Our blog
We believe in sharing the knowledge and learnings we capture through our work with people and organisations across the health and social services sectors.
Our blog consists of thoughtful and practical content and insight across a range of topic areas that aims to better enable people and organisations to plan, design, implement and evaluate their work.
Beacon Strategies 2021 Projects: a year in review
To acknowledge another successful year (in still somewhat turbulent times), we would like to thank the wonderful client partners we’ve been able to work with and reflect on the impactful projects we’ve had the privilege of working on this year.
Marcus Mission: suicide prevention through peer mentoring
Marcus Mission is a Peer Mentor program that was founded after a young man took his own life. The Peer Mentor program, located in South-East Queensland and run by Wesley Mission Queensland, aims to reduce the risk of suicide for men.
What is Customer Journey Mapping and how can it be used by not-for-profit organisations?
The good news is that with a bit of space, time and well thought through process design, undertaking a customer journey mapping process isn’t unattainable for a not-for-profit organisation to deliver effectively. To help get you started, we’ve outlined a common customer journey mapping process that we have used successfully across a number of previous projects.
What does being ‘ethical’ mean to Beacon Strategies?
So, what does being ‘ethical’ mean to us? To find out, we ran an activity that gathered the perspectives of all of the Beacon Strategies team members. This was a great opportunity to reflect on what ‘being ethical’ means to us as individuals, and to find out more about how it guides how our teammates work.
How can local health systems improve the uptake of social prescribing? A South Eastern NSW case study (3/3)
Moving from a position of mobilising general support for the concepts towards the uptake and implementation of social prescribing elements is the challenge. There are significant opportunities to enhance the uptake of social prescribing in local communities and health systems right across Australia, with PHNs having a particularly profound opportunity to lead the charge.
What does good social prescribing look like? A South Eastern NSW case study (2/3)
In considering what ‘good’ looks like in the context of social prescribing, we should start with why it’s not already happening. It seems logical to focus on a person’s health and social needs and from the work we’ve done with consumers and health professionals, there is shared recognition of the importance and need for something like social prescribing.
What is social prescribing? A South Eastern NSW case study (1/3)
With the continued focus on social prescribing as a ‘high-value, low-cost’ way of improving the responsiveness of the health system, we thought it would be worthwhile to unpack some of what we learnt in that project to share with other PHNs commissioning social prescribing service models or linkage program providers. This blog is the first of three in a South Eastern NSW case study series: what is social prescribing?
What can Primary Health Networks do to strengthen mental health literacy?
Through the experiences and insights shared with us during a project to strengthen the responsiveness of health service to the mental health literacy needs of the community, we thought there was value in unpacking what mental health literacy is, exploring how it can be built in communities, and discussing the role of health services.
Drafting the Suicide Prevention Community Action Plan for the Cairns and Hinterland Region
The development of the Cairns and Hinterland SPCAP has been quite the journey. Although experiencing a number of temporary disruptions, the end result has been more than worth it. The process so far has been a rewarding one with many highlights to report…