Download Promoting Healthy Community - with track

The Benchmarque Group Pty Limited
PO Box 398 South Yarra Victoria 3141
25 Claremont Street South Yarra Victoria 3141
T 1300 855 568
F 1300 855 572
E [email protected]
W www.benchmarquegroup.com.au
ABN 84 118 294 152
July 16, 2010
The Executive Officer
Education and Training Com m ittee
Inquiry into Opportunities for Schools to Becom e a Focus for
Prom oting Healthy Com m unities
Healthy communities are the result of positive lifestyles and lifestyle choices.
Positive lifestyles can only be achieved by individual self-management.
Healthy attitudes, healthy individuals and a positive and resilient out look
combining create a healthy community.
If we look at the example of Chronic Disease Management V Chronic Disease Self
Management we see a major improvement in the out comes of the self-managed
individuals over those being managed by others.
This results in significant savings to the community and more positive outcomes
overall for the individual, family and community.
To achieve long lasting positive results, it is the individual that must make the
choices for change and promote their own healthy lifestyle choices.
If change is “forced” upon an individual, it is significantly less likely they will succeed
and that health changes will be sustained.
Our recent experience in developing a Graduate Certificate Course in Chronic
Disease Self-Management Advising (CDSMA) and Resilience program developed
for the Department of Human Services has highlighted the need for this selfmanagement model to be used to develop a health management and promotion
program.
It was very clear to the participants of the CDSMA pilot program that assisting
clients to self manage their existing chronic disease was in-fact a response in most
cases to overcome unhealthy lifestyle choices clients had made many, many years
earlier.
With this in mind, the focus for promoting healthy communities should revolve
around promoting positive lifestyle choices from much earlier ages; as young as 5
and 6.
1
Personal Leadership and Resilience are key factors for individuals to manage
their own lifestyle choices and therefore becoming effective and positive
contributors to family and community. Schools are ideally placed to implement
resilience and positive healthy lifestyle choices programs.
The ideal model would include positive lifestyle and resilience training commencing
from early primary school and progressing through to secondary school. Access to
professional health management programs from then on would also be a key
component.
W ho is best suited to support and provide healthy lifestyle healthy
com m unity program s?
The best outcome would be a partnership between the school/s and professional
health management advisors and resilience facilitators
W hat is the benefit?
These trained professionals are key links between many organisations in heath and
community. They are well placed to develop and implement contextualised
programs and discussion with individuals, groups and facilitate community
involvement. They are also skilled and trained to monitor and assist individuals,
specialising in health coaching and lifestyle management needs.
Year 9 is a key point of change for students mentally, physically and socially.
Hence, this would be an ideal time to involve health coaches directly with the
students. This would reinforce a more scripted program by school staff and some
invited facilitators for earlier years.
Ongoing involvement through subsequent sessions will reengage students
regularly as they grow and reach the senior years of their schooling.
The health coaches provide a different approach in promoting healthy lifestyle
management. Their skills include motivational interviewing as a way of assisting
clients to find their own answers and be the decision maker in health choices. In
modern times, healthy choices are common knowledge but adhering to health
advice is less common. When an individual owns their decision, they have the
motivation to commit to and maintain health changes.
Developing the schools ability through a Coaching and Resilience training program
to engage the students to deliver programs that they have developed gives
ownership to the students who will soon be senior community members and
have an interest in ongoing community issues in developing and maintaining a
healthy community environment
2
Positive and resilient individuals with healthy attitudes, create s a
healthy com m unity.
A Health Coaching and Resilience training program as part of school
curriculum would have a significant im pact on m any areas of personal
developm ent, and health of individuals, fam ilies and com m unity
‘physically, m entally and socially’.
The Benchmarque Group are a registered training organisation with expertise in the
development and delivery of health and personal leadership/resilience programs to
a wide range of groups
We have over the past 18 months implemented a CPR emergency response
course for year 5 students with great success. This program was implemented in
conjunction with the students class work with an emphasis on helping others and
being able to save a life thus contributing to community safety.
The Benchmarque Group look forward to discussing future options in more detail
Looking forward to your reply
Regards
Bruce Greaves
General Manager
The Benchmarque Group
(W) 1300855568
(M) 0401 735311
(email) [email protected]
3