‘Making Every Contact Count Champions Event’ was a key event organised in April 2023 by Community Healthcare Organisation Dublin North City and County (CHO DNCC) and was supported by the National MECC Programme. To learn about the benefits of Making Every Contact Count for Health Professionals, click here.
One of the nine recommendations in the Making MECC Work research to enhance the implementation of MECC, (https://www.makingmeccwork.com/) is to ‘Have local MECC champions to model best practice and share experiences’. This timely event was a huge success with 29 out of 35 recruited Champions attending on the day, representing all 12 Community Healthcare Networks.
Bríd Greenan, MECC Programme Lead for CHO DNCC, coordinated the day and commended the “great enthusiasm on the day from all attendees, with one Champion coming straight from the airport after their holiday in South Africa!”
The aim of the event was to promote, support and mobilise the implementation of our key chronic disease prevention programme, Making Every Contact Count. It was an opportunity for new Champions to hear how this key priority programme started in North Dublin Mental Health Services. Special thanks to the main speaker Derek Keeling from Mental Health Services, who is now Champion for Kilbarrack West and Killester Mental Health Services. We also heard from Clinical Practitioners who are making their interactions with service user’s count; Ciara Kealy Physiotherapist, Shane Manton Clinical Nurse Specialist and Susan Mac Nicholas, Stop Smoking Advisor.
The event provided a space for shared learning, exploring different ways of working together to support cultural adoption and implementation of this Framework. It also gave all Health Care Professionals information about the supports available from the local Health & Wellbeing Team. The feedback from the event was very positive, with Champions stating: ‘I’m feeling more confident in my role as Champion after this event’ and ‘This is a very thoughtful and great initiative to reduce prevalence of chronic disease in our health service’.
CHO DNCC Health Promotion & Improvement Officers also found the event useful for networking and exploring the barriers and opportunities to promote and implement this key chronic disease prevention programme. To avail of the online training, go to www.hseland.ie and log on the www.makingeverycontactcount.ie to get details of your local MECC Programme Lead for workshop information