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Stories & innovations

Discussion

The purpose of this page is to share ideas and experiences with other health workers. You may have some tips or advice to offer others for discussing smoking cessation with their Aboriginal clients or you may like to tell us how your clients have responded or the actions they have taken to quit smoking. Whatever your story, experience or idea there is almost certainly a health worker who will benefit from hearing about your experience.

If you would like to share your story/experience with others through this website please email or simply phone us on (02) 93515129 and we will take details of your story over the phone.

Tips for organising Smoke Free events in your community

Step 1: Find out who’s involved in organising the event and if there’s a member of the organising committee who might be a tobacco champion.
Step 2: Get in touch with the organisers well in advance, by phone if possible.
Step 3: Send a letter to the organiser so they can bring it to the organising committee.
Step 4: Let the organiser know that going smoke free will not mean extra work for them.
Step 5: Use your social and community networks to organise a meeting with the organising committee and work with the event organisers to promote the event as smoke free
Step 6: Organise to go to the venue to have a look at the facilities.
Step 7: Discuss where a suitable smoking area would be (if they want to have a smoking area)
Step 8: Adding value to the event will encourage organisers to go ‘smoke free’. For example you might set up a stand to conduct brief interventions using a Smokerlyzer and providing SmokeCheck resources and quit smoking information. You could also offer a grant, sponsor a small prize, contribute to advertising if it includes the smoke free message or make an in-kind contribution, for example helping out with some photo copying. Whatever you decide to do it’s a good idea to get written agreement from the committee and your organisation.
Step 9: You could develop a “This is a smoke free event” banner to provide on loan to event organisers in your community. Check out the Smoke Free banner!
Step 10: Provide a short script to be announced as a Public Announcement (PA), for example, “This is a smoke free event, if you wish to smoke please use the dedicated smoking area by the exit”.

Compliance
Concerns about compliance and the potential for confrontation are often a big concern for organising committees but usually signage and requests not to smoke are enough. It is important that there is some strategy in place that supports compliance. Event employees should be given some coaching and responsibility to politely reminded people that it is a smoke free event, simply asking “did you know this is a smoke free event?” may be all that’s needed to gain compliance.

Thanks to Debra Welsby from SESIAHS for her input

Speak out for better health for your community

There may be a particular health issue in your community that you are concerned about. Here are some things you might consider when drawing attention to this health issue and working to improve the health of your community.

1. Identify your health message e.g. Smoking harms our community.
2. Have a clear aim e.g. to make the Sydney Easter Show 2011 Smoke Free!
3. What is the health implication? e.g. Children and staff in workplaces suffer poor health when breathing second hand smoke.
4. Use local media e.g. get in touch with local papers, Aboriginal and other community radio. Maintain good contacts to help influence local councils, local State/Federal Members of Parliament(MPs) to support good measures and necessary funding and resources.
5. Gain support from non-government organisations.
6. Refer to experts, reports and the laws on tobacco and health.
7. Write a letter to your local council, state and Federal MPs.

For further information visit

With thanks to Stafford Sanders from Action on Smoking and Health Australia (ASH)

BREATHE encourages all health workers to use SmokeCheck brief intervention training

Kerrie-Ann White

In March 2009 the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW (AH&MRC) launched a Tobacco Control Research Project - the BREATHE (Building Research Evidence to address Aboriginal Tobacco Habits Effectively) Project. This project is employing a specialist Tobacco Control Worker (BREATHE worker) in six Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHS). BREATHE Project Manager Sean Appoo works closely with the team of BREATHE workers in their aim of “creating an environment that supports a reduction in tobacco consumption, exposure to tobacco and consistently delivering the message that smoking is not part of Aboriginal culture”.

The BREATHE workers undertook training throughout 2009 and also completed the SmokeCheck training workshop at the Aboriginal Health College at Little Bay in Sydney. Since then they have been using the skills developed along with the SmokeCheck resources to encourage and support members of their communities to quit smoking. Kerri-Ann White is the BREATHE worker in Tharawal AMS. SmokeCheck Project Officer, Sharon Daly had a chat with Kerrie-Ann about the work she’s been doing since SmokeCheck training. “The SmokeCheck workshop has helped me gain a lot of background knowledge about smoking and Aboriginal people. Brief interventions are a very short and easy way of speaking to community people about their smoking habits,” Kerrie- Ann said.

At every opportunity Kerrie-Ann asks members of her community about their smoking, this includes her visits to Mums & Bubs, the Women’s group, community kitchen and youth groups. Brief intervention is not necessarily a formal process, Kerrie-Ann tells us that she knows most of her clients well and she talks to them in an informal way, usually starting by asking about their health and lifestyle before asking about their smoking. She is conscious to remind us that “we need to not make smokers feel like they are bad people because they smoke. Smokers are mostly just slaves to an addiction and need help to break that addiction.”

The SmokeCheck resources help Kerrie-Ann to start the conversation with clients about quitting; she even has a SmokeCheck desktop tool card stuck to her door! When clients come to her she often points to the card and asks, “Where do you see yourself on this chart?” Kerrie- Ann also uses a display cabinet filled with replicas of various healthy and ‘smoke affected’ body parts as part of her brief interventions. This is particularly successful working with youth and school groups. The lungs are very popular, made from sponges cut into the shape of lungs, one is a healthy lung and the other is filled with food colouring, depicting the tar in your lungs if you smoked a packet of cigarettes a day over the past week. Kerrie-Ann works enthusiastically for the health of her community and encourages, “all health workers who have done the SmokeCheck training to do brief interventions with community members, even if the health worker is a smoker. I believe it is part of our job as health workers to be promoting good health and healthy lifestyles every chance we get.”