New PhD Studentships announced from Health Education England
13 Apr 2017
The Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health are pleased to announce that Health Education England have recently agreed to fully fund a three year PhD studentship in peer-education entitled “Engaging Healthcare Students in Promoting Health in High School Communities”.
Peer-education, where student presenters who are of the similar age bracket as the young learners in high schools is a very positive and successful approach to education knowledge and awareness delivery. This is particularly relevant when dealing with contemporary life style related issues that affect health and well-being. Under the guidance of Dr David Allison, Pharmacy undergraduate students have, for example, delivered interactive workshops on antibiotic resistance awareness for year 10/11 (GCSE) high school pupils (18 Schools: over 1000 pupils). These presentations, while giving insights into an important public health issue that affects all of us, were also used in a serendipitous fashion to plant seeds of interest about subject /careers/life style choices/ aspirational life style etc which would positively influence these children in their formative years. The current project seeks to extend these initial experiences further across the Greater Manchester footprint by embedding a healthcare aspect of Social Responsibility into the undergraduate curriculum.
The intention is to develop a portfolio of aspirational (life choices) and healthcare topics relevant to year 10/11 students (e.g. diabetes, smoking awareness, alcohol awareness, obesity, recreational drugs, sexual health etc.) into 60-90 minute long interactive workshops to be delivered by groups (3-4 undergraduate students/group), initially comprising ALL 3rd year Pharmacy students. The sessions will also draw on the wider social and cultural issues that impede personal and professional development within communities the students come from. The workshops will also aim to inspire students into careers and higher education through suitable role modelling. In later years this will hopefully be expanded to include medicine and other healthcare students working together in an inter-professional manner. This will be a rolling programme that aims to cover as many schools in the Greater Manchester area and North West as possible and the hours spent may also be counted towards the University’s flagship programme in social responsibility – Stellify (Manchester Leadership Award). In addition to the benefits received by the high school students such as preventative age-appropriate healthcare advice, engagement with and aspiration to Higher Education, outstanding learning experience, undergraduate students will also benefit from this exercise, through development of Public / community engagement experience, enhancement of Social Responsibility and citizenship awareness, Improved healthcare knowledge and development of transferable skills. A win-win situation.
This project provides an ideal opportunity to make a positive difference to the health and well-being of the next generation through the use of healthcare students. We are particularly pleased that this vision is also shared by HEE!
Written by Dr David Allison, Director of Social Responsibility for School of Health Sciences