Developing new community health roles : can reflective learning drive professional practice?

Dugdill, L; Coffey, M; Coufopoulos, A; Byrne, K; Porcellato, L

Abstract

A variety of new non-professional roles, such as health trainers and community
food workers, have evolved from recent UK public health policy developments.
These roles predominantly operate in communities characterised by extreme social
deprivation. Their remit is to offer local people support to help change lifestyle
‘choices’, for example, healthy eating or drinking responsibly. However,
encouraging people to change health-related behaviour often ignores the
underlying social determinants of health related behaviour. Health trainers and
community food workers have been identified as being able to bridge the gap
between the health professional and lay person, because of their ability to identify
with local people. The challenges faced by these non-professionals, working at the
coal-face of communities, and in a new and evolving role, are as yet poorly
understood and this paper details the mechanism of reflective learning adopted by
these practitioners in order to explore the professional practices involved.
Emergent issues faced by these new practitioners include: understanding the
boundaries between the trainer role and other health services; and the issues raised
by the community, for example, presenting with non-health reasons such as
financial crisis, which the trainers were often unprepared to deal with, rather than
‘lack of health skills’ (e.g. cooking skills). This paper explores how reflective
learning processes can deconstruct the experiences of this ‘new level of the health
workforce’ who have on the one hand the sensibility and sensitivity to develop
relationships with individuals and households in poorer communities, yet are ill
equipped to deal with the wider structural factors often determining behaviour.

Citation

Dugdill, L., Coffey, M., Coufopoulos, A., Byrne, K., & Porcellato, L. (2009). Developing new community health roles : can reflective learning drive professional practice?. Reflective Practice, 10(1), 121-130. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623940802652979

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Feb 1, 2009
• Deposit Date: Feb 26, 2010
• Journal: Reflective Practice
• Print ISSN: 1462-3943
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 10
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 121-130
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14623940802652979
• Keywords: health trainers; community food workers; professional practice
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623940802652979