Facilitation for Metro South Health Equity Strategy - Implementation Plan
Status: Completed February 2023
Client: Metro South Health
Background
The Metro South Health Equity Strategy, approved by the Metro South Health Board in April 2022, addressed one of Metro South Health’s key strategies which was to improve equity in health outcomes by closing the health gap experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Read more about Metro South Health’s ‘Health Equity Strategy’ here.
Metro South Health (MSH) engaged Beacon Strategies to facilitate a series of workshops to support the implementation planning process and operationalisation of the Metro South Health “Health Equity Strategy”.
The goal of each workshop was to collate diverse perspectives and ideas which would inform the development of the Implementation Plan for the Health Equity Strategy.
Approach
Our engagement with Metro South Health spans two distinct phases: 1) workshop preparation, and 2) workshop facilitation.
Phase 1: Workshop preparation.
Prior to the delivery of the workshops, we supported Metro South Health to prepare the participants for productive sessions.
We helped Metro South Health design an internal conversation guide that was distributed to managers and team leaders to facilitate conversations with internal Metro South staff, focussed on identifying existing activities and ideas relating to new activities.
We worked collaboratively with MSH to develop and administer a survey that prompted staff to identify pre-existing activities and partnerships that could be built upon and primed them to bring along ideas they wanted to see implemented.
We engaged with identified key stakeholders, either internally or externally to Metro South Health through remote 1:1 interviews, briefing them on the intent of the workshops and collecting initial information regarding actions to be embedded within the implementation plan.
We compiled the feedback from the internal conversations, staff survey and external conversations that would inform phase 2.
Phase 2: workshop facilitation
We worked closely with the Metro South Health team to develop facilitation plans to guide the effective delivery of engagement activities.
The facilitation plan mapped activities to MSH’s Health Equity Strategy, and ultimately focussed on documenting actions, responsible parties, resource allocation and timeframes.
We worked with MSH to ensure the most appropriate session format, balancing the needs and experience of both in-person and remote participants.
Once the facilitation plans were agreed, we led the delivery of four half-day staff engagement workshops, providing both an expert facilitator and scribe to ensure that conversations were captured comprehensively. Each workshop comprised a series of discussions and activities which were mirrored across all four workshops.
After the conclusion of the series of workshops, we prepared a brief report that compiled workshop outputs and agreed actions. We engaged with key MSH staff on the exact format and structure of the report to meet their needs and expectations.
Vision Alignment
This project aligns with our vision for a more impactful social purpose sector. The Metro South Health First Natons Equity Implementation Plan has a strong impact on the community by fostering an inclusive, informed, and structured approach to addressing health inequities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
By facilitating workshops and engaging stakeholders, we ensured that diverse voices and perspectives were incorporated into the planning process for the implementation plan. This meant that the resulting plan was more comprehensive and addressed the real needs and concerns of the community.
Outcome
Beacon Strategies successfully facilitated the stakeholder engagement and assisted with data analysis that formulated the final implementation plan.
The final plan is embedded for you to read or you can click here.
You can also keep up to date with future iterations of the strategy by heading to their website here.
Our team understands the important role that LHNs (e.g. Health and Hospital Services or HHSs in QLD and Local Health Districts or LHDs in NSW) play in delivering vital health services to people requiring acute care, specialist outpatient services and community health services. Read more about how we support LHNs here.
