Capacity Building and Community Enrichment: Evaluation for Sustainability

Abstract

Evaluation is a continuing dilemma in health promotion initiatives. However, for projects to be sustained effective indicators and tools need to be implemented in order for resources and funding to be channeled into such enterprises. The capacity building model developed by New South Wales Health (1998) provided one model for evaluating a collaborative endeavor between the School of Nursing, Flinders University and Noarlunga Health Services, a generic community health centre in the southern urban/rural area of South Australia. The Community Enrichment Program (CEP), is in the final year of a four year funded project that aimed, in part, to determine what impact an integrated knowledge of Primary Health Care (PHC) would have on students and new graduates' nursing practice and, whether enough evidence would be generated to effect ongoing curriculum change. This paper considers capacity building in relation to the CEP and how the Ottawa Charter and the Jakarta Declaration are supported by this ideal. Argument is forwarded that workforce development, organizational structure and resource allocation, seen as tenets of capacity building, have been demonstrated in the CEP. Recommendations flowing from the project include the allocation of resources into a sustained, overt and integration of PHC philosophy and health promotion principles into nursing curriculum.