BreastScreen Victoria Nominated in the 2017 VicHealth Awards
Last night, BreastScreen Victoria was a finalist at the VicHealth Awards in the category Improving Health Equity for the Dandenong Mobile Screening Service Project ‘Overcoming Barriers to Breast Screening: An initiative to increase breast screening in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and Refugee and Asylum Seeker women in Dandenong, Victoria’ that we implemented in March 2017.
The VicHealth Awards provide an opportunity to have health promotion projects – from local projects to state-wide campaigns – recognised and celebrated by the health promotion sector, and beyond.
The categories for the 2017 Awards were:
- Promoting Healthy Eating
- Encouraging Physical Activity
- Preventing Tobacco Use
- Preventing Harm From Alcohol
- Improving Mental Wellbeing
- Communications In Health Promotion
- Building Health Through Sports
- Building Health Through Arts
- Improving Health Equity
- Research Into Action
BreastScreen Victoria partnered with Monash Health – Refugee Health and Wellbeing, Dandenong & District Aborigines Co-Operative Limited, Red Cross, AMES, Life without Barriers (LWB) and Women’s Health In the South East (WHISE) to engage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Women (focus on new and emerging migrants) in the Dandenong and broader South East region in breast screening.
To engage these groups, BreastScreen Victoria partnered with the local organisations and services listed above to build their capacity as an organisation to deliver BreastScreen’s key messages, educate, and promote this project to eligible women accessing their services. BreastScreen also located the Mobile Screening Service in Palm Plaza, Dandenong from the 15 – 30 March 2017 to undertake screening.
A total of 144 women screened during the Mobile Screening Service visit, including 10 women who identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, and 109 women who were born overseas. 85% (122) of the women who screened during this project were first time screeners demonstrating that they may not have had a breast screen if it wasn’t for this initiative.
We were able to invite our project partners to attend last night’s event as a thank you for their hard work and contribution to the success of the project, and although we did not win the award, it was wonderful to be a finalist and to have this important project showcased.
Photo left to right: Chiedza Malunga, Team Leader – Monash Refugee Health & Wellbeing, Monash Health, Rossana Zetterberg, Senior Case Manager – AMES Australia, Mel Davis, Health Promotion Manager & Lisa Hochberg, Health Promotion Officer - BreastScreen Victoria
You can read more about the awards and the BreastScreen Victoria entry on the 2017 VicHealth Awards website.