The full details of these projects can be accessed here

The Centre for Popular Education convenes various courses, forums and conferences related to health education and social action. Please refer to the relevant web page sections.

Research and Development Projects

• Learner-Centred and Culturally Responsive Patient Education: Drawing on traditions of cultural development and popular education
• Cardiac Patient Education
• Best Practice in HIV-AIDS Education
• Different Notions of Good Peer Education Practice
• Aboriginal Family Support Worker Training Project
• Development of training materials to accompany a health education video about women of non-English speaking background
• Gender, Drug Use and Young People
• Evaluation of the Primary Schools Clusters project, which is part of the NSW component of the National School Drug Education Strategy (NSDES)
• Evaluation of Bridges - a community capacity strengthening strategy to address drug-related issues
• The Katoomba Program
• Peer Education Practice
• Research and evaluation of VicHealth's ‘Communities Together’ Festivals and Celebrations Scheme 2002- 2004
• Making Connections in the MAC

Learner-Centred And Culturally Responsive Patient Education: Drawing On Traditions Of Cultural Development And Popular Education

In 2003 the Centre was commissioned by the Diversity Health Department, Prince of Wales Hospital, to write a discussion paper which crystallised common values of cultural development, patient-centred care, popular education and diversity health. The authors discuss the possibilities of using the cultural experiences of patients and health care practitioners to inform patient education materials and practices. Cultural experience directly shapes what and how people learn. In 2004 the Centre followed up on this paper and successfully obtained funding to develop and trial a popular education and community cultural development strategy. Click here for the funding proposal. Storyboards have been developed. A paper has also been published in a German journal.

We produced storyboards. A sample are attached.

Why storyboards?
A good way to get open and trusting communication is for patients and staff to tell their stories from their perspective. The storyboards are just that. They are stories of patients and staff about what is important to them and how they live or work with cardiac conditions. Each storyboard consists of a story accompanied by an oil painting. Patients can read them and use them as a stimulus to reflect on what is important and meaningful for them. It can help them to decide what they want to share and discuss with staff. Patients are encouraged to think about what they believe staff can do for them and what they as patients expect to be doing for themselves. These storyboards are intended to encourage patients to let staff know what it is like for them living with a heart condition so that the staff become more sensitive and appreciative of patients. The storyboards are likewise intended to let patients know that they are not alone with their fears, concerns and hopes; and to l
et patients know what it is like for staff working in a cardiac ward. Staff are using the storyboards for their staff development in learning effective communication skills.

How we collected the storyboards
We obtained agreement from all storytellers to publish their stories. All names but one have been changed to provide anonymity. George Macris wants his identity known. We interviewed each patient storyteller asking them questions such as ‘what is it like living with a cardiac condition?’, ‘where do you get your information about cardiac management from?’ ‘What have you learnt here on the ward?’ Each clinician storyteller was asked: ‘What is it like working with people who live with cardiac conditions?’ ‘What are your main challenges in trying to help patients learn about their condition?’ ‘How do you describe your role as patient educator?’ We summarised the interview and gave a copy to the storytellers who were invited to make changes to their story to ensure the written story really said what the storyteller had meant. The storyteller was also asked to share what colours, pictures or symbols they would
use if they were to paint their story.

Download PDF (12.9MB)

The artists – Zoe Carides and Dina Gillepsie - used these suggestions to create the oil painting. Some storytellers spoke in Greek because they were not proficient in English and one of the artists spoke fluent Greek.

Cardiologist1 (PDF) Cardiologist2 (PDF) Costa (PDF) Alexander (PDF) George (PDF)

Literature Review of Best Practice in HIV-AIDS Education

The paper is part of AFAO's Best Practice in HIV-AIDS Education Project, which has also involved compiling an annotated bibliography of articles, books and other materials on HIV-AIDS adult education, and writing case studies of six New South Wales HIV-AIDS adult education providers and programs. The paper can be obtained from the Centre for Popular Education, UTS or downloaded (PDF file - 124K).

The discussion paper tries to do three things: identify different theoretical positions in HIV-AIDS education, relate these to a broader body of adult education research and theory, and discuss the implications of this review for contemporary HIV-AIDS education practice.

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Aboriginal Family Support Worker Training Project

Illustrated stories about family support work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families including discussion based exercises was published in 1993.
The booklet can be downloaded.

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Development of training materials to accompany a health education video about women of non-English speaking background

In 1994 we wrote a training package to accompany a video designed to help health professionals appreciate the issues and needs of women of non-English speaking background.

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Cardiac Patient Education

A partnership between the Centre for Popular Education, UTS and the Prince of Wales Hospital and School of Medical Education, UNSW

This project proposes to explore the learner-centered teaching skills of nurses and aims to produce guidelines for best practice in cardiac patient education. By learner-centered education we mean nurses being able to not simply identify what patients want to, and should learn, but being able to identify what helping and educational strategies will be most effective for particular patients. An assumption is being made that patients' learning needs are different, how patients best learn varies, and therefore good education practice requires being able to employ different facilitation skills.

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Gender, Drug Use and Young People

This project is focussed on the impact and implications that gender may or may not have on drug use by young people. Gender is taken to mean a dynamic understanding of the social construct of masculinity and femininity, and specific forms of masculinity and femininity where gender is inflected by other social variables like class, race, ethnicity and sexuality. It is also focussed on realistic aims for school drug education. Some of these were described by Munro (1998), and reiterated by Macdonald (1999) in the NSW National School Drug Education (NSDE) Strategy.

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Evaluation of the Primary Schools Clusters project, which is part of the NSW component of the National School Drug Education Strategy (NSDES)

This project intends to deliver:

• a process evaluation concerning the implementation and progress of the first round of Primary School Clusters;
• oan utcome evaluation of the clusters' effects with respect to their individual objectives and "deliverables", and the objectives of the Primary School Drug Education focus area of the NSW component of the NSDES; and
• reccomendations for further implementation and monitoring of primary school clusters based on the findings of the evaluation.

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Evaluation of Bridges - a community capacity strengthening strategy to address drug-related issues

An evaluation paper is attached. (PDF) The title is:
Bridges: A capacity building strategy to address the social determinants of health behind harm-related alcohol and other drug use in Blacktown

Introduction

This evaluation paper reports on achievements against the stated aims and objectives of the Bridges strategy. But in this paper we will not only describe and discuss immediate performance outcomes, we will also present an analytical framework that outlines medium and long-term outcomes. It is one thing to report on events organised, the numbers of participants who came, the partners and sponsors who were recruited; it is another to explain how this will build resiliency, social capital and other issues underlying alcohol- and other drug-related harm.

Bridges commenced in mid-2000. The first phase of funding and in-kind support from agencies continued to mid-2002. A second phase of funding and support commenced in mid-2003 and continued to April 2006. This evaluation focuses on the second phase. The development of resiliency and social capital outcomes requires time. In this paper we propose a three-tiered hierarchy of outcomes that extends to 2015. We report on progress already made towards the achievement of medium-term capacity building outcomes.

We have organised and presented data in four broad strategic initiatives. This is necessarily an artificial and simplistic rendering of what actually happens. Bridges is a holistic strategy and outcomes in each strategic area overlap with other strategic areas.

Social determinants of health behind harm-related alcohol and other drug use in Blacktown

One key theme in the Bridges strategy is that ‘there’s more to drug use than drugs.’ This is confirmed by data collected in over 300 semi-structured interviews conducted by Bridges volunteers and staff. One question posed in these interviews was 'what factors contribute to harmful drug use?' There is a clear and common thread to people's views. They identified factors such as insecurity because of no work, negative peer pressure, stress, non-supportive family, and inability to talk through problems in families. For a further sample of answers see tables below, particularly the second one entitled Community Leadership, Action Research and Community Education.

These are factors that have less to do with individual, and more to do with, social circumstances. Wilkinson and Marmot (2003) called these types of factors the social determinants of health. They asserted the main social determinants of health are: stress, early life, social exclusion, working conditions, unemployment, social support, addiction, healthy food and transport policy. In an additional round of 75 interviews a question was posed – ‘what relationships could be strengthened and which groups could work together?’ Typical answers included parents and children, teachers and students, young people and service providers.

Bridges is a strategy that builds capacity to address the social determinants of health that contribute to harmful drug use with a particular focus on factors related to the quality of relationships – both personal and organisational. Given this, an evaluation of the Bridges strategy needs to trace how and to what extent it is positively addressing these structural factors.

Benchmark indicators and logic maps

In its second phase the Bridges strategy focused on four broad strategic initiatives: (a) TAFE – school – community collaborations; (b) community leadership, action research and community education; (c) training and development workshops; and (d) clinical – community development links. Each of these strategic interventions can be evaluated by using a three-fold typology of outcomes. The first level of outcomes has to do with the implementation of immediate program activities. These can be classified as performance outcomes. The second level of outcomes is concerned with the medium-term impact of the first level outcomes. Have they strengthened aspects of community capacity? The third level of outcomes is concerned with long-term impact. Has stronger community capacity, in turn, addressed harmful drug use? A key assumption behind this three-fold typology is that change in the social determinants related to harmful drug use will take time. In the first level,
outcomes can be measured over a 24 month period. But the second level requires three years and the third level at least seven years. Taken together, the outcomes across the three levels present benchmark indicators. The Bridges strategy is setting out what indicators should be used to judge success from 2003 to 2016/

This methodological approach will be described and discussed at more length after presentation of data and analysis for the four broad strategic initiatives.

For further information please contact cpe@uts.edu.au

The full details of these projects can be accessed here