A free 2-day Placement Education Workshop was held in Adelaide on 30th Sept & 1st October for health practitioners involved in placement education from the disciplines of Nutrition & Dietetics, Speech Pathology, Audiology, Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy. The workshop, facilitated by Amanda Wray (N&D), Stacie Attrill (SP) & Brenton Kortman (OT), provided a practical forum for practitioners to update and obtain skills, resources and professional development in the area of practical placement education.
The workshop aims to support health practitioners to implement changes to their practice, reflect upon their own experiences of placement education within their discipline and actively participate in discussion of educational practices around the pedagogy of adult learning. Interaction, sharing of experiences and ideas through scenarios and discussion across disciplines added value for participants. The workshop is held annually in September and promoted through each of the University disciplines.
Eighteen dietitians and nutritionists from metropolitan and country health services also attended a half-day Placement Educator Workshop in September, entitled: “Developing appropriate community/public health projects for student placements in an increasingly clinical health system”. The workshop was facilitated by Dr Kaye Mehta from Flinders and Claire Gardiner, from UniSA. The workshop discussed the DAA competencies for community/public health nutrition and examined potential projects for best fit with the competencies. Kaye and Claire were encouraged by the enthusiasm of dietitians to provide community/public health placements in spite of the increasingly clinical health service environment. Placements provide an opportunity for practitioners to maintain their own skills and competencies in community/public health nutrition so that they can be leaders and advocates for reform towards re-instating health promotion and prevention services.