Our approach
Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve their health.
This can occur at all stages of health and illness: with the well population and with people at risk of ill health and people living with chronic disease.
SA Health is committed to a health system that produces positive health outcomes by focusing on health promotion and illness prevention.
'We will work with other governemnt agencies and the community to address the environmental, socioeconomic, biological and behavioural determinants of health, and to achieve equitable health oucomes for all South Australians.' SA Health Strategic Plan 2008-2010 In order to effectively undertake health promotion work for children, young people, women and parents, the Centre for Health Promotion:
- supports health promotion as part of the business of the Children, Youth and Women's Health Service
- provides statewide health promotion programs on behalf of SA Health focusing on breastfeeding, healthy weight in early childhood, safe sleeping, young people's mental health and wellbeing, health promotion in education and care settings, and promoting postive parenting through the Parenting SA program
- works with key sectors and settings including local government, community service, child care and education.
Structure of Centre for Health Promotion work
We organise our work around 4 major areas of responsibility:
- partnerships and community participation
- consumer access to quality health information
- workforce learning and organisational policies and processes
- evaluation and continuous quality improvement for our programs and services.
Partnerships are necessary for coordinated activities across agencies and sectors. The issues faced in health promotion practice can be most effectively addressed through multiple agencies working together. Research and practice wisdom show that partnerships require skill, time, effort and monitoring.
Quality community engagement supports population level outcomes when strategies are undertaken based on knowledge of consumer attitudes, beliefs and circumstances and when the process of participation provides health and wellbeing benefits to those who are engaged.
Access to quality health information contributes to community awareness and capacity to make decisions about health behaviour and care.
Workforce learning
Workforce development supports change across environments and the health service sector. Workforce development includes training, education, practice guidelines and organisational policies and practices. Stakeholder engagement is critical for achieving quality outcomes.
Planning and evaluation are critical to providing quality services which are transparent and accountable. Best practice evidence is to sufficiently and consistently resource this area of work. In addition, systems of record keeping are required for program documentation.
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