Health Education Development/Funding submissions

It is important to have a clear idea of what we are on about when we seek funding for our projects and programs. One way to keep a coherent story alive is to have a good framework for telling the story. The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion provides us with just this sort of frame of reference. It reminds us that we are not working on people; we are working with them. We are working so that they are enabled to take control. We are mediating between people with different claims and requirements. We are advocating, giving voice, to those who may not otherwise be heard. Carefully, stone on stone, we are developing personal skills, creating supportive environments, strengthening community action, reorienting the health services towards a primary health care approach and building health policy as a social environment promoting health and well-being for individuals, groups, families, communities and societies.

Instructions

Each week we hold a lectorial and a tutorial. The lectorial is a lecture involving audience participation. The tutorials are for discussing the and group activities relating to the topic, and for working on the assignments.

Lectorial

Watch the videos in this playlist here.
Review Annex 1 of Health education: Theoretical concepts, effective strategies and core competencies. This will review a number of the key definitions for concepts under-girding our practice. And, this practice is based on the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion which gave new meanings to many of the older ideas. It's not that the older ideas were bad; but, the Ottawa Charter and related statements and declarations since 1986 have helped to weave a coherent story to be told about health education and health promoting rehabilitation. As one of the longer videos indicate, you have to have a coherent story to tell if you wish to get funding.
Attend the lectorial.

Tutorial

We are entering the final round of our teaching and learning activities. The standard has been amazing. Keep up the good work. Many good examples of narratives are being provided. This should help you with your own assessment. We hope to get permission from teams to put up some of the more extensive examples. Keep a look out on this page.

Prepare for the tutorial by reviewing page 129 (Develop a Case Study) and page 132 (Identify Benefits) of the activities book.
Attend the tutorial and support your colleagues.

How does the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion support strengths-based focused funding submissions?

Do you know what the date for World Health Day is? It is the same day as the founding of the World Health Organization (WHO), 7 April 1948. It was nearly thirty years after the first definition of health coined by WHO was promulgated that the world met at Alma Ata (USSR) in 1978 to declare the importance of primary health care as essential to Health for All. A decade more of discussion and thought would take place before the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion would promulgate key principles, priority areas and processes in 1986. That my seem like a very long time ago to you. But, for me, it seems like yesterday. I finished by master's degree that year; my wife and I returned to Australia with our two oldest children. Now, our children are grown and have their own vocations. And, every few years, there are new charters, declarations and statements. In 1988, a second International Health Promotion Conference was held in Adelaide. It focused on Healthy Public Policy and Accountability for Health. These are societal responsibilities. It also emphasised the importance of equity and access to services, women's health, food and nutrition, tobacco and alcohol, and the creation of supportive environments. There was a recognition of the importance of health alliances and, crucially, global health. The Sundsvall Statement in 1991 would especially focus on the creation of supportive environments. The Jakarta Conference in 1997 was the first time that conference was held in a non-first world country. Along with justice and equity, it emphasised the importance of partnerships with business. Mexico reemphasised the importance of justice and equity in 2000. In 2005, the Bangkok Charter for Health Promotion built on the past and looked to the future by incorporating more recent understandings of what is required to address the determinants of health. The 2007 conference in Naibori, Kenya, highlighted the urgency of health promotion in a world were the perquisites for health are often severely undermined by rapid globalisation. Capacity development for health promotion, community empowerment, health literacy and health behaviour, as well as partnerships and intersectoral action, were some of the themes of the conference. The eighth conference was held in Helsinki, Finland, in 2013 and recalled the importance of Health in All Policies; the delegates called upon governments to develop the structures to implement the required actions. All in all, over the last seven decades, the World Health Organization has laid out quite a road map for us to follow in terms of health promoting rehabilitation and public health. How all of this can strengthen funding submissions is the focus of this topic.

Background

The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion and subsequent statements and declarations provide you with a wealth of principles, priority action areas and processes. If you spend a little time with each of these over the next weeks and months during your course, they can lead you into a vary interesting and fulfilling career. It will not matter if this is in public health or in rehabilitation counselling. You can use these to work anywhere in the world doing changing the way the world works. One key area for using them is in the development of your arguments and solutions to various problems. What makes the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion special is that it helps you to put together a lesson or a program that is health generating (salutogenic) and empowering (Lindstrom & Eriksson 2006). It creates a win-win situation for everyone: for the people you would like to work with because it honors their strengths, for the people who will fund the project because they know you are working from a proven framework, and for yourself because you do not have to reinvent the wheel. You can join with hundreds of thousands of people around the world who are doing good everyday. You might say that the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion is the Google of participatory processes for promoting health and well-being. But, you should not take my word for it. While engaging this topic, you will decide for yourself and make sound arguments in favor or against (see Lindstrom & Eriksson 2011 for an example of a critical engagement). But, it is more likely that you will be able to decide when it is best to use these documents and when you might have to rely on other systematic frameworks. Still, even bodies such as the Council of Social Services of NSW (NCOSS) consider the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion an important framework when evaluating the adequacy of thought given to potential funding arrangements and funded activities:

NCOSS has strong concerns about the National Framework proposed for approval by the Standing Council on Health. We acknowledge the National Framework is not the subject of this consultation. However, the potential national-level actions do not support a comprehensive primary health care system in line with the World Health Organisation Declaration of Alma Ata or the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (NCOSS:8).

References and Resources

Lindstrom, B. and Eriksson, M. (2006) Contextualising salutogenesis and Antonovsky in public health development. Health Promotion International. 21(3):238-244.

Lindstrom, B. and Eriksson, M. (2011) From health education to healthy learning: Implementing salutogenesis in educational science. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. 39(Suppl 6):85-92.

NCOSS (2013) NCOSS submission on NSW Bilateral Primary Health Care Plan Consultation Paper. Surry Hills, NSW: Council of Social Service of NSW (NCOSS).

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this topic, through your own investigations, group preparation, tutorial participation and ‘lectorial’ explorations, you should be able to:

Demonstrate an ability to interpret requests to submit funding proposals relating to health literacy and health education which are generated by international, national, regional, state and local bodies.
Identify key aspects of funding submissions that are typically requested in the fields of public health and health promoting rehabilitation and explain how you might develop a rationale for funding that meets the funding criteria.
Summarise the key positions of the various documents relating to health promotion promulgated by the World Health Organization from the Alma Ata Declaration to the present time as they relate to potential health literacy and health education practice.
Develop and defend a position on whether or not the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion provides an adequate foundation for a ‘strengths-based approach’ to health literacy and health education practice.