Great South Coast Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Planning Support Strategy
Project Purpose: To build the capacity of five LGAs within the Great South Coast (GSC) region to undertake best practice Health and Wellbeing planning and implementation. For further project information refer to the Project Background Recap at the end of this update.
What has been achieved so far?
A review of the five current Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plans (MPHWP) was undertaken in consultation with the LGAs and the Steering Group. A report of the consolidated themes and recommendations for this MPHWP cycle has been developed and the Steering Committee is using these recommendations to guide the direction of the support strategy implementation.
A Community Engagement Framework has been developed, which is guiding the LGAs in developing their community engagement processes for MPHWP planning. This includes engaging key stakeholders, targeted community groups and the general community.
A Policy Review has been prepared to inform the development of the next MPHWPs. The Policy Review provides a snapshot of the complex policy environment with influences at global, national, state and regional levels, within which MPHWPs are implemented. The Policy Review also provides a summary of the key themes of alignment between the policies for plan development and implementation.
Four of the five LGAs have had Councillor Training to support them in their understanding and directing the MPHWP development and implementation.
MPHWP must be based on quality data and evidence. An agreed set of data indicators has been developed and updated across the Great South Coast region, to be the basis of the quantitative data used in the planning process. This dataset will be available on the Great South Coast website in the near future. Each LGA has now used this indicator dataset to develop first cut draft priorities/themes as the starting point for community consultations.
To reduce stakeholders being consulted by multiple LGAs, a GSC key stakeholder consultation workshop was undertaken as part of the Great South Coast Strengthening our Communities Pillar on April 8th. This provided an opportunity for the 5 LGAs to discuss the first cut draft priorities with some of their key stakeholders and to consolidated key themes to assess the commonality across the Great South Coast.
What’s coming up next?
A training needs analysis focusing on LGA staff has been undertaken. The next step is to develop a Professional Development Program to build the skills and expertise of LGAs.
Evaluation training will also be run in the region in the coming months, using the Results Based Accountably Framework.