Twenty years of capacity building and partnership: A case study of a health promotion scholarship program.

Abstract

Building health promotion workforce capacity and infrastructure is critical to ensure a strong evidence base for effective interventions, sustainability and ultimately positive health outcomes for the community. Accordingly, there is a need to build workforce capacity by providing pathways into the health promotion sector with opportunities for core health promotion competency development. Currently, there is a lack of transition programs and graduate-specific positions in health promotion. This study presents a descriptive case study of a 20-year health promotion scholarships program administered by the Australian Health Promotion Association (WA Branch) and Healthway for health promotion graduates and Aboriginal health workers. Scholarship recipients and supervisors reported on demographics, projects and perspectives on the value of participating in the program. More than 2 million dollars has been invested to provide health promotion career pathways in WA via 100 scholarships. Key themes relating to program value included as follows: practical application of theoretical concepts; reciprocity; and building skills and capacity in both recipients and supervisors. The scholarships program results in a number of benefits to the recipient, host organisation and the overall health promotion sector and is an example of long-term investment to build health promotion capacity with potential for replication. SO WHAT?: Investment in competency-driven health promotion scholarships to create dedicated health promotion career pathways for new practitioners contributes to the capacity of an effective health promotion workforce.