PUBLIC HEALTH PRACTICE DEVELOPMENT

Public Health Practice Development



Public Health Practice Development

Introduction

Over the years health promotion/education has changed dramatically in the way we have presented programs or initiated health promotion seminars, unfortunately in my workplace change has been very slow to progress and often seen as a threat of lack of knowledge or competency. Therefore by using the Ottawa Charter three foundations for practice of advocacy, enabling, and mediating in my practice developing goal to be a more proficient health promotion/educator should provide me with the skills and knowledge required to obtain this.

Advocacy - The process of defending or promoting a cause. This involves active participation in public debate and activity to gain commitment, social acceptance, and policy support for a particular issue of change (Health Promotion Forum of New Zealand 2000 Cited in Keleher, 2007). Therefore, health promotion advocacy main aim is making conditions more favorable for health, which is the main responsibility of all health professionals.

Enabling - It is the health educators role to take action by developing partnerships with individuals or groups with the intentions of encouraging empowerment, which require the mobilization of human and material resources (WHO 1998), and often entails the facilitation of learning or skill development in others.

Mediating - According to WHO (1998), this is the process in which competing interests are reconciled in ways that promote and protect health. This includes social, political, personal, and economical interests in the pursuits of better health outcomes for individuals, communities and populations.

By using the Socio-ecological approach to health promotion/education as well as encompassing both downstream and upstream factors within my development goal strategies, collaboration with relevant individuals skilled within this area and by attending workshops or seminars related to the implementation of health promotion/education programs, I hope to gain knowledge and skills in health promotion/education.

Past and Current Practice

In my role as victim of crime/mental health liaison nurse I have carried out various health promotion/educational workshops, seminars and forums within the community for individuals, groups and also staff education. Unfortunately many of the programs have been ad hoc; issues based, and used health education as the main, if not the only means of implementation. Although a holistic approach was used, it mainly centered around disease prevention, very individually orientated health education strategies that simply adopted a victim-blaming approach to educating people about the biomedical and behavioural risk factors for diseases to the physical body which had very little or limited potential for population-level changes.

Health promotion/education was also seen by myself and other health professionals as observing, vaccinations, guiding, and supporting, as well as encouraging healthy lifestyles, participating in healthy activity and having a hobby, once again focusing on the individual being aware of their own health. Empowerment was manifested in the area of emotional health, on the one hand, as self-knowledge and, on the other hand, as an ability to utilize health promotion services and to participate in making decisions on health issues.

For successful health education/promotion it requires collaboration with the public, within the health sector ...