This week Mayor Angela Evans and Professor Susan Hillier, (UniSA) officially launched Healthy Choices, a unique collaboration between the University of South Australia and the City of Charles Sturt.

Healthy Choices is a 5-year research project focused on addressing chronic disease in the City of Charles Sturt and will be based at our Civic Centre. This innovative community-based model will involve 70 supervised allied health students throughout the year working with members of our community to develop wellbeing plans. These plans will encourage participants to take a proactive approach to their health and wellness. The program, for those aged 18+, will also help them to understand what they can do to improve their own health and access local services that can address their needs to become active, healthy partners in our community.

Health is one of the priorities for our City and is the largest employer in our region. We are seeing new developments such as the $320 million redevelopment of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and are committed to working together through initiatives such as the Woodville Health Precinct Working Party which brings together representatives from:

• Health SA
• The Queen Elizabeth Hospital
• The Hospital Research Foundation
• Council
• Public Health Network
• UniSA

“This project not only supports the health and wellbeing of our community but our commitment to jobs and skills in our region. And we encourage our community and health and wellbeing providers to connect and get involved.” said Mayor Angela Evans

If you want to learn more about the program, or if you are a business who is keen to be part of it, contact Deb Whetstone dwhetstone@charlessturt.sa.gov.au (community program) or Selma Barlow sbarlow@charlesturt.sa.gov.au (business). Also, if you are a business, look out for future events to find out how you can be involved.