Community Engagement
Working with communities to strengthen health systems through practice, partnership, and learning.
Working with communities to strengthen health systems through practice, partnership, and learning. At the Department of Family, Community and Emergency Care (FaCE), community engagement is not separate from what we do — it is how we teach, how we deliver care, and how we conduct research.
Our work is embedded within the health system, where students, clinicians, and researchers engage directly with communities and services to respond to real health needs and improve outcomes.
Why community engagement is central to our work
We understand that health is shaped by more than clinical care alone. It is influenced by social, economic, and environmental conditions, as well as access to responsive and well-functioning health services.
Our approach to community engagement brings together:
- Clinical care
- Education and training
- Research and evidence generation
within community and district health systems.
Through a decentralised clinical teaching platform, we work across:
- Community health centres
- District hospitals
- Rural and underserved settings
- Community-based programmes and outreach
This allows us to:
- Align training with real-world health system needs
- Deliver care that is contextually relevant
- Build stronger relationships between communities and health services
- Generate knowledge that improves both practice and policy
We work with communities, not for them — recognising that meaningful engagement requires partnership, trust, and shared ownership.
A Community-Oriented Primary Care (COPC) approach
Our work is guided by a Community-Oriented Primary Care (COPC) approach, which integrates:
- Clinical care
- Public health
- Community participation
This approach shifts the focus from treating illness in isolation to understanding and responding to the broader determinants of health at a population level.
A clinical teaching platform embedded in the health system
Community engagement at FaCE is operationalised through a decentralised clinical teaching platform, where learning, service, and research take place within the same environments. Students and trainees are placed within real health system contexts, where they:
- Learn through direct patient care
- Engage with communities and local realities
- Work within multidisciplinary teams
- Understand how services function across levels of care
This approach ensures that training is not abstract, but grounded in practice.
Our engagement is shaped by the following principles:
Community participation
We engage communities as partners, ensuring that their knowledge, priorities, and experiences inform our work.
Prevention and health promotion
We prioritise preventing illness and promoting wellbeing, not only responding to disease
Data-informed practice
We use local data and evidence to understand health needs, guide interventions, and measure impact.
Integrated care
We connect clinical services, public health approaches, and social support systems to deliver holistic care.
Equity and social accountability
We align our work with priority health needs and aim to improve access and outcomes for underserved populations.
Why this matters
Health systems cannot be strengthened without meaningful engagement with the communities they serve.
By embedding our work within communities and health services, we are able to:
Improve the relevance and quality of care
Strengthen trust between communities and health providers
Support more effective and sustainable health interventions
Train healthcare professionals who are responsive to real-world needs
This approach ensures that our work contributes not only to education and research, but to lasting improvements in health systems and outcomes.
Work with us to strengthen health systems and improve health outcomes
We partner with communities, health services, and organisations to create meaningful and lasting impact.