The development of a Health Promotion Community Participation Framework

This paper reports on research conducted through Monash University located in the state of Victoria, Australia. The outcome of the research was the development of a Health Promotion Community Participation Framework, providing guidelines for health professionals in community health centres and services to assist them with facilitating community participation in health promotion. A literature review was conducted and information collected from health professionals working in metropolitan and rural community health centres and services across the state of Victoria, Australia. The Framework does not emphasise levels of community participation as a hierarchy, but instead proposes using the levels or types of participation across a continuum. This has been done to encourage the use of appropriate transparent strategies that will enable both individual community members and different sections of communities to participate in health promotion activities. This is particularly important where government policies dictate the direction of health promotion, as this "top down" approach can lead to the community being excluded for health promotion processes. The use of a continuum promotes the concept that participation can be effective at different levels, even when the issue to be addressed has already been identified. The Framework also proposes that in order for community participation strategies to take place, there needs to be capacity building at both the organisational level and the community level.