You are invited to attend the combined AHPA WA Branch General Meeting and Award Night for 2021. This will be a chance to reflect on and celebrate the important work that has happened in Health Promotion over the past year.
General Meeting
This year’s theme for the 13th Annual Ray James Memorial Lecture is Mental Health and Wellbeing During COVID-19. We are delighted to welcome our special guest speaker, Shaun Nannup. We will also have a panel with four expert representatives from the health promotion field to discuss their experiences during the pandemic. Our panel speakers are Robyn Fitall (Chief Executive Officer of the Region Domestic Violence Services Network Inc.), Sarah Joyce (Aboriginal Health Policy Team at the Department of Health) and Angie Perkins (Chief Operating Officer of Youth Focus).
Awards
Each year the Australian Health Promotion Association WA Branch presents four awards to West Australian's who have shown exceptional commitment and innovation in their health promotion practice. The awards provide an opportunity for the winners to showcase their efforts and be recognised by colleagues and peers. The awards are announced at the AHPA WA Branch General Meeting and Award Night each year.
In 2021, the AHPA WA Branch will present one award in each of the following categories;
1. Leadership in Health Promotion (Individual)
2. Outstanding Mentor in Health Promotion (Individual)
3. Early Career Award (Individual)
4. Excellence in Health Promotion Practice (Organisation or Team)
For more information on the awards and to nominate, please click here. Nominations close Thursday 6th May 2021 at 5pm.
Registration for the event will close at 12pm Tuesday 11th May 2021. Food will be available from 5.30pm with the opportunity to network beforehand. The GM will start at 6.00pm.
An online option will be available for regional attendees and those who are unable to attend the event in-person. A link to attend the event online will be provided closer to the date.
For catering purposes, please inform us if you will be attending the event online when registering. Please inform us of any dietary requirements you may have as well.
For more information, please email: adminwa@healthpromotion.org.au.
Ray James Memorial Award
Dr Ray James (14th December 1945 - 24th June 2008)
Ray James was a great and admired thinker and innovator in Health Promotion and was an experienced figure in community-based Public Health in Australia. His early work was in the USA, India, New Zealand and Latin America until he moved to WA in 1980. After a brief return to the USA he spent about five years on the North Coast of NSW. His work in the area of community-based Health Promotion interventions in NSW was well published and among Australia's earliest and best known health promotion initiatives of that time. His return to WA in the early 1990's saw him hold a number of positions including at the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University, as a senior manager in the Health Department of WA including directing Public Health programs in the South West from Bunbury, a period at the Institute of Child Health Research, and in later years at the Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer Control at Curtin University where he has directed the Mentally Healthy WA project.
Since the early 1990's, Ray was a member of the research team that developed and revised Health Promotion competencies for Health Promotion practitioners. The work resulting from these projects has received substantial international coverage and has been used in several other countries. Ray contributed extensively to a number of professional associations, in particular the Australian Health Promotion Association. As well as being a member of the National Management Committee, he served for many years on the WA Branch committee in various roles including terms as Branch President. Ray was also one of the founders of the Health Promotion Journal of Australia and a founding editor.
Common themes of his professional work included: innovation; willingness to risk trialing new approaches; mentoring early-career professionals; and helping others beyond the call of duty. In 2000, Ray was awarded a Life Membership of the Australian Health Promotion Association in recognition of his outstanding and distinguished service to the Association and to Health Promotion in Australia. Following his death in early 2008, the Australian Health Promotion Association endorsed the establishment of an annual award in his memory.
- The Ray James Memorial Award is presented for excellence and innovation in Health Promotion research published during the previous year in the Health Promotion Journal of Australia. The first author must be a member of AHPA.
- If no articles are considered to meet the selection criteria for the year, the Award will be held over to the following year.
- The Award will be presented at the Annual General Meeting of the Association, during the AHPA National Conference or at another suitable time as agreed by the Board.
- The Award will include $1,000 prize money. In the case of multiple authors, this money will be shared betwee the authors. The award recipient/s may be invited to write a brief article for the Australian Health Promotion Update national newsletter outlining how the prize money is intended to be used.
