September 2010

After hours and travel support scheme

Diabetes Australia – Vic is offering additional funding for facilitators who run Life! courses outside normal business hours.

Facilitators may apply for this funding when the course sessions are run outside of the business hours of Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm.

We are also trialling a travel support scheme to encourage more facilitators to travel outside their local areas, thereby allowing for greater coverage of course delivery across the state.

These incentives are being trialled over a 3 month period and are available for groups that commence between now and the 30 November 2010.

Information regarding these incentives was circulated to all Life! contacts 17 August 2010 and may be accessed here.

If you have any queries, please contact Lauren on LDay@diabetesvic.org.au or 03 9667 1756.

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New Life! Participant Workbook to be launched 1 October 2010

During the last 6 months, the Life! team have been putting significant effort into redeveloping the Life! course materials. In this time we've run focus groups with Life! participants and have interviewed many of our facilitators.

With this feedback we have redeveloped the participant manual so that it is now more of workbook that is a simpler, more user friendly resource while still retaining the core program material.

The new participant workbook is set to be launched officially on 1 October 2010. A new Session Instructions For Facilitators manual is also being developed to accompany the participant workbook.

To go over the updated material, existing facilitators will be invited to attend one of the Participant Workbook Training sessions, to be held during the afternoon of Friday 1 October and the evening of Monday 4 October.

Please keep one of these dates free and respond with your RSVP when emailed directly.

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Who can conduct First Visits: update

Effective immediately, qualified health professionals employed by Life! provider organisations may conduct First Visits and receive $91.80 (GST incl.) provided all requirements are met.

First Visits are designed to assist with participant referral into Life! courses or Telephone Health Coaching (THC) whilst also providing the opportunity to individually discuss with potential participants their health concerns and motivation to change.

A valuable step in encouraging potential participants to enrol, it is during the First Visit that the health professional will confirm personal risk of developing type 2 diabetes and determine the most appropriate intervention, either Life! course or THC, and refer them to the preferred mode of delivery.

Opening up First Visits to other qualified health professionals employed by Life! provider organisations is intended to: 

• assist with promotion of Life! by the organisation
• increase participant referrals  
• free up Life! facilitator time to run courses

Over 1,000 First Visits have been conducted to date, with many organisations being able to offer more courses to cater for the increase in participant referrals.

For further information on First Visits, please refer the Information and Guideline section on our website. 

If you have specific enquiries, please contact Lauren on 03 9667 1756 or LDay@diabetesvic.org.au 

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How do you recruit for First Visits?

Previously we’ve seen that not only do First Visits increase recruitment of participants into the Life! program, but those referred via a First Visit also tend to stick with the program and have a higher attendance rate.

So we’d like to know how you go about recruiting participants for First Visits.

Please click here to complete a 5 minute survey on the methods you have found most successful and any strategies you’d like to see the Life! team undertake to promote First Visits to the general public.

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Success of Life! in a rural setting

Many facilitators have found it difficult to obtain enough referrals to run Life! courses in the rural setting. But not Kim Laffin, Community Health Nurse at East Wimmera Health Service (pictured with Life! course participants from one of her groups, L-R: Susan, Jay, Kim, Ian, Helen).

Although Kim initially experienced this lag in referrals following her training as a Life! facilitator at the start of 2009, with a “lot of background work to promote the program in the community and to GP’s” and since the “Charlton Practice Nurse has come on board, referrals to the program have really picked up!”

Kim has received so many referrals that she has since facilitated two courses in Charlton, one in Donald and one in Wycheproof with fantastic outcomes for the participants. Currently, Kim has enough referrals for three more courses in Charlton to commence ASAP, and another course in Donald.

Kim is a perfect example of just what can be achieved with the right background promotion and engagement in the rural setting to really establish yourself as a Life! facilitator.

Though she has utilised many strategies to promote Life! during her time as a facilitator, she reflects that “getting the practice nurse to refer to the program” and her own “word of mouth and opportunistic screening” have been by far the most successful.

Kim’s hot tips for rural facilitators:  

• Engage local GPs and practice nurses, dietitians etc and keep them informed of how the participants are going.
• Face to face screening with community members works much better than just advertising in the media. 
• Implement the program ASAP after you have enough referrals, or keep touching base with your referrals so they don’t lose interest. 
• Give your participants options of a few times and days so it suits them. 
• Keep the program simple and don’t over complicate the program with the science - focus on the program goals of decreasing fat, increasing fibre, and 30 minutes of appropriate physical activity. 
• Make the program fun and informal with lots of interaction so the participants want to come back and don’t feel like they’re being lectured at. 
• Be flexible with participant requests – Kim includes a 3 month follow up as well as the session 6, at the request of her participants as a means to keep them on track. 
• Include a supermarket tour with the 4th session. 
• Include an evening meal – healthy of course!

Debbie, the Charlton Practice Nurse, gives us her story in the October edition of Life!Style.

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Promoting Life! in your community

Are you active in your community when it comes to promotion of and recruitment for the Life! program?

Each Life!Style newsletter contains a list of upcoming events and promotions which are typically larger events or advertising that are organised by our Social Marketing Manager.

However, promotion of Life! at the local level is also imperative for engaging local community members, raising the profile of the Life! program and recruiting for First Visits and your courses.

Starting this month, we will also be including any upcoming events and promotions that you see fit to include in the Life!Style newsletter each month.

If you identify any opportunities to promote Life! locally and would like to include this in our events listing, please let us know on lifeteam@diabetesvic.org.au 

Remember, funding for such promotion can be obtained provided it is linked to raising awareness of the Life! program and ultimately lead to referrals for those 50 years and older into Life! courses. Evidence of this should be supplied for funding approval.

To receive funding assistance we need to attain:

• clear costs
• objectives 
• measurable outcomes

Resources, adverts and posters that can be tailored to your locality, as well as a resource order, are available from our website. For further ideas that work to recruit for your course, please contact us on 03 8648 1880 or email life@diabetesvic.org.au

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Life! Telephone Health Coaching

Any participant referred to the Life! Program can now choose to participate in Telephone Health Coaching (THC) rather than attending the group-based Life! course to assist them to adapt health behaviours to decrease their risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2DM).

This service is provided by Kinect Australia on behalf of Diabetes Australia – Vic (DA–Vic), with all Coaches being Health or Counselling professionals trained in the Health Coaching Australia Model. At this stage, THC is only available in English, Cantonese and Hebrew.

Incorporating the Life! program model and goals, Life! THC consists of: 

• an initial administrative call upon referral to collect baseline data and coordinate follow up by a trained Health Coach (15–25 mins)
• first THC call which focuses on the identification of general and specific health goals related to the reduction of type 2 diabetes risk factors and establishment of a follow up call schedule (60 mins) 
• follow up call(s) which review progress and offer additional support for behavioural change. These are offered to the referred individuals at 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, and 5 months (30 mins each) 
• final administrative call to collect post intervention questionnaires and filling in any missing data (25 mins).

The Life! group course still has the strongest evidence base and is the first option offered to participants. Telephone based support is offered only if the client cannot (or does not want to) attend a course.

Do you have participants who are more suited to THC than a Life! course?

Please record this on the referral and forward to Central Referral by fax on 03 9667 1757 or contact via email on life@diabetesvic.org.au  

Any enquiries about THC should be directed to Theresa at Kinect on 03 8320 0127 or twhalen@kinectaustralia.org.au

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Data reporting and service delivery payment for participants aged 40–49 years

For participants aged 40–49 years, including those referred through WorkHealth (but not Aboriginal Victorians), the minimum data set (MDS) collected and reimbursement must be conducted through General Practice Victoria (GPV) rather than DA–Vic.

The MDS is the basis for data collection and reporting for participants aged 40–49 years and comprises a subset of data collected by three program forms. These forms, as well as the payments which are linked to their completion when returned to GPV are:

• Completed GP referral form - $77 
• Completion of intensive phase feedback form - $121 
• End program feedback form - $46.20

To claim for payment, please send an invoice and the completed relevant MDS forms for each participant to Slivia Ascencio at General Practice Victoria Ltd, 1st Floor, 458 Swanston Street, CARLTON 3053.

Note: payment can only be made once GPV has been provided with the completed forms (and/or other evidence) with the invoices for services rendered no later than two months after the program enrolment, intensive phase completion and end phase completion.

A combined electronic referral form and a sample tax invoice have been developed for facilitators to use.

Further information regarding payment for participants aged 40–49 years can be found on the GPV website or by contacting Melissa Cook at GPV on M.Cook@gpv.org.au or phone on 03 9341 5247.

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New resource: Pictorial guides to diabetes

DA–Vic’s new pictorial guides to diabetes management are for people who have difficulty reading and understanding complex written information.

These booklets use pictures and simple language to convey key messages about healthy eating, regular and safe exercise and foot care. These resources will assist people with low literacy skills to learn how to best manage their diabetes and obtain good health.

The booklets are currently available in English in three titles;

• Healthy eating - the different food groups, portion sizes, healthy snacks, healthy cooking methods.
• Exercise and type 2 diabetes - benefits of exercise, types of exercise, recommendations for exercise, exercise and hypos. 
• My feet and diabetes - the 5 steps for healthy feet (caring for feet, daily checking of feet, protecting feet from injury, not smoking, regular podiatry check-ups).

These resources will soon be available in other languages including Chinese, Vietnamese and Italian. The content of the Healthy Eating booklet will also be redeveloped to include culturally-appropriate foods for the relevant language groups. Other languages and topics are currently being developed.

To order your copies of our new pictorial guides to diabetes management, please call 1300 136 588. Booklets cost $1 each plus postage (minimum 10 copies per order).

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