Over 150 delegates with an interest, passion, career or future-career in public health, health promotion and community health came together on 25th July 2019 to enhance their knowledge, skills and practice in prevention and health promotion. This unique event provided a rare opportunity to network, connect and learn from other local practitioners and professionals from across Victoria.
Upon registration, our Boomerang Bags were distributed to delegates and were a huge success. Boomerang Bags are all about diverting waste, starting conversations, connecting with each other, fostering sustainable behaviour, and having fun! We filled these with healthy snacks donated by Emma and Toms and Costco as well as vouchers for Aligned Leisure Gyms and our enliven keep cups.
Our MC, Rod Quantock OAM opened the conference with his unique brand of humour.
Following a Welcome to Country, the enliven Deputy Chair, Phillip Toovey, offered an official welcome from enliven.
Keynote presentations followed, including:
Gilbert Rochecouste (Village Well founder and international placemaker) who energised everyone with his presentation on the art of placemaking and community creation and with his talent for playing the bongo drums…
Dr Helen Keleher (Managing Director of Keleher Consulting, and Professor (Adjunct) in Health Science with Monash University) then took centre stage for her presentation on developmental evaluation and its implications for health promotion and prevention
and finally Professor John Toumbourou (Chair in Health Psychology, researcher and health advocate) had us all out of our seats for a stretch before his keynote presentation on measuring social impact – the Communities that Care experience.
Following morning tea and a visit by the Chobani CHOteam, delegates returned to the lecture theatre to hear about the implementation of innovative health promotion and prevention activities and practice in the south east.
After lunch, Master Classes provided delegates with the opportunity to spend over 2 hours delving deeper and honing skills in an area of their choice, ranging from authentic community engagement (Gilbert Rochecouste), Health literacy (Dr Helen Keleher), Data mining (Dr Darshini Ayton) and Theory U (Dr Shelley Bowen).
A fantastic array of posters were submitted to our People’s Choice competition and can be viewed at our enliven offices. The winners of our poster competition, as judged by attendees of the conference, were Cardinia Food Circles (Cardinia Shire Council) and Healthy Choices (Monash Community Health and Peninsula Health). Andrew Jones-Roberts from the Australian Health Promotion Association (AHPA) provided and presented the generous gifts for the prize winners, which included healthy hampers and memberships to AHPA.
Following the formal conference close by Rob Macindoe (Executive Director, enliven), Andrew Jones-Roberts and Lucy Wickham gave a presentation for members, and aspiring members of AHPA regarding the new registration process .
Throughout the day the conference also provided a great opportunity for invaluable networking.
Anecdotally, and via the evaluation conducted, we have received very positive feedback about the conference, however we are also keen to use the feedback provided to improve on this year’s event next time.
To our sponsors (AHPA and SECADA drug and alcohol services), attendees, presenters and our enliven volunteers Jo, Emily, Jess and Adam, enliven would like to extend our sincere gratitude.