Partnerships

Page content: Department of Human Services | VicHealth | Community & women's health services | Local government | Divisions of general practice/general practitioners | Consumers, carers & the wider community | Other key stakeholders

When integrating health promotion principles and processes in an organisation, or when implementing a specific program, it is important to create optimal conditions for success. A key action for building capacity to promote health is for organisations to work in partnership.

An organisation’s ability to work in a cooperative and integrated way will depend on its ability to initiate and sustain effective involvement with other partners. The elements of capacity building discussed here require building effective partnerships within the organisation, across primary health services and with other key stakeholders.

The Primary Care Partnership Strategy launched by the Victorian Government in April 2000 provides an example of partnerships between service providers, government and communities to improve the delivery of integrated health promotion programs. For further information download:

Positive outcomes from integrated health promotion (151kb, pdf)

Partnerships and successful cooperative relationships involve:

• Developing a shared vision for the collective partnership and articulating measurable objectives and strategies agreed on by all partners. This will involve identifying the role of each partner in fulfilling these tasks and building continual quality improvement processes within the partnership planning.
• Investing time in developing trust among members of the partnership. This will also mean recognising that there will be ongoing changes in the partnership relationship as it matures; regularly identifying and re-evaluating the level of operation of the partnership; and respecting and valuing the emerging autonomy of the partnership.
• Supporting a person or persons from within the partnership (with dedicated time) to bring together key stakeholders to facilitate the development of shared goals and agreements, given the expectations and commitments of all partners and tasks.
• Recognising common and overlapping integrated health promotion goals of partner organisations and supporting these partners to become local champions in fulfilling such goals.
• Supporting ways in which integrated health promotion can be made relevant to the different goals of partners’ organisations, and encouraging partners to extend their goals to embrace and value integrated health promotion.
• Recognising issues of experience and divergent models of integrated health promotion practice among health professionals (coming from a range of backgrounds, from clinical settings to community development practices), and using this diversity to support innovation in the development of interventions.
• Ensuring effective communication and information sharing among partners through regular and timely circulation of action notes and contact lists, for example, using communication strategies to inform the broader community and stakeholders in a positive and consistent way.

Partnerships and Collaboration - presentation (264k, MSPowerpoint)

Partnerships and Collaboration - notes (139k, MSWord)

Partnerships analysis tool: for partners in health promotion (2003) (62k, pdf)
Note: This document is located on the VicHealth web site.

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Key stakeholders in health promotion

Quality health promotion practice requires integrated approaches and partnerships. There are a number of key stakeholders involved in integrated approaches to health promotion practice in Victoria. These include:

Department of Human Services

In supporting integrated health promotion programs, the Department of Human Services aims to:

1. Enable communities and individuals to increase control over and improve their health.
2. Support the reorientation of the primary care system to a population focus underpinned by the social model of health.
3. Consolidate and enhance the integrated health promotion infrastructure and resources.
4. Reduce duplication and fragmentation of integrated health promotion effort.
5. Contribute to the evidence base for integrated health promotion around specific issues and population groups.
6. Increase the potential to involve sectors other than health in quality integrated health promotion service delivery.
7. Build on the capacity of the service system to plan and deliver effective quality integrated health promotion programs.
8. Contribute to a reduction of preventable hospital admissions.

Visit the Department of Human Services Web site

VicHealth

The Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) is a statutory body with an independent chair and a board of directors established as part of the Tobacco Act 1987. VicHealth works with a range of partner organisations to deliver innovative responses to the complex social, economic and environmental forces that influence the health of Victorians. Current priority issues include: physical activity, mental health and wellbeing, tobacco control, healthy eating and health inequalities.

Visit the VicHealth Web site

Community & women's health services

Community and Women’s health services play a leadership role in integrated health promotion. A partnership approach provides an integral link between community and women’s health and other agencies within a given catchment area in the planning, implementation and evaluation of integrated health promotion programs. This focus on integration supports key stakeholders to have greater capacity to address key health and wellbeing issues effectively, and to minimise duplicated, fragmented effort. Working with existing networks within a catchment population has been essential to build on the current knowledge and expertise.

Across Victoria, community and women’s health services are individually funded for one or a mix of the following services: community health, women’s health, innovative health services for homeless youth (IHSHY), suicide prevention, family and reproductive rights education (FARREP) and family planning services. Through these programs, integrated health promotion is funded as a single activity – health promotion. This also applies to statewide agencies, namely the Victorian Foundation for Survivors for Torture Inc., International Diabetes Institute, Centre for Adolescent Health, Centre for Culture, Ethnicity and Health and Statewide Women’s Health Services.

For further information on Community Health Policy visit the Community Health website.

For further information on Women's Health services visit the Victorian Women's Health Program website.

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Local government

Local governments provide and fund a range of primary health care services and have an important role in local area public health planning, advocacy, community action and delivery. Under the Health Act 1958, all local government authorities are required to prepare municipal public health plans (MPHPs) every three years, with an annual review. This planning cycle enables councils to document their public health activity and set local priorities through a defined approach. The planning process includes needs assessment and community consultation, and promotes place-based planning for a defined geographical area and identified population.

MPHPs outline public health strategies aimed at supporting and enhancing municipal functions and initiatives that address issues related to the health and wellbeing of the people of the municipality. The tenets of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion have underpinned local government approaches to dealing with preventable conditions, injury and more traditional public health issues, such as infectious disease control, sanitation and food safety.

These plans are an important instrument in engaging community groups and individuals and supporting integrated approaches to health and wellbeing issues. Local governments work cooperatively with their local communities, service providers, other levels of government and statewide organisations to develop and implement their plans. The MPHP can be an integrating mechanism for many municipal planning requirements that have health impacts, such as urban planning. There are also opportunities for neighbouring councils to prepare joint MPHPs. In rural regions with smaller populations and fewer resources, a cooperative approach can be an effective way of addressing the wide range of public health issues that are shared across sub-regions.

Environments for Health is the department’s policy framework for municipal public health planning. Released in 2001, the framework offers local governments an opportunity to involve all sectors of the community in a collaborative process to strengthen community capacity, health and wellbeing.

For further information visit the Local Government Planning for Health and Wellbeing Web site.

The Department for Victorian Communities (DVC) represents the Victorian Government's determination to deliver government services in a way that supports and strengthens communities across Victoria through a more integrated approach to planning, funding and delivering services at the local level.

For further information see the Department for Victorian Communities website.

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Divisions of general practice/general practitioners

The central aim of the Divisions of General Practice program is to improve health outcomes for the community by encouraging GPs to link with each other and with other health professionals to upgrade the quality and comprehensiveness of health service delivery at the local level.

Divisions take a population health perspective in determining their activity and support general practice (GPs, practice nurses, practice managers) to adopt a similar view. Their strategic plans and business plans focus on national goals and target areas, such as cardiovascular disease and mental health, as well as local health needs.
Increasingly, GPs are being asked to consider their 'practice population', that is, to understand more about the health status of all those who attend their practice.

Divisions play a critical role in ensuring that general practice is able to undertake the system development tasks involved in this new approach. They do this through activities including skills training and education, practice demonstration and problem solving, dissemination of information and provision of networking opportunities between practices. Additionally, Divisions play a crucial role in developing linkages with other health organisations to strengthen the working relationships between general practice and other providers.

GPs in Victoria currently undertake more than 25 million consultations with patients annually. As well as managing the presenting problem, the GP encounters considerable opportunities during these consultations to offer a range of health promotion interventions.

Attention to risk factors and adherence to recommended screening and immunisation protocols for various risk groups is a major contribution that can be made in the general practice setting. GPs understand that screening, risk factor assessment, health education and understanding of whole patient care form part of every clinical consultation. Divisions focus their efforts on involving all general practices in initiatives that aim to increase the quality of existing general practice services across the board.

For more information about implementing prevention activities into general practice, refer to the websites below.

Putting prevention into practice: guidelines for the implementation of prevention in the general practice setting (1998) from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners website.

Guidelines for preventive activities in general practice (2002) from Royal Australian College of General Practitioners website.

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Consumers, carers and the wider community

There is growing recognition that consumers have enormous potential to influence their own health outcomes if they are actively involved in decision-making and provided with quality information and appropriate self-management skills.1

Active consumer, carer and community participation has been associated with increased ability and capacity at a personal level and, at a community level, with the strengthening of communities, social connectedness and trust and increased competence to solve health problems. Specifically, integrated health promotion programs are more likely to be sustained if consumers, carers and community members are actively involved in identifying needs, planning, implementing and evaluating activities.

The Health Issues Centre Inc. provides an email bulletin, a journal, resources, research and training related to consumer participation. For more information see the Health Issues Centre website.

National Resource Centre for Consumer Participation in Health (NRCCPH).

References:

1. Consumer Focus Collaboration (2001) The evidence supporting consumer participation in health Canberra: Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care.

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Other key stakeholders

Other key stakeholders—such as secondary school nurses, psychiatric disability support services, drug and alcohol services, disability services, visiting nursing services, hospitals and acute services, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health services and culturally specific health agencies, schools, sporting clubs and police—can also have a significant role in planning and implementing integrated health promotion programs.

Victoria has a well-established group of non-government (charitable or not-for-profit) organisations operating on a statewide basis, with a strong health promotion focus. These organisations define their business variously in terms of specific health conditions, risk factors or population groups. They also provide significant skills and capacities in relation to health promotion research, program development and service delivery.

These organisations have various roles and responsibilities, such as providing resources and advising on programs in areas such as education and training, information, research and development, telephone counselling, social marketing and advocacy.

See the Statewide health promotion organisations: a partnership resource for local agencies (2004)

For more information on partnerships and capacity building go to health promotion - intervention and capacity building.

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