The Hepatitis C Council of NSW has recently expanded its Education and Development Program to include a pilot program of structured developmental work with individual organisations. This new program takes a broad capacity building approach and will provide opportunity for the Council to offer more sustainable outcomes to the agencies we work with.

Within the program we aim to work to improve hepatitis C related practice across all three levels of the organisation: systems, teams and individuals. This approach is notably different to the more commonly used approach of providing information oriented education sessions to staff which while useful for increasing knowledge, often have little impact on changing or improving practice.

The project will involve a team of two Education Project Officers developing a partnership agreement with your organisation over a mutually agreed timeframe, engaing staff and management in a collaborative process that identifies and addresses issues related to hepatitis C service delivery, and assists your organisation to work towards best practice in relation to hepatitis C.

The process may begin with a formal focus group and/or series of informal interviews and meetings with individuals at all levels of staff and management. The aim is to gather a picture of the day to day work of your organisation and to review and assess the placing of hepatitis C within your daily practice and service delivery. Through a facilitated process, your organisation can then begin to identify how your hepatitis C service delivery might be enhanced or improved with the capacities of and resources available to your staff and management.

This initial review process will inform the development of a collaborative action plan. This plan will identify a range of activities and actions which our Education and Development team can provide. Activities within this action plan may include

• staff training
• facilitated workshops to reflect on current practice and develop new practice and program ideas
• policy and procedure, review and development
• provision of specific information or program resources
• creating or enhancing networking and referral links

Organisations such as alcohol and other drug services, youth, accomodation and community services working with clients who are engaging in risk activities such as injecting or unsterile tattooing and body piercing may particularly benefit from the Hepcellence program.

The Hepatitis C Council of NSW will be piloting this program with a small selection of organisations in the first half of 2008 and is seeking expressions of interest from any organisations that are interested in participating in the second half of the year. If your organisation would like to be involved in this process and would like to find out more about it, please email the Coordinator - Education & Developement or phone 9332 1853.