Building capacity for the use of systems science to support local government public health planning: a case study of the VicHealth Local Government Partnership in Victoria, Australia

Abstract

ObjectiveTo present an approach to build capacity for the use of systems science to support local communities in municipal public health and well-being planning.DesignCase study.SettingLocal government authorities participating in the VicHealth Local Government Partnership in Victoria, Australia.ParticipantsLocal government staff members were trained in community-based system dynamics (CBSD), and group model building (GMB) techniques to mobilise local community efforts. The trained local government facilitation teams then delivered GMB workshops to community stakeholder groups from 13 local government areas (LGA)s.Main outcomesTraining in CBSD was conducted with council facilitation teams in 13 LGAs, followed by the local delivery of GMB workshops 1–3 to community stakeholders. Causal loop diagrams (CLD) representing localised drivers of mental well-being, healthy eating, active living or general health and well-being of children and young people were developed by community stakeholders. Locally tailored action ideas were generated such as well-being classes in school, faster active transport and access to free and low-cost sporting programmesResultsOverall, 111 local government staff participated in CBSD training. Thirteen CLDs were developed, with the stakeholders that included children, young people and community members, who had participated in the GMB workshops across all 13 council sites. Workshop 3 had the highest total number of participants (n=301), followed by workshop 1 (n=287) and workshop 2 (n=171).ConclusionsLocal facilitation of the CBSD process has developed community informed and locally relevant CLDs that will be used to lead local action to improve the well-being of children and young people. Training employees in CBSD is one approach to increase systems thinking capacity within local government.

The common drivers of children and young people’s health and wellbeing across 13 local government areas: a systems view

“…The data used in this analysis were collected in GMB workshops facilitated by local government-based prevention workforce (referred to hereon as “councils”) as part of the VicHealth Local Government Partnership (VLGP), implemented across the state of Victoria, Australia. The VLGP has been described in detail in a prior publication [ 10 ]. Briefly, the partnership provides support to councils to deliver evidence-based actions to improve children and young people’s health and wellbeing.…”

“…Briefly, the partnership provides support to councils to deliver evidence-based actions to improve children and young people’s health and wellbeing. Eight evidence-informed health promotion modules were designed to provide a series of practical ‘how-to guides’ for policy, program development/delivery and practice change [ 10 , 17 ]. One of the VLGP modules, Connecting the Dots (CtD), consisted of structured training and ongoing support for councils to deliver GMB sessions as a mechanism to incorporate systems thinking and community co-design principles into local government prevention practise [ 10 , 17 ].…”

“…Eight evidence-informed health promotion modules were designed to provide a series of practical ‘how-to guides’ for policy, program development/delivery and practice change [ 10 , 17 ]. One of the VLGP modules, Connecting the Dots (CtD), consisted of structured training and ongoing support for councils to deliver GMB sessions as a mechanism to incorporate systems thinking and community co-design principles into local government prevention practise [ 10 , 17 ]. The resultant CLDs, created with community input from across each Local Government Authority, were used to inform relevant council health and wellbeing planning and action delivery until 2025.…”

“…CLDs have been used with large numbers of locally based government and community members and are a unique representation of the stakeholder perspectives in a community. More recently multiple CLDs have been generated across a number of communities within the same project, targeting the same outcome [ 10 ]. An example is the VicHealth Local Government Partnership working in multiple municipalities, building CLDs independently from each other as part of public health planning; and the findings, from each CLD providing additional insight for other municipalities that were not revealed during their independent GMB workshops [ 10 ].…”

“…More recently multiple CLDs have been generated across a number of communities within the same project, targeting the same outcome [ 10 ]. An example is the VicHealth Local Government Partnership working in multiple municipalities, building CLDs independently from each other as part of public health planning; and the findings, from each CLD providing additional insight for other municipalities that were not revealed during their independent GMB workshops [ 10 ]. Another example is the ‘Confronting obesity: Co-creating policy with youth’ (CO-CREATE), which used a complex systems framework to explore the drivers of adolescent obesity and potential policy actions across five European countries [ 14 ].…”