The client
Launched in April 2004, Partnership Health Canterbury (PHC)  – Te Kei o Te Waka, is the largest Primary Health Organisation in New Zealand.  A not for profit organisation,  PHC works with and for our community to coordinate the delivery of primary health care to over 365,000 people in and around Christchurch.

As part of its role, PHC works closely with the Canterbury District Health Board, and the Ministries of Health and Social Development (MSD).
 

The challenge 
PHC saw an opportunity to expand the update of a resource produced by Ministry of Social Development, and at the same time advance a number of the health initiatives within its remit. The goal was to take “The Great Little Cookbook” and make it the foundation of a flexible set of training resources that could be picked up by those in a facilitation role of some sort in the region. The profile of facilitators was very diverse, from health professionals to cooking and culture groups... 

The challenge for Synapsys was to come up with a design for a programme flexible enough to suit the needs of all potential facilitators, but structured enough to still deliver the intended nutritional outcomes. The programme also needed to serve the dual purposes of:

• Providing a complete kit ready for programme delivery
• Act as a train-the-trainer resource to get facilitators to the point of being able to use it.

 

The solution
Start with a clear understanding of the audience. Because facilitators could be delivering anything from a Thai cooking course to obesity awareness, flexibility was the key.

Facilitators were able to pick from a smorgasbord of modules and tailor the use of the resources to suit their context, their audience. How did we achieve that?

• Design visually engaging, clear templates
• Develop a comprehensive module structure that was flexible enough to be used by experienced cooking tutors right  through to coaching by  community workers
• Bring an educational design review process to source material and create effective learning activities and feedback processes
• Manage all production of materials including custom folders
• Design and run initial train-the-trainer sessions.

The benefit
Over 200 folders have been produced and are now in use, with outstanding results. The product has been recognised with the 2010 People’s Choice Award at the Canterbury District Health Board’s Quality Improvement and Innovation Award.