Page 8 - HPP

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FUTURE-ORIENTED HEALTH PROMOTION
4. IDENTIFYING COMPETENCIES FOR FUTURE HEALTH PROMOTION (HP)
Kaija Matinheikki-Kokko & Arja Liinamo
Professional skills drive economic development being an essential part of the sustainable development, economy and its infrastructure. An important mission for the educational institutions is to provide future professionals with employable skills that equip graduates for a fast-changing labour market. Information about labour market trends could serve as the basis for curricula development. Therefore, in order to create a base for new HPP programs, our rst task was to identify the trends and needs for future competencies demanded in the eld of HP. The experiences and views of future competence needs were expressed by specialists of the eld. They participated in the focus group interviews in Estonia and Finland. The survey results indicated more speci c pro les of the HP competencies which practitioners and specialists considered important in the future in these countries. These survey ndings and round-table insights were used later as an evidence based ground for starting to co-create new professional higher education programs, vocational education and training programme in the HPP-project.
How does the successful and effective health promotion look like in the future, after 10 years from now, in 2026? To explore this, experts focus group (FG) discussions were conducted, as a rst stage of future competence research in HPP-project. In the FGs the experienced specialists from the eld of health promotion in Estonia and Finland were mapping HP for the future representing their vision and understanding of the ideal situation of content, methods etc. In both countries, nine experts took part in FG discussions at the end of the year 2016. They anticipated training and skills needed on the way to the ideal future as well. By looking at the future, we aim to provide the kind of education in HP that will enable a new generation of professionals to meet their needs. The transcripted FG data from both counties was analysed by thematic content analysis.