Measuring the impact: A Brave Life

For ten years, A Brave Life has been gifting Baby Bundles to vulnerable mothers across Queensland and northern New South Wales. Midwives, social workers, and the mothers themselves have long described what the bundles mean to them – but praise, however heartfelt, isn't the same as tangible evidence. 

In 2025, in partnership with the University of the Sunshine Coast, A Brave Life completed the first formal evaluation of the program. 318 recipients responded, turning what the team has long known into something funders and donors can act on with confidence. 

The headline numbers: 

• 91.7% of recipients reported a positive impact on their wellbeing 
• 89.7% reported increased trust in healthcare services 
• 60%+ are living below the poverty line 
• 40% of recipients live outside metropolitan areas 

For Founder and CEO Melissa Redsell OAM, the evaluation is a full-circle moment. 

"I always knew what the baby bundles meant from starting it and seeing firsthand the challenges mothers face," she says. "Having now not just that anecdotal information but actually having an evaluation done with the university – it proves it's not just a bag with products in it." 

The starting point 

Vulnerable mothers face higher risks of stillbirth and lower postpartum care attendance. They report social isolation and stigma, and are disproportionately affected by perinatal mental health issues – with effects that can carry into a child's earliest years. 

Vulnerability, in A Brave Life's framework, is broad: financial stress, homelessness, perinatal mental health concerns, domestic violence, refugee status, pre-term birth, involvement with child safety and living rural or remote.  

What unites these mothers is a shared barrier to engagement, including shame, stigma and the fear of being judged. 

"Sometimes that stigma and shame can come into it, and you're worried about getting that judgement," Melissa explains. "What are they going to think of me if I can't provide this? It could be things as simple as, if I'm going through this, then maybe they'll take my baby away from me." 

The evidence on what works is clear: tailored community support reduces depressive symptoms and builds resilience. But the responsibility for building trust sits with the system, not the mother.  

That's the gap A Brave Life was designed to fill and where Melissa's own story began. Gifted a basket of brand-new items by a stranger when she had her daughter at 17, the gesture stuck with her through three decades of working as a registered nurse and midwife. The program is, in a way, a scaled continuation of that original generosity.  

How a Baby Bundle works 

A Baby Bundle is a brand-new nappy bag filled with everything a mother and her newborn need in those first weeks: nappies, wipes, a swaddle, a clothing pack, baby wash, hygiene items for mum, wellbeing cards and health information. 

Bundles reach mothers through 177 partner services across 104 geographical locations –  antenatal clinics, maternity units, perinatal mental health services, First Nations maternity services, prison and youth detention centres, social workers and child safety teams. 

Most are gifted antenatally, allowing rapport to build over the course of a pregnancy. Some are gifted at the moment of birth, often to mothers who arrive at hospital with nothing, including refugees, women experiencing homelessness, or those who've travelled far from home for an unexpected pre-term delivery. Others are given on the postnatal ward when vulnerability is identified after the baby has arrived. 

What makes the bundle work, Melissa says, is what it doesn't ask of the recipient.  

"It's such a neutral product. You're not telling women what they need to do, you're gifting them something. They can sit and go through the bag, and the recipient starts to get to know that healthcare worker. It just breaks down those barriers." 

What 318 mothers said 

The study also included qualitative findings. Five themes emerged from the open responses, and each maps to something the program is deliberately doing. 

"A weight lifted"

Immediate, tangible relief – not a future promise but a stress reduced today. 

"I've got this."

Confidence to step out the door, to provide. For mothers under 24, the evaluation confirmed that receiving a Bundle measurably increased their confidence in parenting. 

"Surprised by kindness"

The recipient hadn't expected anyone outside their family to look out for them. 

"More than just words"

The way the bundle was given by a kind midwife, without judgement, without strings, let mothers receive support without feeling like a charity case. 

"Welcome to the mum community"

A sense of being seen, included, and not alone. 

The "more than just words" theme is the one that surprised Melissa most.  

"It's not just somebody saying something to somebody. It's actually letting them know." 

The trust finding follows from this directly. When a midwife hands over something considered rather than clinical, the conversation that follows is different.  

In a public health setting, the no-strings element does that a clinical interaction can't.  

Melissa adds, "If you're facing some form of vulnerability, there's strings attached to everything. Just to be able to give somebody something – it doesn't cost them anything." 

Why brand-new items matter 

Half of recipients strongly agreed that brand-new items were important to them; more than 80% agreed overall.  

"I'm not against second-hand things at all – I think they're great," Melissa says. "But I just remember being able to go out and buy a brand-new nappy bag and thinking, oh my gosh, I feel like I'm like all the other mothers. It's about acknowledging their worthiness. Sometimes people have never received brand-new items."  

A recipient quoted in the report, "The fact that it was branded items and high quality made me feel like there was a community of people that really cared for my baby and that I'm not just a checkbox."  

Reach beyond the metro 

40% of recipients live outside metropolitan areas – well above what population distribution alone would predict. Mothers in remote and very remote communities reported higher rates of financial stress and stress related to employment changes, alongside experiences of stigma and discrimination. 

Some travel between 100 and 300 kilometres to give birth. In the program's newest partnerships in the Northern Territory – with services in Alice Springs and Tennant Creek – some mothers drive more than five hours from home for delivery. 

"Perinatal mental health, domestic violence, homelessness, they don't discriminate on where you live," Melissa says. "Sometimes we focus on the bigger cities and forget that mothers are out there in rural and remote communities doing it tough." 

The expansion also focuses on cultural safety. A partnership with artist Brook Sutton has placed Indigenous artwork on the clothing bags inside every Bundle, with First Nations-specific bundles including dedicated safe sleeping and safe wrapping resources for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families. 

Where this goes next 

The first quarter of 2026 has been the busiest on record for A Brave Life.   

"I think that's a reflection of what's currently going on in our own backyards, our own towns, our own states," Melissa says. "It's definitely not slowing down." 

The recommendations from the evaluation are clear: continue and sustain the program, expand to 10,000 Bundles per year by 2028 with rural and remote communities prioritised, and pursue longitudinal evaluation to strengthen the evidence base. 

Getting there is, by Melissa's own assessment, a funding question, one the data now answers on the program's behalf. 

"We don't just have the beautiful testimonials that come in," Melissa says. "We've got the data that shows it now." 

The cost of not acting, the report notes, is that every vulnerable mother who doesn't receive a Bundle is a missed opportunity to set a family on a positive trajectory. 

A decade in, with 318 mothers on the record, the Baby Bundle is no longer a program asking to be believed in. It's one ready to be backed. 

Read the full Baby Bundle Program evaluation here.  

A Brave Life is now on Friendship Tree

A Brave Life is one of the newest charities to join Friendship Tree, and your support helps ensure they can continue reaching the mothers and newborns who need them most across Australia. 

Click here to donate 

References 

Hinz, A., Cook, M., Mulgrew, K., Redsell, M., & Soloman, B. (2025). Empowering Vulnerable Mothers: An Evaluation of the Baby Bundle Program. University of the Sunshine Coast, in partnership with A Brave Life. Retrieved from https://research.usc.edu.au/esploro/outputs/report/991216652002621