How we communicate about children’s health matters, and has the potential to shift hearts and minds on the issue. That’s why, on the 21st of March, HSE Health and Wellbeing hosted a webinar on Effective Communications for Child Health and Obesity. The webinar aimed to introduce different ways of communicating about child health and obesity to inspire support for solutions and a belief that we must take action as a society, instead of making people think about individual blame and crisis.
Sarah O’Brien, National Lead of the Healthy Eating Active Living Programme facilitated the webinar. She shared insights from the complex systems map from the 2007 Foresight Report. This map illustrates the connections and interdependencies across home, community and society that influence the environments we live in and our overall health. In short, how what surrounds us shapes our health. The capacity and responsibility to implement the evidence-informed policies and actions that enable change within this complex system lie mainly outside the health sector. However, in the health sector, we do have an important role to play to speak for and champion these changes. This requires us to speak with and engage partners and stakeholders in other areas of the public and private sector; as well as the general public.
We must make these conversations and communications as effective as possible.
Sophie Gordon, Principal Communications Strategist at FrameWorks UK, presented the main content. She provided a template for effective communications in child health covering:
- An introduction to framing and why it matters
- Evidence-based, practical communication tips and advice for communicating about children’s health
- How to build understanding, and increase support for policies and programmes that will help children thrive
In addition, the webinar launched a new resource “Improving Children’s Health in Ireland – A communications guide for talking about child health and obesity” that summarises the key recommendations, provides practical guidance, and includes examples of how to apply them.
A recording of the webinar Effective Communications for Child Health and Obesity is available to view on the HSE YouTube channel.
