Department of Health
A gateway to the strategies, policies, programs and services delivered by the Department of Health.
Healthy Tasmania is the Government’s plan for making Tasmania the healthiest state by 2025. Focusing on four priority areas - reducing smoking, healthy eating and physical activity, community connections and chronic conditions screening and management – Healthy Tasmania involves a wide range of projects and initiatives to help Tasmanians make positive and healthy changes to their lives.
Forums Bring Together Community and Government Inspired Cross-sector Collaboration
On 13 August 2019, over 170 representatives from community and government came together at the Healthy Tasmania Community Forum to celebrate the work being completed as part of Healthy Tasmania and share ideas about health and wellbeing.
Participants heard from a range of local projects and initiatives and keynote speakers including Billie Giles-Corti, Alan Shiell and Kym Goodes.
Above: Guests at the Healthy Tasmania Community Forum listening to a keynote presentation from Professor Billie Giles-Corti.
Many ideas were shared the next day at the Premier’s Health and Wellbeing Advisory Council’s (PHWAC) Leaders’ Breakfast and Health in All Policies Forum.
At the Leaders’ Breakfast the Premier, Deputy Premier and PHWAC Chair signed the Tasmania Statement – Working Together for the Health and Wellbeing of Tasmanians
Right: Deputy Premier Jeremy Rockliff, Minister for Health Sarah Courtney, Graham Lynch PHWAC Chair, and Premier Will Hodgman at the signing of ‘The Tasmania Statement’
The Statement describes the principles that underpin collaboration on long-term solutions to address the social and economic factors that influence health.
Politicians from all parties, senior policy staff across state and local government, and representatives from UTAS, community sector organisations and health groups, attended the events. Participants at the Health in All Policies Forum provided their ideas for how the Tasmanian Statement can be practically implemented.
These ideas are being considered by PHWAC, who will provide advice to the Premier on next steps.
New Look Web Portal
After feedback from our users the Healthy Tasmania web portal has been redesigned with a fresh new look and vivid content, such as grant stories, news and events.
While we are still testing and tweaking, we welcome feedback about your experience with the website, including the look, feel and content.
Our aim is to provide a wide range of information, resources and events on health and wellbeing for Tasmanians – a one-stop shop for preventative health information.
Send your feedback to ahealthytasmania@health.tas.gov.au
Healthy Tasmania Community Innovations Grants
Grants up to $25 000 were available to fund innovative and community-driven projects supporting healthy eating, physical activity and quitting smoking. $1 million was available over two rounds of grants.
Round 2 projects commenced in April and an informal forum for grant recipients to network and share progress will be held in mid-November.
Stories from the grant projects are shared on our Healthy Tasmania Portal and Facebook page
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre has been doing some exciting things with their Healthy Tasmania Innovations Grant. The kipli nayri takariliya rrala (Good Food, Strong Families) project delivered culturally appropriate short courses on nutrition and physical activity to Tasmanian Aboriginal community members. The project also includes a storybook in palawa kani. This is a fantastic example of preserving and reviving language with both Healthy Tasmania and community support.
Healthy Tasmania Fund
We received over 100 applications for the Healthy Tasmania Fund. Grants up to $200 000 were available for projects focusing on reducing smoking, improving healthy eating and/or physical activity, or reducing obesity and the levels of overweight Tasmanians.
Applications are currently being assessed and we will contact all applicants in November. Keep updated at Department of Health - Healthy Tasmania Fund Grants
Go Healthy Tasmania!
Our partnership with the Tasmanian Hawks is a new way for us to engage with Tasmanians and promote the benefits of being active and making healthy lifestyle choices. A key focus of our partnership is to spread Healthy Tasmania messages to help Tasmania live happy healthier lives.
This season Healthy Tasmania joined up with the Hawthorn Football Club to celebrate healthy habits and sponsor the Round 17 clash against Fremantle Dockers at UTAS Stadium.
The match day experience gave footy fans a range of fun activities, including a giant game of volleyball with match day prizes and surveys.
Our healthy habits postcard was popular, but our veggie (broccoli and corn) mascots stole the limelight as they rocked on with the crowd.
Our social media contests, healthy habit videos and on-field activities with the Hawks encouraged conversations around healthy habits, active lifestyles and good food choices.
Healthy Parks Healthy People
Healthy Parks Healthy People is a global movement based on the growing evidence that being outside in nature is good for your health and wellbeing. We are working with Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service to engage with targeted communities to promote Healthy Parks Healthy People messages and the health benefits of visiting parks and reserves. Events held so far include a NAIDOC Week event for schools in Wynyard, a weekend of community bonding and conservation in larapuna, an event for men and their families at Waterworks Reserve in Hobart and yoga and laughter workshops at Tamar Wetlands for Mental Health Week.
Left: Participants in the conservation weekend at larapuna. Image: Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service
Healthy Tasmania Challenge
The Healthy Tasmania Challenge is a series of on- and off-line campaigns to motivate Tasmanians to get healthy with rewards. Our recent campaigns include the Neighbour Day, Active Living Challenge and Facebook Challenges.
The Neighbour Day Challenge
Our partnerships with Relationships Australia Tasmania and Libraries Tasmania continued this year, with joint promotion of our community challenge to support Neighbour Day. Communities who registered for Neighbour Day events on 31 March 2019 were encouraged to submit their ideas for creating connections and addressing loneliness in their community to go in the draw to win $1 000 or $5 000 for their community. Read the full list of successful Healthy Tasmania Neighbour Day Community Challenge projects
A special launch event for the 2019 campaign was held at the location of a Healthy Tasmania Community Innovations Grant Round 2 recipient and attended by then Health Minister Michael Ferguson, Relationships Australia Tasmania Acting CEO Michael Kelly, fishing guru and Neighbour Day ambassador Nick Duigan and local community members.
We look forward to sharing the project stories across our Facebook page and Healthy Tasmania Portal
Supporting Communities to Get Active
We are working with Neighbourhood Houses Tasmania to encourage small-scale active living initiatives in communities. Twenty-six Neighbourhood Houses applied for and received grants of $1 000 for active living and physical activity projects in their communities. Projects range from making large outdoor games to use in the community to purchasing equipment for exercise classes and gardening. We look forward to hearing about the completed projects early next year.
We also asked Neighbourhood Houses to complete a survey about active living in their community, results will be available soon.
Healthy Tasmania Facebook Challenge
The Healthy Tasmania Challenge aims to motivate Tasmanians to be healthy. There have been some great entries, with people telling us about their healthy habits, their favourite mountain bike spots and some of their healthy picnic snacks. Comments from our entrants like “I switch the bus for jogging to work twice a week” or “being outdoors always picks me up” reflect the positive habits the challenge is trying to promote.
Healthy Tasmania Facebook Page
The Healthy Tasmania Facebook page has just celebrated its second year. It provides hints and tips on healthy eating, moving more, sleep, drinking water and connecting with friends and family. We are excited that word is getting out and there has been an increase in the number of likes and followers on our Facebook page. A recent top performing post featured a short video encouraging Tasmanians aged 18-24 years old to take part in a survey about water drinking habits led by Public Health Services. The post reached over 12 500 people and more than 800 surveys were completed.
Recent Healthy Tasmania Challenge post
Can local communities change systems to improve health?
The Tasmanian Anticipatory Care Action Research Project is researching how community driven initiatives can influence the way that systems work and whether this can deliver better health outcomes for local people.
Chronic ill-health is a growing challenge – a wicked problem that formal health services alone cannot solve. The Anticipatory Care Project involves four Tasmanian communities implementing a broad range of activities aimed at improving the health and wellbeing in their communities to reduce rates of chronic disease.
The four Tasmania communities involved are:
- Flinders Island – Our Health, Our Future, led by Flinders Island Aboriginal Association Inc.
- Ulverstone – Connecting Care led by Patrick St Clinic
- Northern Suburbs of Launceston – Our Community, Our Care led by Northern Suburbs Community Centre and Starting Point Neighbourhood House
- Clarence – Help to Health led by Clarence City Council
Supporting Community Health and Wellbeing
The Local Government Association of Tasmania (LGAT) has been consulting and supporting councils to share information about local planning and initiatives that improve people’s health and wellbeing with Healthy Tasmania funding. Some of LGAT’s activities include working to facilitate partnerships between councils and other organisations and developing and collating a series of LGAT web resources to support councils.
The project is currently considering strategic directions and sustainability beyond its completion in June 2020.
What matters to you?
The What matters to you? Health Literacy Forum was held at the Tailrace Centre in Launceston on 29 October.
Asking what matters, listening to what matters and acting on what matters is the key to creating meaningful engagement with clients and their family members and is the foundation of health literacy.
At the forum the new Health Literacy Action Plan (2019 – 2024) was launched by the Hon. Jeremy Rockliff, Minister for Mental Health & Wellbeing. Tasmania was the first state to have a Health Literacy Action Plan. This plan builds on the original and is a further commitment to the Healthy Tasmania Strategic plan.
Professor Don Nutbeam delivered a compelling talk about Health Literacy reflecting on his efforts to promote the importance of health literacy for over 30 years. He also spoke about his work in setting up the Health Literacy Hub in Western Sydney.
This was followed by 13 presentations about what is happening in health literacy in Tasmania.
In the four workshops attendees learned how to make short videos, improve consumer engagement, write in plain English and work with interpreters.
If you would like to become a Health Literacy supporter, register at 26TEN Get the Tools for Life
Carbon Monoxide Trial for Antenatal Care
In a recent trial, carbon monoxide (CO) breath testing was used with pregnant women within the Midwifery Group Practice at the Royal Hobart Hospital as part of routine antenatal care provided by midwives between 1 July 2018 and 30 June 2019.
The trail saw an increase of referrals to a smoking cessation specialist from 10 per cent in 2016 to 90 per cent during the project. Thirty-six per cent of women then successfully quit smoking during the trial. In addition, the average length of smoke-free time for women who made some attempt at quitting, successful or otherwise, was 11 weeks.
The project was well received by both midwives and pregnant women, including non-smokers. It demonstrated that CO monitoring could be successfully implemented as a routine part of antenatal care. An evaluation of the project has been completed.
Smoke Free Young People
Work on a new Smoke Free Young People Strategy 2019 - 2021 is underway and will be finalised shortly. The strategy outlines how we can work together to protect young Tasmanians from the harmful effects of tobacco use by preventing smoking uptake and helping those who have already started smoking to quit.
Young people will be engaged wherever possible to improve outcomes and existing resources such as the Smoke Free Generation – Be a Part of It!branding and the Smoke Free website will continue to be used. It builds on outcomes from the previous strategy that showed positive collaboration between partners can be achieved and that there is great energy and interest in this issue.
Healthy Kids ToolKit
The Healthy Kids blogs and videos are now much easier to access through the new blogs and videos button on the Healthy Kids website. The search function makes it easy to add links to newsletters and find blogs to share on social media platforms. There is also a link to the new Healthy Young Peoples page. Look out for upcoming blogs on food for the festive season and body image in pregnancy.
Student Health Initiative
As part of the Student Health Initiative $2 million of funding is being provided over four years for schools to partner with community organisations to promote broad change and meet longer-term health and wellbeing needs of the school community.
Funds have been given to 52 Tasmanian schools so far to support projects on nutrition, food and agriculture, physical activity, drug education and emotional health and wellbeing. A fourth round of funding is currently underway for projects to be delivered in 2020.
A film of highlights from some of the successful school projects was recently shown at the Healthy Tasmania Community Forum.
New Websites for Healthy Young People and Healthy Ageing
A new Healthy Young People website has just been launched! The site is a free inquiry-based resource where young people are supported to take the lead in making healthy choices easier at school.
Healthy Young People aims to develop students’ health literacy and promote skills, knowledge, values and attitudes to support life-long health and wellbeing.
These resources are aimed at students, teachers and school staff, youth workers, social workers and people who work with your people.
The Department of Health also recently launched its new Healthy Ageing website. It’s full of useful information and resources to help those aged over 65 to stay well. You’ll find nutrition and physical activity resources, recipes, video clips, links to free online training, key contacts and suggestions for support.
Ritualize – Healthy Tasmanian Workplaces
Ritualize have just launched their Kickstart to Summer Quest. The quest focuses on the movement, nutrition, sleep and mindset through a month of easy to adopt rituals that people can include in their day.
Healthy Tasmania sponsored fitness trackers will be used as additional incentives to support participants with sustainable lifestyle changes.
Move Well Eat Well
Move Well Eat Well has been celebrating 10 years of continuously supporting the healthy development of children and young people by promoting physical activity and healthy eating as a normal positive part of every day.
Recently Move Well Eat Well acknowledged teachers and staff that have been significant supporters of the program through the Recognised School Leader initiative.
Congratulations to the recipients:
- Catriona Hurd - Scotch Oakburn College
- Wendy Cracknell - Howrah Primary School
- Kris Von Schill - Port Sorell Primary School
- Gary Pennicott - Glenorchy Primary School
- Amy Hodgman - Rokeby Primary School
- Andrew McClean - Oatlands District School
- Annaleise Horne - Cambridge Primary School
- Dayna Cutting - Our Lady of Lourdes School
- Matt Kenny - Richmond Primary School
- Kate Pilkington - Lauderdale Primary School
- Jenny Sullivan - Goulburn St primary school
- Karla Reeves - Miandetta Primary School
Social media posts highlighting their stories can be found at Move Well Eat Well Primary School Facebook page
Move Well Eat Well are working collaboratively with their partners at the Tasmanian School Canteen Association and Family Food Patch to offer Pop Up Picnics featuring the Well Fed Tasmania Food Van to winning Award Schools and Early Childhood Services.
The winning schools are St Brigid's Catholic School, Wynyard, Glenorchy Primary School and Waimea Heights Primary School.
Below: Well Fed Tasmania Food Van
