Action learning for health on campus: muddling through with a model? University College of St Martin, Lancaster Alan Beattie BACKGROUND: ROOTS AND INSPIRATION The sources of the project at the University College of St Martin lie in part in the challenge of teaching health promotion in universities. Universities in the United Kingdom have three distinct strategies for developing professional preparation for health education and health promotion the new cadres approach, which sets out to create new (1): health education and health promotion specialist practitioners; the mainstreaming strategy, which aims to install effective health education and health promotion practice as a central element in the role of the existing major helping professions; and the alliances approach, which invests in developing patterns of teamwork for health education and health promotion for specific settings (2–4). The work on St as a Health Promoting College was Martin’s undertaken as a sort of practicum on the campus itself to link academic studies of health education and health promotion to practical action at the local level Another relevant model was what a 1977 report (5,6). from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (7) had called regional health university” committed to developing “a – teaching and research across a range of health professions on public health issues relevant to the local population. Finally, a third and crucial influence was a 1993 book called that The health promoting college (8) reported on a major study of a settings-based approach to 45
Action learning for health on campus: muddling through with a model? University College of St Martin, Lancaster Alan Beattie BACKGROUND: ROOTS AND INSPIRATION The sources of the project at the University College of St Martin lie in part in the challenge of teaching health promotion in universities. Universities in the United Kingdom have three distinct strategies for developing professional preparation for health education and health promotion (1): the new cadres approach, which sets out to create new health education and health promotion specialist practitioners; the mainstreaming strategy, which aims to install effective health education and health promotion practice as a central element in the role of the existing major helping professions; and the alliances approach, which invests in developing patterns of teamwork for health education and health promotion for specific settings (2–4). The work on St Martin’s as a Health Promoting College was undertaken as a sort of practicum on the campus itself to link academic studies of health education and health promotion to practical action at the local level (5,6). Another relevant model was what a 1977 report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (7) had called “a regional health university” – committed to developing teaching and research across a range of health professions on public health issues relevant to the local population. Finally, a third and crucial influence was a 1993 book called The health promoting college (8) that reported on a major study of a settings-based approach to 45
healthpromotinguniversities-concept,experience,framework.docx