Wednesday, 23 November 2011
The Professional and Organisational Development Team, in partnership with the Centre for the Development and Evaluation of Complex Interventions for Public Health Improvement (DECIPHer), is looking for volunteers to take part in Action Learning Sets.
A pilot on action learning – currently running until March 2012 – aims to more closely align research with policy and practice to solve real problems. The team has chosen the area of children and young people for the focus of the pilot. Ongoing evaluation of the pilot has identified the need for further people to be involved in order to secure the long term provision of action learning as a development tool.
Action learning involves working on real problems, focusing on learning and actually implementing solutions. The process integrates research (into what is obscure), learning (about what is unknown) and action (to resolve a problem) into a single activity. It develops an attitude of questioning and reflection to help individuals and organisations change themselves in a rapidly changing world.
The objectives of the pilot action learning sets are to:
- Develop and enhance research skills in the public health workforce;
- Understand how to engage research, evaluation and evidence generation more effectively in policy and practice;
- Build and develop sustainable relations between the public health workforce and academia;
- Contribute to research on the effectiveness of action learning for enhancing skills in the workforce;
- Evaluate the cost effectiveness and the process of action learning.
Twelve people with a specific professional interest in children, young people and schools are currently involved in the pilot. They come from a variety of backgrounds, including academia, research and public health policy and practice.
Claire Barley, Head of Professional and Organisational Development, said: “The pilot will provide evidence and information through an in depth and timely evaluation of the Action Learning Set process. It will review and consider the real benefits of the process to increasing research skills around the children and young people people’s agendas.”
Public Health Wales is working with DECIPHer which is is a UKCRC Public Health Research Centre of Excellence. DECIPHer provides a focal point for collaboration between academia, policy and practice in public health that will maximise the relevance, innovation, translation and impact of public health improvement research nationally and internationally.
Lynnette Thomas, Director of Operations of DECIPHer said: “This is an excellent opportunity to work together across the academic, policy and practice communities to identify solutions and develop research questions that are relevant for knowledge transfer, translation and exchange.”
The Professional and Organisational Development Team and DECIPHer are running training sessions for individuals who would like to lead action learning sets in their work area. The training is also for people who are interested in offering their action learning set facilitation skills more widely across their own or other public health organisations.
The training will run in two half day sessions next year: Wednesday 29 February and Monday 26 March.
Anyone who are interested in becoming a trained Action Learning Set facilitator, or who would like to take part in the action learning sets, should contact Claire Barley at Public Health Wales on Claire.barley@wales.nhs.uk or 029 2082 7641 or Lynnette Thomas at DECIPHer on decipher@cardiff.ac.uk or 029 2087 4739.
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Source:
Public Health Wales
