‘Improving the health of communities through participation’

Presenters:Catherine Morley - CEODr Kaye Knight – LearnPRN/La Trobe University

Where it all began

Where we are in the world

Warracknabeal

Melbourne

The community participation project• A partnership between the La Trobe Uinversity and three rural

health services based on the award winning Scottish, evidence based community participation method; Remote Services Futures (RSF).

• It is an evidence-based community participation method that engages local people in considering health data, identifying their priority health issues, and designing sustainable, locally responsive services.

• A full time PhD student was funded by the health service to work with the community and stakeholders.

The community participation projectThe aims of the project were to:

• Develop a sustainable mechanism of working with community members to explore and test ideas, and in partnership, design evidence-based approaches to maximise health outcomes.

• Identify priorities and capture innovative approaches that communities design given a range of data, information and research evidence.

• Forge a strong partnership with a leading university to ensure the project reflected world-class best evidence on community participation so that knowledge gained could be translated to the broader sector.

The community action research group• Regular meetings to discuss, develop, test and refine health and well-

being ideas that formed a document to be used by the health service in their future healthcare planning.

• Based on a community participation model, there were a mix of community members, health service staff and key stakeholders in each group learning from each other

How did we engage with our community in the past?

Time for a turbo sessionThis will give you a taste of what we did (18months in 10mins)

• First thing – find some friends and imagine you are part of our community

Demographics

•Rural, farming community

•Population: Warracknabeal 2,745/Catchment 7000

•343km/213miles to Melbourne (4hr drive/1 bus)

•40mins drive to Horsham/2hr 40min to Ballarat

•24.6% over 65yrs

•25% children complete high school

•45% population volunteer

What might you want the health & wellbeing of this community to be like in 20 years?

Please consider the question in your groupand come up with some ideas.

You have 1 minute

Health issues in our community

•Obesity

•Heart disease

•Cancer (x 2 State average in men)

•High disabled & aged care population

•Socio-economic disadvantage

Understanding our community

Educating the community about the identified health issues based on data

Health Iceberg Activity - helps to determine contributing factors

that the community may be able to address.

Obesity access to fresh food, knowledge about healthy eating.

Guest speakers

Talking to the wider community

Source: Talbot, L. & Verrinder, G. (2014) Promoting health: the primary health care approach.

Chatswood. Churchill Livingstone.

Unpacking the issues

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Health issues in our community

•Obesity

•Heart disease

•Cancer (x2 State average in men)

•High disabled & aged care population (it’s a NORC!)

•Socio-economic disadvantage

In light of your 20 year vision and the health issues of our community, what health & wellbeing issues are you most concerned about?

Please consider the question in your group and select one health & wellbeing concern.

You have 1 minute

Community Prioritising Activity

Community Prioritising Activity

Please nominate 1 priority issue that your group believes the community should pursue.

Our health service

Community reviews the health service.

What are our:

• Priorities

• Services

• Boundaries & limitations

Re-prioritising Activity

Review the priority issues identified by the community.

In light of the health service priorities & limitations vote on your top issue with a show of hands.

Our community priorities

• Social Isolation

• Access/Transport (food, phone, internet, schooling)

• Ageing and living at home

• Mental Health

• Communicating about health and keeping healthy

The outcomes from our project• Major mental health forums, including an ICE drug forum

attended by 350 people.

• Community gardens in three communities to support intergenerational socialization and distribution of health information.

• Aged care expos in two communities.

• Seasons of wellness

• We have a group of engaged community members.

• The board of management can set some new strategic goals based on the feedback from the community members.

Our challenges• There was no money available to expand services.

• Getting the right mix of community members attending so that we had all demographics and communities represented.

• The governance structure was not in place from the beginning and we had to find the right community members to be part of it.

• The eagerness of the community to get things happening quickly.

• There were so many ideas suggested and many of them were not the health services responsibility.

What worked

• The ideas the community came up with.

• Working with the university (community PhD student).

• Community engagement.

• Improving partnerships.

• Delivering on the suggestions.

• Letting the community own the ideas and the outcomes.

• Designing our therapeutic landscapes

Lessons learned• One size does not fit all and you need to have a localized

individual approach.

• It needs leadership from the top, the community and the independent facilitator.

• The ideas were simple, inexpensive and focused on the identified gaps in health and wellbeing that the group had identified.

• The group were really not focused on service delivery.

Questions?

Winner

People’s Choice Award

Victorian Healthcare Association Annual Conference 2014

Australian Regional Development Award

2015

Acknowledge: Prof Jane Farmer & Community Participation Project Team La Trobe Rural Health School, John Aitken PhD Candidate, Yarriambiack Community