Workshop: Education, training and materials for building capacity in national and international settings

 

Introduction, Martin Birley

• Long history of training courses and guides
  
• Standards discussed at successive conferences
• Do we need to standardise around education and training and in guides and textbooks?

 

Building a HIA program in the US, Arthur Wendel

• Base at Healthy Community Design Initiative, our interest in HIA is therefore on the role of HIA in creating healthy community design
• high healthcare expenditure in the US
• Lots of government departments having policies that support HIA and integration into their work and processes
• Lot of HIA stakeholders involved in education and training - public sector, academic, Profesional associations and non-profit organisations
• Aim to train people to do HIAs, 18 HIAS a year, 600 professionals reached per year, engage with oth sustainability efforts, developing a range of materials
• Lot of diferent types (type of decision or policy/project area) and depth of training needed and audience - stakeholders, practitioners and trainers

 

HIA Knowledge and Capacity Building, Hilary Dreaves

• My theme is about moving beyond training and how we create engagement across sectors.
• We run a range of courses and activities at IMPACT - introductory and comprehensive, leadership in HIA, HIA policy and screening seminar and tailore made solutions
• HIA Knowledge Exchange: Mastres level, participative, facilitation, synchronous groups
• Current economic climate has meant that training and education money is not around and we are using action learning and organisational development as a way of developing HIA awareness, knowledge and skills

Education, training and matials for building capacity, Andrew Dannenburg

• Early experiences were apprenticeship and learning by doing.
• Formal courses are short courses (substantial interaction with teachers)' online courses (little or no interaction with teachers), university courses (provide depth of skills, encourages collaboration between students from other courses e.g. planning, can produce a completed HIA at the end of the course but small number of students)
• Each has strengths and weaknesses
• 8 university currently offer HIA modules in the US
• Content is background information about HIAs, introduction to HIA methods, critical reviews of completed HIAs, exercises in steps of conducting HIAs, active engagement in a local HIA project
• Lots of existing material out there

 

Questions for discussion, Salim Vohra

To be added

 

Q&A

Q: How do you teach commissioning of HIA?

A: Not easy, it's informal, word of mouth, rather than a formal training, need to support the, in scoping what they want, managing expectations,

 

Q: You have a synchronous online course on HIA at Liverpool, how did you go about developing that?

A: This is a pilot even at the University, we have quality standards of the university apply to the online course, use Blackboard, having student tracking which shows their access, there are management issues especially of getting people to do the course training...

 

Q: Have found a gap between the course and practice, what a the strategies to close that gap? Know the theory and practice of how to do a HIA but get caught out on the content expertise e.g. transport, energy and food?

Q: Also there need to be learning on project management skills?

A: One bridge is to present a critique of HIAs and we do have a little project management through group work.

A: In practice need to bring in people with those skills/expertise, there is an important role for learning by doing

 

Q: Interested in your experience or perspective on follow up consultation and to develop communities of practice?

A: First time local authorities engage in HIA it does not go well, they learn a lot about analytics and topic area, the support of the State Department and Local Department as skills develop and they gain experience they want to do more HIAs.

 

Q: Wondering about ctification and accreditation of HIA professionals, EIA community has it, why don't we do it and what do we need to do move it forward?

A: Internationally it is difficult because ther are liability issues and the time and effort to do this in the long term.

A: In the US it's too early

A: Mental Wellbeing IA are being accredited...

 

Q: Talking to HIA practitioners have said that they dont need training but other people need it?

A: There needs to be different types and content for training tailored to different audiences. We need to be able to find different types of courses/materials quickly.

 

What are the ways forward? What can we take forward?

• External examiners system to ensure that all the courses we at the same standard, though there is an issue that it can be too rigid.
• Any certification needs to validate that people have learned stuff.
• Having a quality assurance framework when developing a course and have a range of certified and non-certified courses.
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