2008 Award Winners

The ICCWA Injury Prevention Awards were held at City West Lotteries House on Thursday 13 November .  Professor Fiona Wood, Director of the Royal Perth Hospital Burns Unit and Clinical Lead of the Injury and Trauma Network presented the awards.
Deborah Costello, CEO of ICCWA had high praise for the winners of each category and all of the nominations received. “As it is imposssible to give an award to all nominees, this year the Awards Review Panel felt it was very important to give recognition to a number of additional nominees for their contribution to injury prevention.”  Their important work was recognised with a Highly Commended Category.

The ICCWA Community Injury Prevention Award
Paraplegic Benefit Fund (PBF) Australia 
The Paraplegic Benefit Fund implements three streams of education; Workplace, Aqua and Road through partnershipswith numerous organisations who have themselves identified these issues as safety priorities. Partnerships have been developed with many agencies such as – Department of Corrections, Apprenticeships Australia, RAC, SDERA, Royal Perth Hospital and Fremantle Port Authority just to name a few. The evaluation of safety presentations particularly in the Road and Aqua streams shows that significant impact of the safety message occurs from delivery of the messages by individuals with spinal cord injury. 

Anton Zapelli from PBF

Highly Commended:  Living Longer Living Stronger –  Council on the Ageing WA
 This successful program has been running for over 4 years and aims to increase participation in strength based training in those aged over 50 years. The program seeks to maximize opportunities for people to engage in affordable, high quality strength training programs over the long term whilst optimising conditions for social engagement of participants.

Highly Commended: Esme Bowen – Volunteer
Esme works with a wide range of organisations working in a collaborative and community based manner to build partnerships and sustainable strategies for injury prevention. Esme is a kind and caring person who is always willing to lend a hand or an ear. She continually promotes road safety and works with those who have been traumatised by road crashes.

ICCWA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Injury Prevention
Two winners for this category
Gary Butcher, Choose Respect International
Gary is the creator of the Choose Respect Initiative, which provides a code of behaviour at an individual level and also provides a framework and common language for whole communities to work together to foster a culture of respect.  Choose Respect has been used in the Shire of Boddington over the last two years with significant results. Formal evaluation has shown that levels of mutual respect between teachers, students, parents, police and the general community have risen and incidences of unacceptable behaviour have reduced. Choose Respect is now also being implemented in the City of Bunbury and towns like Morawa, Mullewa, Wagin, Darkan and more recently Carnarvon.

Gary Butcher

Janelle Leiper, Population Health – WA Country Health Service South West
Over the last 14 years, Janelle has demonstrated her professionalism and commitment to injury prevention. Her leadership in this area within the South West and more recently at a State level shows her willingness to promote and engage in a wide range of injury prevention activities.  Janelle has worked across a broad range of areas including falls prevention, suicide prevention, road safety, childhood injuries, farm injuries, alcohol and other drugs, epidemiology, research and Safe Communities.

Janelle Leiper

The ICCWA Excellence in Injury Prevention Research Award
The Child Health Promotion Research Centre, Edith Cowan University 
Over the last 7 years the Centre has undertaken extensive research with the aim of preventing intentional harm and injury caused through bullying, harassment and aggression.  The research conducted by the team at the Centre has been disseminated extensively and resulted in significant policy and practice changes within WA schools. Additionally, the work is now being recognised both nationally and internationally. This research has played a crucial role in raising awareness about the issues of harassment, bullying and aggression to better prevent harm imposed by children on their peers leading to severe mental, social and physical injury.

Highly Commended: Nicholas Waldron, Armadale Health Service
 Dr Nicholas Waldron’s well regarded research entitled “Falls prevention for older patients presenting at Emergency Department” has produced a means of measuring the delivery of evidence based falls prevention care, via the development of meaningful indicators.

The ICCWA Media Award for Excellence in Injury Prevention Reporting
Marnie McKimmie and Keryn McKinnon, The West Australian 
Both Marnie and Keryn have undertaken some excellent reporting of injury and community safety issues through the Health and Medicine Supplement of the West Australian. Marnie has demonstrated outstanding journalism in the way she approached the difficult and complex issue of suicide. Marnie and Keryn jointly demonstrated their professionalism in the way they reported issues relating to alcohol related harm in our community. The Health and Medicine edition that covered these controversial issues was a high quality piece of journalism highlighting research evidence in relation to alcohol use, associated problems and policy in an informative and accurate way.

Marnie McKimmie

 
The ICCWA Student Award
Youth Work Students at SW TAFE 
The Certificate III & IV Youth Work Students have participated in a number of activities relating to the Understanding and Building Resilience in the South West Project. They have been very willing to undertake deep personal reflection on their values and habits and to experiment with changing how they relate to themselves, their families, their peers and other community service workers. The students have actively participated in a variety of workshops relating to injury prevention and community safety such as: sexuality, diversity & inclusion, coping skills, selfharm, depression, suicide intervention, goal setting and referral pathways. The authentic and sincere manner in which the students have engaged in their learning has allowed them to build support networks and increased their capacity to act together within a fabric of increased resilience. Congratulations to Course Coordinator Steve McKinney and students.

Highly Commended: Adrian Koh – University of Western Australia
Adrian is a final year Bachelor of Health Science student from UWA who has been on practicum with ICCWA for the last 3 months. Adrian has been involved in a number of ICCWA projects which have included advocacy, research, a funding application and project work. Adrian is an exceptional team player and has approached his placement with a high level of professionalism.