Supporting The Best Possible Start For Children In Scotland January 29, 2009
Posted by jboyce in : Health & Early Years Network, Service Champions , 2comments
NSS Seminar Tuesday 3rd March 2009
In this my first trial post…
Can I draw your attention to a forthcoming National Services Scotland (NSS) seminar entitled ‘NSS - Supporting The Best Possible Start For Children In Scotland’, to be held on Tuesday 3rd March 2009 at the Teacher Building, St Enoch’s Square Glasgow. The seminar runs from 10am to 3.45pm.
The seminar will feature:
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Presentations |
Presenter |
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Recent developments in pregnancy / new born screening policy |
Dr Ros Skinner |
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Child health inequalities |
Dr Jim Chalmers |
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Child vaccination / immunisation schedule update |
Dr Claire Cameron |
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|
|
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Workshops |
Facilitator |
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The Care of Critically ill Children in Remote and Rural Areas |
Dr Andrew McIntyre |
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Audit of High Dependency Care for Children & Young People in Scotland: Supporting Scotland’s Healthcare Planning |
Ms Julie Adams |
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Implications of recently published SGHD report on Early years, early intervention |
TBC |
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Clinical quality and outcome indicators for children’s specialist services |
Clare Clark & Alastair Philp |
To register for a place, simply complete the registration form on the following link http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5887.html and click the send button.
Completed forms should be returned no later than Tuesday 24th February.
Please feel free to pass these details on to any colleagues who may be interested in attending. Further seminars will be organised during 2009/2010, details of which will be circulated later in the year.
If you have any queries or require any further information, please contact Bill Dunn in the ISD Customer Relations Group on 0131 275 6234 or by e-mail at bill.dunn@isd.csa.scot.nhs.uk
Logic Modelling January 28, 2009
Posted by wrays2 in : Uncategorized , 1 comment so farIn preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Having spent a good bit of time in the last few weeks working on logic modelsrelated to health outcomes I can agree with this sentiment. I have never been good at absorbing information that is presented in boxes. For people like me at least the product of the logic modelling process is not very useful as a communication tool about the plan that it describes, particularly if I haven’t been involved in developing it. However, the process of developing the logic model really does help with thinking through the linkages between Outcomes ( the impacts we want), the Outputs (the tasks we perform) and Inputs (what we invest) in a complex and dynamic environments such as health and well being.
Logic Modelling is never going to be a favourite task for me, but at least I can understand why it is necessary.
I am still an edubuzz novice and havent mastered the art of inserting images but hopefully clicking below will reveal a draft logic model for Support from the Start
Starting a conversation January 18, 2009
Posted by wrays2 in : Health & Early Years Network , 1 comment so far‘Support from the Start’ aims to improve health in areas of East Lothian that have the poorest health outcomes by focusing on early years and parenting. Engaging service providers and members of the community is key to its success.
But what does ‘enagement’actually mean and how can it be achieved?
Communties scotland has developed standards for community engagement, and the guidelines for the standards gives the following definition :-
Developing and sustaining a working relationship between one or more public body and one or more community group, to help them both to understand and act on the needs or issues that the community experiences
So in this case community engagement means :
Developing and sustaining a working relationship betweent council, health and voluntary sector services that provide or support services to parents and children between 0 and eight, and the communities of Tranent, Wallyford, Whitecraig, Prestonpans and Musselburgh East to help them both understand and act on the issue of health inequality.
How can this ‘working relationship’ be developed and sustained?
In my experience good working relationships are like good conversations created from a mutual interest, and a mutual acceptance that the other person has something valid and important to offer / say. Crucially both sides need to demonstrate that they are listening to maintain the interest and involvement of the other partner.
At a national conference on Equally Well I heard a speaker from the International Futures forum talk about a ‘civic conversation’ as method of community engagement. The idea of a ‘civic conversaton’ was first put forward by philospher Anthony Grayling and has since been developed as a methodology for trying to find out what people and services thought was important for the future of Glasgow, and to develop an understanding between services and community about the desired future.
If we have health as part of the ethos of the city, then what policies and actions ought we develop to make this apparent and explicit. A civic conversation explores aspirations and possibilities for worthwhile action to ensure that both Glasgow and Glaswegians flourish. The basic premise underlying the civic conversation is that the way a community talks to itself, how it forms its values, beliefs and policies ultimately influences how it behaves.
On the 16th March Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer is coming to a conference in East Lothian to help us start a ‘civic conversation’ about health inequality. He will tell us why acting on health inequality is so important to East Lothian’s and Scotland’s future, and why the early years of life are crucial to improving health and preventing illness. Having intiated this ‘civic conversation’ we will need to be able to develop and sustain it, and the afternoon session of the conference will look at how we can take this conversation into the target communities. However, the end of the conference will not be the end of the conversation only the end of its beginning. We hope the community members and service providers that attend will go away with ideas about how to continue a ‘civic conversation’, and that the result of the many conversations that take place will be brought together in the following year at an event that will focus on developing and deepeing the conversation by showing how services and communities have listened to each other on the issue of health inequality.
Supporting research and evaluation January 5, 2009
Posted by wrays2 in : Health & Early Years Network, Research & Evaluation , add a comment
Learning is intended as one of the key tools for ‘Support from the Start’. The following describes how we will be supporting the learning process around ‘Support from the Start’.
We start from the premise that tackling health inequality is not something that is completely understood - there are no off the peg solutions.
However, we will not be ignoring what is already known, and part of the learning process will be disseminating information about what has been shown to work in the rest of Scotland and internationally. The Health & Early Years Learning Network will have a key role to play in this work. This network will be chaired by Ann Hume, East Lothian Council’s Early Years and Childcare Officer, and will promote and organise events and training session for ‘Support form the Start’. The first of these will be on the 16th March, and we are delighted to announce that the Guest Speaker will be Harry Burns, Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer. More information on this event will be the subject of another post - however you can reserve a place by emailing your contact details to: healthyliving@eastlothian.gov.uk
To support services and communities that want to undertake evaluation and research in relation to ‘Support from the Start’, we are establishing a Research and Evaluation group which will be chaired by Queen Margaret University. This group will bring together people and organisations with expertise to act as an information and support for ‘Support form the Start’ research and evaluation activity. Anybody that has a research idea connected to the health of children in the early years will be able to submit it to this group and receive feedback on how they might be able to turn into a practical research / evaluation proposal. The group will also be tasked with maintaining an overview of research and evaluation taking place in respect of ’Support from the Start’, and liaising with national groups and resources for research.
Another way learning will be supported is through ‘Action Learning Sets’. The Set members will be those individuals that have been identified as champions for ‘Support from the Start’. The Sets will allow the champions to meet on a regular basis and discuss problems and issues associated with tackling health inequality in their service areas.
Finally, this blog aspires to be a place where people can not only learn about East Lothian’s Equally Well Test Site, but also debate issues in relation to tackling inequalities in health.
Happy New Year
Steven Wray
