Health: Everyone’s Business

Local Government has a rich history of public health leadership and recent policy developments in Healthy Lives Healthy People have again placed it at the centre of public health delivery. We have been successful in equipping Local Authorities to harness their potential to improve population health and reduce health inequalities through their core functions. The Health: Everyone’s Business training programme targets senior managers across directorates so that they become public health ‘champions’ in their current and future roles. The style of the sessions is inclusive and interactive, and encourages participants to discover the connections between their roles in Local Authority and people’s health.

PHAST can also provide a ‘Train the Trainer’ package to equip public health professionals to deliver Health: Everyone’s Business in their local area.

Learning aims and objectives:
Participants will:

• Gain the knowledge, skills and language to promote health within key Council roles
• Understand the healthcare landscape and NHS commissioning
• Explore The Marmot Review and other sources of evidence to gain an understanding of upstream and wider determinants of health and wellbeing and appreciate the Council’s role in building healthy, sustainable communities
• Understand that health is a commodity that is not evenly distributed within our communities
• Be able to differentiate between health, wellbeing and illness and to explore positive concepts of mental and physical health
• Have explored myths about mental illness
• Have examined opportunities in the workplace to promote health
• Understand how to access impacts of Local Authority policy on the health of the population
• Have explored within their Council roles, opportunities to improve health outcomes
• Have initiated, planned and presented a project to demonstrate positive health impacts within the context of their roles.

Tutors from a range of national and local organisations will lead highly interactive sessions. Our experiential approach means that participants apply their knowledge and skills to a practical piece of work that builds public health capacity within the organisation. The course culminates in a showcase event to present projects to and for Councillors, partner organisations and staff.

For more information on this course and how the content can be adapted to suit the needs of your organisation, or you as an individual, please email enquiries@phast.org.uk.