8E: Integrating health and education: challenges and successes with Victoria’s School-Based Health Service program
Tracks
Track 5
| Tuesday, November 12, 2019 |
| 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM |
| Room 105 |
Details
Chaired by Professor Lena Sanci, Head of Department of General Practice, University of Melbourne
Speaker
Professor Lena Sanci
Head of Department of General Practice
University of Melbourne
232 Integrating health and education: challenges and successes with Victoria’s School-Based Health Service program
Abstract
Background: International interest is growing in the potential of educational settings to improve young people’s health and wellbeing. In this workshop we will explore the health-education nexus, drawing on the Victorian government’s Doctors in Secondary Schools Program (DiSS) which delivers primary care services in 100 disadvantaged secondary schools. Delegates will learn about the complexities of working across the health and education sectors, engage with the diversity of perspectives and experiences of those involved in the Victorian program, and see the benefits of empowering young people, schools and clinicians to work together.
Aims and Objectives: We will explore the key themes of implementation and complexity in the context of delivering best practice youth friendly care in a secondary school. Using an explicit framework of complex adaptive systems our group will outline the strategy of bringing Health and Education together at a policy and practice level. The panel will discuss key learnings on barriers and enablers to implementation drawing on concrete examples from the program and touching on the importance of continuous feedback loops, iterative improvement, stakeholder consultations, co-design and how to build success.
Target Audience: Educators, clinicians, researchers, policy makers, public health experts and consumers who are interested in learning more about how to implement youth friendly primary care in the school setting.
Learnings/Take away
• practical steps to implementing complex interventions in schools
• evidence-based elements of successful implementation
• transitioning from conceptualisation to operational guidelines, establishment and ongoing embedding
Format: The workshop panel will comprise key stakeholder representatives from the Victorian DiSS program: school staff, clinicians, policy makers, clinical governance and support, and researchers/academics. In the first part of the session, speakers will reflect on their experiences of designing, delivering, managing and participating in a school-based health service initiative across its first two years of operation. In the second part delegates will engage with panel members in discussion to further explore and workshop implementation of health-education initiatives.
Speakers: The panel brings together expertise in complex intervention design and implementation, educational policy, public health research, primary care, and student wellbeing. The panel will include:
• Lena Sanci (panel chair), Head of Department and co-lead of the Children and Young People’s
Research Stream in the Department of General Practice at the University of Melbourne, and Medical Advisor to the DiSS.
• Bianca Forester, both an academic and a General Practitioner operating an in-school clinic as part of the SBHS
• Nicole Green, Primary Care in Schools Lead, North Western Melbourne PHN
• Petrina O’Connor, Project Director, Child & Youth Health Wellbeing, Health and Engagement Division, Victorian Department of Education and Training
• Christina Doyle, Team Leader Student Wellbeing, North Geelong Secondary school
Biography
*Tina Doyle is the School Program Lead of the Doctors in Secondary Schools program which has been running for two years. Tina has a Bachelor of Social Work (hon) from Deakin University, she has worked at NGSC for the past seven years. She has ten years’ experience working in Aged Care as a diversional therapist and nurse, in regional areas. Tina is passionate about developing a Health & Wellbeing Hub at NGSC and working upstream to reduce student disengagement by developing creative programs.
*Dr Bianca Forrester is an Adolescent Health specialising GP practitioner and academic, currently practicing as the doctor at North Geelong Secondary as part of the Doctors in Secondary Schools (DiSS) state government initiative. As an educator, she has worked across secondary, tertiary and post graduate levels, teaching health literacy skills in schools and educating medical students, GPs and practice nurses about service provision in this age group. She is a clinical lecturer at both the University of Melbourne
(UoM), Deakin University medical schools. Bianca brings a complex adaptive systems approach to her implementation work, facilitating over a dozen participatory workshops that gathering valuable feedback about how to locally adapt the DiSS program model into real world health and education settings.
*Nicole Green is the Primary Care in Schools Lead at North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network, where she coordinates the Doctors in Secondary Schools and Enhancing Mental Health Supports in Secondary Schools programs. Nicole has 5 years' experience in the primary health care sector working in areas including chronic disease management, refugee health and youth health and wellbeing.
*Petrina O'Connor is the Project Director of the Child and Youth Health Branch in the Wellbeing Health and Engagement Division of the Victorian Department of Education and Training. The Child and Youth Health Branch contributes to the Wellbeing Health and Engagement Division's purpose to lead the Department's efforts to improve and reform child and learner wellbeing, health, engagement and inclusion. The Branch has a responsibility for the design, rollout, implementation and evaluation of the Doctors in Secondary Schools program election commitment.
*Professor Lena Sanci (PhD, FRACGP, MBBS) Is Head of Department, Director of Teaching and Learning, and co-lead of the Children and Young People’s Research Stream in the Department of General Practice, The University of Melbourne. She is also the Medical Advisor to the Victorian Department of Education and Training for the Doctors in Secondary Schools Program (2015-2019), and additionally works as a sessional clinician at Family Planning Victoria’s Action Centre.
For over 20 years Professor Sanci has researched the potential of primary care to improve the health of young people through quality youth focussed system-based interventions designed to re-orientate primary care toward prevention of harms from mental health disorders and risk-taking behaviour. She is an expert in the co-design of interventions, implementation, and evaluation in primary care and online settings with expertise in the design, conduct and analysis of cluster randomised controlled trials. Her work has led to a greater understanding of barriers and enablers for primary care clinicians in caring for young people, effective interventions for lasting improvement in their clinical approach to youth, and methods to enhance young people’s help seeking behaviour including the use of technology.
