Support Technologies (BREAST) project that was undertaken in 2020/2021 as a result of funding from Western Sydney University's (WSU) Vice Chancellor's Gender Equality Fund. The BREAST project continues the important work of Dr Elaine Burns who conducted the Breastfeeding Friendly Communities at WSU project, which described the provision of breastfeeding-friendly spaces at WSU campuses and benchmarked WSU breastfeeding policy and provisions against those in other universities. The work of Dr Burns led to WSU being accredited as a Breastfeeding Friendly Workplace by the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) in 2019. The original aim of the BREAST project was to build on the work of Dr Burns and the university's breastfeeding-friendly accreditation by creating and evaluating the effectiveness of a WSU social networking site that was to provide information and support to staff and students as they combine breastfeeding with their return to work and/or study on-campus. However, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a slight adjustment to the project. With staff and students experiencing periods of not working on campus, this has raised a different set of issues that still require information and support. This project went ahead as originally planned, with the focus shifting to how breastfeeding parents can successfully combine returning to work and study, while working/ studying from home and/or on-campus.