It's been a very couple of days in terms of meetings and these have left me with a lot of information to take back to Wales and disseminate. I have been acutely aware since being here of my role and responsibility as an 'ambassador' for Wales, for Gwynedd Council and for the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and this is something I take very seriously. I hope during my meetings here that I've been able to raise awareness of the positive work that's happening in Wales re: health promotion and prevention and that it's been a dual sharing of knowledge and information, as well as highlight Wales in terms of culture and language.
It would be a very long post if I described in depth all that I've learnt over the past couple of days, so here is an overview.
On Thursday morning, I met with Irene Verins (Program Manager with VicHealth). Irene explained the nature of the work happening in VicHealth, which I found very progressive and interesting. VicHealth is a health promotion foundation, founded in 1987. It was the first health promotion body in the world to be funded by tax on tobacco and its aim is to promote health in the state of Victoria. VicHealth focuses on creating the conditions in which good health can flourish, from better public health policy and healthy urban environments to more inclusive and respectful communities. They also advise governments, are innovative in their health promotion programmes and work in partnership with organisations across a variety of sectors.
Very similarly to Wales, VicHealth's focus in on
1. Promoting healthy eating
2. Encouraging regular physical activity
3. Prevent tobacco use
4. Prevent alcohol from harm
5. Improve mental wellbeing.
For more information about VicHealth's Action Agenda for Health Promotion, click on the following link, it's an interesting read:
http://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/Publications/VicHealth-General-Publications/VicHealth-Action-Agenda-for-Health-Promotion.aspx
Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of Irene and I, apologies for that!
Later on yesterday afternoon, I went to the VicHealth building to meet with Claire Henty (Settings Co-ordinator) and Emma Harris (Achievement Programme Acting Manager) at the Centre of Excellence and Intervention and Prevention Science (CEIPS), who are delivering the state wide Achievement Program. The Achievement Program, which is a settings based intervention, in early childhood education and care services, primary schools (and soon to be secondary schools) and workplaces. The programme (which receives funding from both state and national government), focuses on 12 local government areas in Victoria identified most at risk of ill health. Each of these 12 areas has a Healthy Together Communities team leading local health activities, including providing support to workplaces and early years/schools setting, to support them in working towards the Achievement Program. Other communities in Victoria can also work towards the Achievement Program, but a central team in CEIPS is supporting them.
The Achievement Program in workplaces and in educational settings encourage establishments to work towards different health priority areas, including tobacco, alcohol, physical activity, healthy eating and mental health and wellbeing. The programme is very similar to the Healthy Schools and Pre School Scheme and the Corporate Health Standard in Wales, with some minor differences (but the same priniciple). It's an exciting time in Victoria to be implementing such programmes and I hope that they funding continues after 2015, in order that the programme can be embedded in educational settings and workplaces, as they have done in Wales.
For more information about the Achievement Programme, click on:
http://www.achievementprogram.healthytogether.vic.gov.au/health-professionals/the-achievement-program
I will certainly be taking a lot of information back to my colleagues in Public Health Wales, who work on the Healthy School Scheme there, in order to exchange information. Thank you Emma and Claire for taking time out at such short notice to speak with me.
Here is a picture of Emma, Claire and myself:
On Friday, I went back to VicHealth again, where I met with Sean O'Rourke (Senior Project Officer within the Alcohol and Tobacco Team in Vic Health). Sean€ also met with me on very short notice, so I'm vey grateful that we were able to meet and discuss the work that the team does there on alcohol related issues. Sean had been on an exchange programme when he was in his final year in University and spent a term in Leicester University, so he was familiar with the UK. In fact, Sean had visited Aberystwyth, Machynlleth, Dolgellau and Caernarfon on his travels, so it was nice to be able to speak about home with somebody who had previously been there!
Sean and the Alcohol Team in VicHealth is currently working on a two year culture change project, which complements current Victorian legislation on alcohol, which is:
1. An extension to the freeze on liquor licences serving alcohol after 1am (so no licences are given to new liquor outlets in Melbourne after 1am).
2. An individual is banned from licenced premises if they've been convicted for an alcohol related offence.
3. Licenced premises lose 'stars', based on a merit system, if any incidents happen on the premises.
This 2 year culture change programme aims to address attitudes and subsequent behaviour related to alcohol. There are two parts to the campaign:
1. A website - http://www.namethatpoint.com/#?utm_source=paidsearch&utm_medium=sem&utm_campaign=alcoholcommunity, asking individuals to contribute ideas to name that point where things could go either way. This means that point on a night out where things are going great and you're having fun and relatively in control, but you have another drink and it all changes (have a look on the website, it's very interesting). They want to capture the name of that point and use it in future campaigns, so that individuals can related to it more perhaps than a hard hitting campaign, as it's more relevant to them.
2. A survey re: people's attitudes to alcohol. Both the survey and website will then inform the content of a multi media campaign, which aims to change people's attitues and behaviour towards alcohol.
Sean also talked about a number of research projects around alcohol that had been funded by VicHealth and the outcomes of those projects, which are then able to inform future work programmes. Thank you Sean for taking the time to speak with me today - it was a very interesting meeting.
Here is a picture of Sean and I today in VicHealth:
After the meeting with Sean, I went straight to meet with Jan Black, a Policy Advisor with the Municipal Association of Victoria (similar to the Welsh Local Government Association in Wales). When Jan and I first started talking, I discovered that she had heard about Aberystwyth as she is an avid reader of Malcom Prices' books (these are detective novels based in Aberystwyth), so she was pleased to meet someone from there!
There are 79 Local Governments within the Victoria region (this was cut down from 212 around 1994-95). Each Local Government has to develop a Municipal Health and Well Being Plan every four years (a Government requirement), which states what they will do in order to fulfill the state's health priorities (currently the Victorian Health and Well Being Plan 2012-2015). The priority areas within the plans are based on local needs and requirements i.e. if there is a particular issue related to alcohol in a certain area, then they will focus on that in the plan.
As well as Trading Standards roles, Local Government advocate for public spaces to be smoke free. Beaches are now smoke free in Victoria (and Queensland), so people are asked not to smoke between the flags on the beaches. It is noticable in Australia the work that is being done surroundin smoke free environments, with organisations being proud to be smoke free and invest money in order to advertise and promote this to the general public. Melbourne University has only this week announced that is it smoke free and I saw these signs on the pavement outside the University advertising the fact that their premises were smoke free. This means more than just not being able to smoke on the grounds - no retail outlets are able to sell cigarettes on the grounds either i.e. if there was a shop on the University campus, then there would be no cigarettes sold.
I very much enjoyed my time with Jan and it was very interesting to hear about the role of Local Government in health promotion and prevention. Jan has said that she wants to visit Aberystwyth so I hope that she makes contact when she does.
Here is a picture of Jan and I;
Lastly on Friday (yes, it was a very busy day!), I met with Fiona Sharkie (Executive Director) and Luke Atkin (Head of Cessation and Partnership Projects) from Quit Victoria. Quit Victoria is an organisation which receives funding from various sources, as well as VicHealth. Quit Victoria's vision is dedicated to ending the pain, suffering and costs caused by tobacco. One of its key goals is to reduce smoking rates to 12% by 2015 (rates in Wales are on average 24%). Quit aims to do this through the following approaches:
1. Build evidence base
2. Build capacity
3. Advocate and influence
4. Work in partnership
5. Operational excellence and ethical practice
6. Universal and targeted population programmes
7. Provide services
8. Health education.
For more information click on: http://www.quit.org.au/about/strategic-plan.html
I asked Fiona what she thought had made such an impact on reducing the tobacco rates in Australia and she stated that there were three strands to this:
1. Keeping the high price of cigarettes (currently almost A$20 for 25)
2. Legislation, such as smoke free areas and plain packaging
3. Social marketing campaigns
Luke explained about another service that was provided by Quit, which is Quitline. This is a support service offered to the public who want to make a quit attempt, either through telephone support, online (through quit.org.au and Quitcoach), through text (QuitTxt), or through written literature. This service is both a service for the mainstream population and the indigenous population (with its own staff). They also employ a telephone translator service for those individuals who are more comfortable conversing in their first language. It's a very similar service to Stop Smoking Wales, aimed at building capacity in organisations to offer brief advice. For more information see http://www.quit.org.au.
Here is a picture of Fiona, Luke and myself. I would like to thank them for agreeing to see me late on a Friday afternoon at such short notice - I am very grateful. The Cancer Council (where Quit is based) was also having an open day and here are an example of some information materials that they had out for the public to see:
I don't feel that I have covered everything that has been discussed over the past couple of days, but it will give you a flavour of what I've learnt. It has certainly given me a lot to think about.
Mei and Alun Skyped from Sydney on Friday night - they are going home Saturday morning. I missed them more after speaking with them on Skype - we have had such a wonderful time here together and I feel sad that it's all coming to an end for them. They certainly don't want to go home! I only have a week left here as well and that will fly by I'm sure. I'm flying to Sydney on Sunday and then going to Wollongong and Canberra in the week, before flying back next Sat.
I went to the market in Victoria Market on Wednesday night and it was as busy as the previous week! I bought two dresses (tried to haggle but they were having none of it!), and then went quickly from there before I ran out of money. I enjoyed all the noise and hustle and bustle there, apart from the queue for food - they can be quite long! Here is a picture of the market:
I also went to meet my sister today (she lives in Glen Waverly) and I couldn't resist going to see Ramsey Street in real life.....I was quite disappointed that I didn't see Toadie or Paul Robinson!!
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