“Well me” – optimising the LIC, designing, delivering and implementing health literacy and population health improvement projects

Aim and intended outcome/educational objectives

1. How to enthuse students to participate in community engagement

2. Guiding students to explore appropriate pedagogy to teach health literacy. Adapting pedagogy in Covid-19 times

3. Providing guided exploration to overcome barriers to community projects - especially focusing on sustainability

Format

Introductory slides to introduce CARER and the “Well Me” project (15 mins)

Use of facilitated breakout rooms for smaller groups (30 mins)

Feedback from smaller groups, summary and closing remarks (15 mins)

Breakout rooms format:

Random allocation to 3 groups

Use of symbol rock, paper, scissors to decide on roles for the group – white board scribe, spokesperson to the main group

            Hand symbol = Paper

            Thumbs up = Rock

            Teammates cross arms = Scissors

              Discussion of Point 1

              Prior to moving from learning objective 1 to 2, participants must participate in a lightning scavenger hunt (e.g find a red item) and subsequently to proceed from  2-3

Spokespeople to summarise discussions and closing remarks 15 mins

Content

CARER is an example of a Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (LIC) placing third year Cardiff medical students in underserved areas of Wales, with most of the clinical placement in Primary Care. Integral to the LIC is for students to learn in and from a community. "Well me " is a project to improve health literacy in schools in the communities in which the LIC students are embedded. This workshop is to highlight the benefits to both communities and students, of increasing awareness and involving students in improving the health literacy of the population in which they live and study. The workshop is planned to increase the enthusiasm and knowledge required to design and implement an improving health literacy project through engaging with the attendees and also sharing from our experiences. Projects such as this are difficult to maintain sustainability as students are only on community placements for short block rotations. This project has demonstrated that such projects can be sustainable over time and through the challenge of having to change the pedagogy in light of Covid-19 restrictions. Projects such as these at scale could have considerable impact on the way that the population interacts and engages with Primary Care. The benefits to students are improving their communication skills with children, engaging with teaching early in their careers, understanding the importance of health literacy and being able to give back to the community in which they are learning from and living with.

Intended audience

• 1. Undergraduates
• 2. Postgraduates
• 3. Managers
• 4. Administration
• 5. Academics
• 6. Nurses, midwives and allied health professionals
• 7. Researchers
• 8. Policy Makers