PUB305 Public Health Practicum - Assignment Help

Organisation overview (400-500 words)

This section should provide a broad overview of the organisation that you will be working with.  The purpose of this is to understand the organisation and the setting in which you will be completing placement.  The overview may include:

• What the organisation does
• How many and what type of staff are employed
• What geographical area they cover
• Where the funding for the organisation and service delivery arises from
• The key priorities/mission of the organisation
• The organisation’s role in health and/or the determinants of health

You may include other information you consider relevant to understanding your organisation.

You can find out information about your organisation from websites, reports and your personal conversations with supervisors or other staff.  You can include whatever information you feel is relevant to the understanding of your setting, though should include at least the purpose of the organisation, who they employ and what their priorities are.  You might like to include what makes the organisation unique, how it is changing or the strategic goals that are relevant to your discipline.  Remember that this section is about understanding the context in which you will be working in.  You can make a start on this even before you begin your practicum. 

Work placement tasks (400-500 words)

The purpose of this section of the plan is to clarify the tasks that you will be responsible for completing during your practicum.  Whilst the practicum experience means you may be exposed to a whole range of workplace tasks and meetings, the supervisor will have developed at least a few tasks for you to work on independently.

This section introduces your project and placement tasks that you have been allocated. You will need to provide a background to communicate the project you have been allocated, along with the specific placement tasks assigned to you. Some of this information will be provided in a project brief. Please use your own words to describe your project, and in more detail. 

Explain the background to the project. For example, you might be completing a small part of a larger funded project, preparing a plan for a new project based on a strategic plan, or writing up a report for an existing project.  Regardless what tasks you have been assigned, write to inform the reader about the broader context of what you are involved in.

Next you will provide an outline of the specific project and/or tasks that are expected of you during placement.  This may include:

• Overall objectives and outputs anticipated during placement (e.g. completing a report, or survey design)
• A list of activities or tasks that you will undertake that are associated with the above objectives or expected outputs (e.g. writing case studies, analyzing specific data, running a focus group, preparing for an event, development of resources).

You should also list other potential opportunities you may be exposed to during placement such as stakeholder or team meetings.

It is advised to check this section of your practice plan with your host supervisor to ensure it is accurate.

Relevant theory, frameworks or standards (300-400 words)

The purpose of this section is to identify discipline specific theories and/or frameworks that either currently underpin your project and/or that you could consider applying in your project in consultation with your host supervisor. 

In this section you will draw on your prior knowledge (coursework) to identify relevant theories, frameworks or standards that may either underpin the work that you will be doing on placement or that can be applied during your placement (or both).  You will need to both identify and discuss why the theory or framework is relevant to your work context and/or how it will be applied in practice. You may refer to either the broader context of the work you are involved in or you may refer specifically to the tasks and outputs you will be responsible for. For example, if you will be responsible for developing a strategy to improve health and wellbeing in primary schools across the region, you could draw on the World Health Organisation’s Health Promoting Schools Framework and explain how that is relevant to your project and/or how it will be applied in project outputs/deliverables. 

Placement Schedule Gantt Chart (100-200 words)

The purpose of the Gantt chart is to break down your larger objectives into smaller tasks/activities and set timeframes against these key tasks (total time needed for the task as well as when it needs to be completed).  The timeframes are an estimation, and demonstrates your ability to forecast time needed and break larger deliverables into smaller components.  You may choose to add your course related requirements such as assessment tasks in this Gantt chart also.  The Gantt chart should be a useful reference for both you and your project supervisor during your placement as it assists in discussing progress, barriers to completion and setting targets for new timeframes if needs be.  Should be written clearly but concisely.  

Risk Management Plan (100-200 words)

The purpose of this section is to identify any key risks which may impact on your ability to carry out the tasks assigned to you by your placement supervisor.  These should be risks that are outside your direct control, but which can be managed or prevented by putting in place some strategies to mitigate them.  Example of risks that are appropriate in this section include – lack of respondents to a survey, poor attendance at a focus group, workshop venue not available etc. 

Prompting questions and an example are included within the table following to guide you in completing this section.

Issues within your direct control such as time available to conduct the project and your skills to conduct the project are not to be included in this section.  Should be written clearly but concisely so dot points can be used.