At the end of my placement, I come away with more knowledge on program planning, implementing and evaluating and applying the theory of program planning to practice. I enjoyed having the flexibility to work on a variety of projects and was well supported by my colleagues at the CHC. I learned a lot about health inequity and barriers to health care due to the low socioeconomic population of clients at the CHC. I was also fortunate enough to work with the Francophone Health Promoter and Indigenous Health Promoter and by doing so was exposed to a variety of cultural considerations for these clients.

One highlight was being able to work on a program that addresses food insecurity in the community. This program ran every Monday afternoon and offered low income families the opportunity to buy fresh local produce at a fraction of the cost of retailers. This was a great example of breaking the barrier to social determinants of health. A challenge I had was definitely having a French Health Promoter as my supervisor. While she did speak English, she developed and facilitated all of her programs in French so I feel like I might have missed out on some good opportunities.

Reflecting back, I really enjoyed my experience at the CHC and it has sparked an interest in community health that I am hoping to pursue following my studies.

Zoe

After completing the partnerships tool analysis (McCleod 2003), I scored in the mid-range group for the partnership between myself, my supervisor and two colleagues who assisted with marketing for the COPD campaign. The main reason for the lower score was because I did not feel like I brought the same expertise as my partners since I am a student and are still unaware of successful health promotion strategies in real life campaigns. I think the checklist is useful to determine if partnerships will work well for a project and to identify areas that may be lacking.

References

McCleod, J 2003, The partnerships analysis tool for partners in health promotion, viewed 31 August, https://cpb-ap-se2.wpmucdn.com/rde.nsw.edu.au/dist/c/8/files/2014/11/Partnerships-Analysis-tool-Vic-Health-2006-17vr943.pdf

Health promotion strategies are a key component of health promotion as they will determine how the project is marketed to the target audience. For my COPD awareness campaign, I used a variety of health promotion strategies to achieve the goals of bringing this disease to the community’s awareness.

One main strategy I used was health information. I created brochures, posters and displays that were shared with the CHC’s clients to bring awareness to COPD. These included facts, signs and symptoms and ways to prevent or lessen the disease. I used large print and simple wording to reach all levels of literacy, making sure to include pictures and infographics as much as possible. Another strategy I used was social marketing. I created a couple of short videos explaining the campaign and this video was shared on the website and social media outlets.

I wanted to use a wide range of strategies to reach all clients of the CHC.

Zoe

Evaluation in health promotion is just as important as planning and implementing a project because it measures what actually happened during the project and allows opportunity to compare this data with the intended goals (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] 2013). I will want to include evaluation into my professional practice so I am able to determine if I met my program goals and how effective my actions and planning were. If evaluation is not considered in program planning then there is almost no point in implementing it in the first place. How are you meant to determine if you succeeded? Evaluation planning needs to start at the beginning of the project in order to set it up for success once the project comes to an end.

Zoe

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2013, Program planning, viewed 26th August 2019, https://www.cdc.gov/globalhealth/healthprotection/fetp/training_modules/17/Program-Planning_PW_Final_09252013.pdf

This week’s blog topic is focused on the project planning tool, Gantt charts. These charts provide a visual tool to show the timeline and sequence of a project allowing stakeholders the opportunity to track the project on a regular basis (Bartfay & Bartfay 2015).

References

Bartfay, W J & Bartfay, E 2015, Public Health in Canada, Pearson Learning Solutions, Boston: MA.

Goals and objectives are a vital part of health promotion. During my placement, I have had many ideas in regards to health promotion goals, however I have found it difficult to maintain clear direction on that I need to do to succeed in these goals. Victoria Health (2010) defines a goal as a long term benefit such as a health gain, it also defines objectives as short or medium health impacts such as a behaviour change (Victoria Health 2010). It is important to understand how goals require measurable objectives in order to be met.

One goal for my monthly health campaign project is to promote awareness and improve health outcomes for the target population of the specific campaign. For example, I am working on the Breast Cancer Awareness campaign currently so my main goal for that project is to increase the awareness of breast cancer in order for early detection to be made. Three objectives for this campaign are; Awareness of the risk factors, prevention strategies, and screening.

Zoe

References

Victoria Health 2009, Tip sheet: municipal public health and wellbeing planning, viewed 24 June 2019, http://www.health.vic.gov.au/regions/southern/downloads/Tip-sheet-writing-measurable-objectives.pdf

A needs assessment for a health promotion program consists of a variety of steps. Firstly, the population needs to be identified as well as the goals for the program and the resources available (Quality Improvement and Innovation Partnership [QIIP] 2009) . The next step would be to identify who would assist with the program, where information would be sourced and how it would be used (QIIP 2009). This would include gathering data and speaking with local agencies such as hospitals, health centres and public health facilities (QIIP 2009). The next step would be to use all of the gathered data to determine the needs of priority according to various categories such as social determinants of health, age, ethnicity and risk factors, and after identifying the needs, strategies need to be developed to address the needs such as potential programs, campaigns and interventions (QIIP 2009). These strategies need to then be discussed with the relevant stakeholders and implemented with a specific, measurable and achievable goal that can be evaluated following the project and potentially re-used for future program planning (QIIP 2009).

Currently, I am working on a few projects during my placement experience at Chigamik Community Health Centre. I had previously mentioned the monthly health campaigns that I continue to work on. I have also however, been given the opportunity to plan my own “mock” workshops where I will be completing needs assessments to plan and develop a workshop. Chigamik CHC uses as internal ‘Program & Workshop Planning Tool’ that forms the basis of the needs assessment so I will be using this tool to plan my mock workshop. The reason it has to be “mock” is because all programs and workshops have already been approved for this quarter so there is no room to add a real one. I am able to however, assist with the facilitating of various programs and workshops with my supervisor to get some real-life experience. The needs analysis will help to inform my project by assisting to provide evidence based needs for the target group and help to determine the best strategies to use for the priority needs.

Zoe

References

Quality Improvement and Innovation Partnership (2009), Needs assessment resource guide for family health teams, viewed 6 August 2019 http://www.hqontario.ca/Portals/0/documents/qi/qi-rg-needs-assessment-0901-en.pdf

I am currently working on a number of projects while assisting the Health Promoter during my placement. But one of the big projects I am working on is creating monthly health campaigns so the facility has marketing material to use each month of the year. Some examples of monthly topics are; COPD, diabetes, breast cancer awareness and flu shot campaign. Some of the things I have created are; large trifold displays with educational information, infographics, pamphlets, posters, interactive displays, and videos for social media blasts. Here are a couple of examples of my videos for the COPD campaign:

https://youtu.be/qDVRiR6isnA

https://youtu.be/Ern9LopeFJQ

Individuals who have been assisting with the planning of these campaigns have been, the Health Promoter who has helped point me in the right direction while using the company’s planning tool to set goals, develop a plan and assess the effectiveness of the plan. The Community Health Worker has helped me regarding what type of information needs to be displayed and where to source the supplies. And the Program Manager is reviewing the plan, suggesting changes where necessary and approving the campaigns.

This planning process has taught me how much work goes into the preparation of health campaigns and why the planning process is so important to ensure the material reaches the appropriate target group in an effective way.

Zoe

I feel like making sure the specific population is appropriately targeted would be a challenge. This would include having the appropriate advertising within the campaign and making sure it reaches the target population. For example, these past couple of weeks I was involved in a clothing drive to support disadvantaged families and there was a multitude of marketing that went into social media but a very minimal turnout for the drive. Perhaps the campaign would have been better promoted in other ways such as flyers or handouts in order to reach the people who are not on social media.

Another challenge I can see with health promotion might be cultural and language barriers. In the community I am working in there is a very large French speaking population, however a lot of the health services are primarily in English. To overcome this barrier, Chigamik Community Health Centre has a French Health Promoter who is able to serve people in the French community. There is also Indigenous Health Workers who are able to provide traditional healing and health promotion targeted directly at the Indigenous population. In health centres where these staff are not available, the Health Promoter would have to find ways to include culturally appropriate material in order to address these challenges.

Zoe

I have always been drawn to a career where I am able to help people. Starting early on I worked in retail customer service and while I was helping people find the goods they were looking for, there was no real reward from this type of job for me. I started to think about what people value in life whether it was family, job or financial security, education or an active social life, all of these values were difficult if your health was not 100%. That brings me to the very frequently asked question, what is health? I could give the World Health Organization definition of health from 1948 (“…a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing…”), but to me, health means to be in the best state of physical, mental and social wellbeing by making conscious choices that impact that feeling. I think the definition of health is highly personal and difficult to put a label on.

So what about health promotion? I think of health promotion similarly to marketing a product. Health is a product that can be achieved by doing X, Y and Z depending on the individual’s definition of health. To promote health, means to find target populations, communities or individuals and promote lifestyle changes that will have a positive impact on their health. These “promotions” need to be culturally sensitive and tailored to the specific target group. Choosing health promotion as a career is an exciting way to help people live the best lives they can based on their own situations. From a public health perspective, health promotion is a vital component of increasing public health and wellbeing and I’m excited to be involved in this industry.

Zoe