Enhanced cooperation between prevention organisations and care and wellbeing organisations: the way towards a more impactful implementation of prevention in the care and wellbeing sector
Authors: Van der Auwera Kim , Vansteenkiste Tineke 
Published: January 2024

The Flemish Government determines numerous health objectives, one of which is for people to adopt a healthier lifestyle by the year 2025 in terms of diet, sedentary behaviour, physical activity, and tobacco, alcohol, and drug use. Another important goal consists of reducing mortality by suicide among men and women by 10% compared to 2020 by 2030. Achieving those objectives requires efforts from several actors: from government departments and prevention organisations to organisations from the care and wellbeing sector and primary care providers.
Until recently the prevention initiatives and the communication from prevention organisations to the care and wellbeing sector seemed (very) fragmented. Because of this the network group care and wellbeing was established in 2021. The network aims to achieve the health objectives determined by the Flemish Government by enhancing cooperation and more streamlining of the prevention initiatives. In the network group, the network manager facilitates the work that needs to be done through a joint action plan. The action plan was created in a participative manner and entails encouraging actions for better implementation of health promotion and disease prevention in the field of care and wellbeing. E.g.: actions to get prevention into the curricula of higher education courses, integration of health themes in order to present as one sector during conferences, seminars, in training courses or during events. The network is constantly evaluating its operations to be able to make the necessary adjustments based on the present needs and requirements. Ultimate goal? Making prevention a substantial part of care and wellbeing with more healthy/healthier people as a result.
Establishing a fruitful cooperation takes time and effort. After 1 year of work, the network has already achieved good results, but is still searching on how health promotion and illness prevention can find a way into care . We want to conduct a workshop to find answers to the question: what do we need to have prevention be a full-fledged part of care? What opportunities are there? What barriers are there?
Target audience: primary and secondary care providers, people with experience in the bridge between prevention and/or care, visionaries.

Planning (90’):
15’ introduction
Network group care and wellbeing: what, why, who?
70’ group work:
-> 30’ small group (4 to 6 people per group) discussions: what do you need to make health promotion and illness prevention full-fledged themes in integrated care in daily practice?
-> 20’ small group (4 to 6 people per group) discussions: write on green post-it’s the opportunities you see to help prevention find its way in daily care practices. Write on orange post-its the barriers you experiences to help prevention find its way in daily care practices.
-> 20’ plenary feedback and round-up: putting post-its together in a diagram based on opportunity or barrier x short or long term.
5’ closing
The take home messages will be summarised by the facilitator at the end of the interactive session: focus on the most important opportunity/barrier to work on.