REGISTER NOW: your practical toolkit to engage and involve stakeholders in your work

Discover ways to engage consumers, professionals, communities and organisations to maximise health and wellbeing outcomes in the Health and Social Care Unit’s upcoming short course.

Running for a second year, Engaging with Others to (re)Design Approaches to Health and Social Care provides participants with practical tools, techniques and activities to collaboratively design and deliver equitable projects, programs and/or evaluations.

Led by Associate Professor Darshini Ayton, Mitchell Bowden and Dr Sarah Carmody, the two-day course highlights factors to consider during planning and delivery, with a focus on engaging communities that standard approaches commonly exclude.

“We are very real about the processes,” Mr Bowden said. “We help people understand the different levels of involvement, how intricate each level might be and which ones might be appropriate at which time.”

Mr Bowden said the course provided a unique offering not available elsewhere, by arming participants with the “microskills” they’ll need to engage different audiences, including detail on how to run specific types of workshops and activities from beginning to end.

“We’re also encouraging participants to take a step back from the end product of consumer involvement and look at the beginning of the process,” he said.

“Delivery of health care in a collaborative setting is called patient-centred care. And in research if you’re taking a participatory approach, it’s qualitative research. Well, the step back from that is, how do you capture the client/consumer voice in the design of those activities? For example, if you were setting up a new program where patient-centred care might happen, we’re providing the tools to design that program with consumer involvement from the first step – it’s the meeting before the meeting.”

The popular course will run from August 8-9 via Zoom, and is suited to any professional involved in designing, planning and/or evaluating health and/or social care initiatives.

“Whether you’re a team leader, coordinator, manager, practitioner, policy maker or researcher; if you’re taking an engagement approach to your program or project, this course has plenty to offer you.”

For more information contact shortcourses.depm@monash.edu or phone: +61 3 9903 0289.

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