Diabetes Goolburri completes another successful round of My health for life program

WITH LEONIE YASSO DIABETES COORDINATOR, QAIHC

Goolburri’s completion of another successful group session of

QAIHC’s Diabetes team coordinated a follow up visit with Goolburri to participate in a My Health for Life (MH4L) group session. The MH4L program includes six sessions over six months, with ongoing maintenance after the program has finished. Goolburri’s session was the sixth (and final) in a series of workshops and was completed with participants undertaking a group cooking session.

My health for life

The cooking session had been included at the request from previous sessions to explore ‘swap it’, with food. Swapping frozen and canned for fresh. While onsite, QAIHC's team were lucky enough to interview Goolburri’s MH4L Facilitator, Lizzie Mahon.

ELIZABETH MAHON PROFILE

Where are you from? I was born in Cairns but moved to Charleville when I was 5 years old and grew up there. Who is your mob? My mum’s side is from Darnley (Erub) Island, and our mob is Meriam Mir. What made you get into health and working for a CCHS? Working in health had never crossed my mind throughout high school. Moving back to Charleville after boarding school, I was offered a Traineeship at CWAATSICH, where I found my passion for health. What did you think of the My health for life program, and did it suit your community members? The MH4L program is definitely beneficial and well suited to today’s busy lifestyle. It’s self-motivated with assistance, and I think that’s significant as no one is going to change bad habits if they’re told to do it.

Did you enjoy delivering the MH4L program? I absolutely enjoyed delivering the MH4L program, it was heaps of fun and I was also able to take a lot away from the program. Have you ever delivered any other programs? As part of my role with Goolburri, I have the privilege of being part of numerous programs. These include diabetes awareness days, influenza vaccination clinics, education sessions with our mum’s and bub’s program amongst many others. What is the MH4L program? The MH4L program to me, is a self-motivated platform to assist individuals that are ready for change in their lives to help them in reaching their goals. When and where would you run these programs? This program works best when the individuals in the group are comfortable with each other, which allows open communication with limited hesitation. Running this program in already established groups assists with nurturing a comfortable environment, as well as establishing a suitable support network for individuals. Is there something about the program that you have already delivered? I’ve been lucky enough to deliver this program in Goolburri’s Mum’s and Bub’s group. As the group was already established, this allowed me to be comfortable in facilitating. This also allowed for the mother’s to support one another (as they do already), and we were able to get the children involved as well. Great work Goolburri! A great morning was had by all. My Health for Life is a free, evidencebased behaviour modification program for patients at high-risk of developing a chronic disease. The programs are delivered by an alliance of health organisations and are designed to help Queenslanders stay well and lessen their risk of developing chronic health conditions. All recipes were from the cookbook— Kukumbat gudwant daga ‘Really cooking good food’. Our dishes of the day were beef stew, damper, and rice pudding. These recipes can be found on hollows.org.au