Health literacy developments in Scotland

Health literacy developments in Scotland

Information literacy in the Health Sector was the theme of the fourth presentation at the Information Literacy Symposium in Glasgow last month.

Blythe Robertson, Policy Manager, Policy-centred & Self-Management, Scottish Government and Christine Hoy, Primary Care Develeopment Manager, Health & Social Care Alliance Scotland presented us with Health literacy developments in Scotland 

It was good to hear about the planned developments. I have previously done some research into health literacy most notably for the chapter 'Information literacy in health management: supporting the public in their quest for health information'. The chapter was part of 'Information literacy and lifelong learning: policy issues, the workplace, health and public libraries' John Crawford and Christine Irving, 2013.

I could therefore relate to and endorse much of the speakers comments. However some of the facts certainly got my attention.  

43% of English working age adults will struggle to understand instructions to calculate a childhood paracetamol dose. 

This is a high percentage struggling with understanding, literacy and or numbers. In health matters, a wrong calculation can have serious affects. As Christine Hoy said, health literacy starts with the conversation and it is important to check understanding with health care. 

Health literacy was defined as 

Confidence, knowledge, understanding and skills to access and collaborate in our own healthcare and successfully self-manage.

As Blythe said we need to "widen people's eyes to health literacy needs" and there is a need to draw good health literacy practice together. 

Next year will see a Health Literacy Action Plan for Scotland. Its aims are to:

• Raise awareness and the capabilities of information professionals
• Promote the development and spread of exisitng and new health literacy tools, innovations and technologies
• Improve access to these tools and resources
• Cater for health literacy needs at transitions of care. 

Whilst transition has been a key focus for some information literacy and educational professionals it is good to see it as part of health literacy. Having personal experience of the need for health literacy at transitions of care i.e. elderly relatives being discharged from hospital to a care package, I know how much it is needed. I could also relate to Christine Hoy's comments re the need for community resources to be connected and people being a source of information for most people. I was certainly grateful to health professionals in the hospital signposting and referring me to community resources including colleagues working in the community. 

Support for health issues can come in all different shapes and sizes from practical to social activities. As Christine said "health professionals used to sign post to kitemarked resources not walking groups". 

In her presentation Christine highlighted useful sources of information including ALISS A local Information System for Scotland www.aliss.org  I've heard about ALISS before it is a great resource. If you are not familiar with it then please have a look. It "helps signpost people to useful community support" for "health and wellbeing resources". It is a collaborative tool in that the community can contribute to the resources. 

Again librarians were highlighted as 'key community resources'. 

The presentation covered other issues including disability and the Social Disability Model. The slide with a person in a wheelchair at the bottom of a set of stairs with the caption

We wouldn't be disabled but for the systematic barriers that society places in our way.

caught my attention and made me think of how may systematic barriers society places in our way. 

The presentation slides are available on slideshare so please have a look at the Health literacy developments in Scotland 

Young Scot - Information Literacy & Young People

This is my second posting about the presentations from the IL symposium at Atlantic Quay, Glasgow in February. 

Young Scot presentation

Young Scot have come a long way since they first started out all those years ago with the introduction of a Young Scot card. Not surprisingly there were a few in the audience who had a Young Scot card. Today the organisations is involved in an array of activities all focused on providing Scottish Youth Information for 11-26 year olds. 

Kirsteen Urquart, Information servcies Manager and Hilary Kidd, Digital Academy Manager, Young Scot gave an information packed presentation. I jotted down as many of the issues and activities they covered:

• TMI - too much information out there - not just factual information but opinion, comment etc
• Young Scot have a Digital Information Strategy, it is agile and evolving [see their presentation for details url at the bottom of this post]
• being aware of news stories that young people will be interested in and having information about it available for them
• when disseminating information they need to make sure that all devices can handle / display the information - multi platform content
• the length of words that young people use in a search is astonishing [this doesn't come as a surprise to a lot of us but it is disappointing that we are sill hearing about this]
• data driven content - they use a variety of resources to help them understand how young people are using the Young Scot service
• data and monitoring tools - Young Scot use Hootsuite for trend monitoring and Google Trends for trending search topics 
• young people are using Google and Wikipedia for information
• there is not much research about young people under 16 not online [research project there for someone]
• Young Scot provides lots of information about being safe online for Internet Safety Day
• key areas of work: digital technology and literacy should be a consistent, integral part of learning.

One of their slides was about digital literacy

Digital Literacy: 

• Young Scot is digital by design 
• "We cannot leave any young person behind - we have a responsibility to support them (particularly the most vunerable) to be digitally literate."
• "Research - what do we all need to do to help kick start their participation? What are the barriers? is it about hardware? Is it about capability? 

From my experience about the barriers is that skills and competencies need to be reinforced throughout lifelong learning. It is not simply about hardware.

My final note from their presentation was 

What are the key opportunities for further improving levels of information literacy for young people? 

a good question to end on.

After hearing their presentation I hope people were inspired to seek out opportunities and work with Young Scot on a range of issues. I know from experience that they are a great organisation / people to work with. 

Thanks to Kirsteen and Hilary for a whistle stop tour of some of their activities and the issues they face.  Their presentation is available on Slideshare at http://www.slideshare.net/SLICINFO/kirsten-urquhart-hilary-kidd-young-scot

IFLA takes Lyon Declaration to the UN

Thanks to Cat Cooper, CILIP Communications and Campaigns manager for news of IFLA taking the Lyon Declaration to the UN.

IFLA is calling for a focus on increased access to information in the new framework, and is working to highlight the role that information intermediaries, such as libraries, can play in helping achieve the new set of Sustainable Development Goals that all UN Member States will commit to reaching from September 2015.

It's great that they are highlighting the role of libraries. The role of libraries was also highlighted at the recent IL symposium in Scotland. The introduction of Universial Credits and the support many citizens need and are requesting from their public libraries highlights the key role libraries are playing in life. it does however highlight as one delegate pointed out the pressure this places on library resources at a time of reduced local government budgets, closure of public libraries and reduction in staff. Hopefully the need for these resources and support can be used to advocate support and funding for public libraries.

Returning to the IFLA and Lyon Declaration news. Donna Scheeder introduced the Lyon Declaration on Access to Information and Development which has now been signed by over 500 organisations from across the library, development and ICT sectors. Her intervention focused on the danger of information poverty. I was going to quote certain statements that resonated with me and that I hoped to quote them in the future for both my thesis and in my IL activities. However I decided to copy the full text of the intervention as I think it is all great. I hope it resonates and inspires you. 

"Thank you Mr. Chair for giving the floor to the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, or IFLA, the global Voice of Libraries.

I’m Donna Scheeder, the President-Elect of IFLA, and I’m speaking on behalf of more than 500 organisations and institutions who have signed The Lyon Declaration on Access to Information and Development. The Lyon Declaration calls upon UN Member States to recognize the importance of increased access to information in supporting the post-2015 development agenda.

I wanted to remind delegates that in moving forward we must pay attention to a different kind of poverty that has not been mentioned much here - information poverty.

Information and knowledge really are the foundation for making progress towards sustainable development. Without access to information, people will lack the means to take the crucial decisions needed to improve their lives.

Increased access to information is a cross-cutting issue that will contribute to the achievement of all goals - whether in health, education, transparency and accountability: all goals will benefit from people being able to know more about how to achieve them.

And we - libraries - can help you get there. There are over 320,000 public libraries worldwide, and hundreds of thousands of school and research libraries - in all of your countries. Librarians are skilled information professionals who can be strong partners in increasing access to information. And we can help people gain the information literacy skills needed to improve their lives.

So when considering how we do this, let’s make sure we use the institutions who can help open up the datasets, knowledge resources and provide access to the ICTs people need to achieve sustainable development. 

We look forward to being partners in the data revolution and helping us get to 2030 in great shape.”

At the end of the news item is a plea which I support

IFLA urges upon you to sign the Lyon Declaration, access our advocacy toolkit and contact your government representatives about the importance of access to information to development. We need your help to achieve our objectives!

I've signed have you?

The full news item is at IFLA taking the Lyon Declaration to the UN.

Information Literacy and the SQA

The presentations from the Information Literacy Symposium are now available for viewing at  www.slideshare.net/SLICINFO

The day was very successful. The speakers certainly identified opportunities and challenges. It was good to hear from different sectors on issues that included information literacy although not always specifically identified as such. Digital literacy and digital participation seemed to be a strong themes running through the presentations but then information literacy is a key component of digital literacy and digital participation. 

Information Literacy and the SQA

SQA have signed up to the Digital Participation Charter and have produced a new qualification NPA Digital Passport to address national and international concerns and deliver key 21st Century skills including: Network Literacy: Information Literacy: Social Media Literacy. All the units are standalone and information literacy can be delivered across a wide range of subjects and projects. The passport is set at SCQF Level 4 SCQF Level 5 SCQF Level 6 with plans for SCQF Level 3 later. At the pilot process and currently looking for volunter centres. The qualification and material will be avaiable next year. Hilary Weir, Digital Literacy and Enhancement Manager at SQA highlighted that there are access barriers and that librarians play a vital role in providing access. An offer went out from Hilary to work with SQA to: review the NPA in Digital Literacy; join the Qualification Design Team; write units and support materials; be part of consultation process; provide feedback and validate awards.

 I have worked with SQA in the past on national qualifiactions specifically the Information Handling Skills Unit in 2003/2004 and as part of the review team for more recent literacy qualifications and would recommend it. Writing and reviewing national qualification units and support material is not as easy as it looks.  

Comments from the floor included:

• the mismatch between qualifications and the CfE.
• about ethics only being raised at SCQF 6 when it should start at primary level
• Libraries as SQA Learning Centres and librarians not being teachers - they are however experts in information literacy. 

I haven't managed to have a good look at the qualifications but plan to do so. Also blog about the other speakers. 

Recording of webinar on Radical Information Literacy now available

I particpated in the Radical Information Literacy webinar yesterday. I wasn't sure about the subject matter to begin with but I'm glad that I stuck with it as it proved to be interesting and thought provoking. I contibuted to the accompanying chat and will probably follow up a few things. 

The recording of the Radical Information Literacy webinar is now available at http://www.researchinfonet.org/infolit/ridls/informall-webinars/ along with a copy of the accompanying chat content.

The event was presented by Andrew Whitworth, from the University of Manchester, and organised under the auspices of the InformAll initiative. If you would like further information, contact Stéphane Goldstein or look up the InformAll website at www.informall.org.

The plan is for more webinars so I'll let you know when the next one is.