It’s been just over a year since the formation of the NRVS, and our membership has been steadily growing. This has encouraged us to reach out into our community in many ways, including our recent media release, distributing posters and flyers at local medical practices, joining the local immunisation task force, and most recently this week, Alison Gaylard presented a poster at the 14th National Immunisation Conference in Melbourne.
This has been a big step forward for the NRVS, and Alison’s presence at the conference has been met with a lot of encouragement and positivity, about the good work that can be done by community groups such as the NRVS.
Our group also received a mention by other presenters, including Julie Leask from the NCIRS.
We are in a unique position to influence our community and those in it who hold reservations about vaccination, in a positive, evidence based, peer-to-peer way.
Alison has certainly put the NRVS’s best foot forward this week, and we are incredibly proud of her achievement and what this may mean for our group.
We’ve highlighted a few areas of interest for us as a group going forward, including:
- Creating a positive dialogue in our community regarding vaccination, be it with other parents, grandparents, school kids, or alternative health practitioners.
- Being present and available as an approachable and non judgemental source of scientific and evidence based information around vaccination and vaccine preventable diseases.
- Working with other community groups
- Continuing to lobby government for funding for pregnancy and adult boosters (in particular whooping cough)
- Continuing to encourage the media to report accurately and without issues of false balance on stories about vaccination and VPDs.
Here is Alison Gaylard presenting this poster at the 14th National Immunisation Conference in Melbourne.
