Free to attend
About this webinar
This webinar will explore how colonial legacies and unequal power structures continue to shape global child health, including research, funding, education, policy, partnerships and decision-making.
It will focus on the role of institutions, including professional bodies, healthcare organisations, academic institutions and global health organisations, in challenging the status quo and creating more equitable systems. It will also question the very nature of “global” health, including how its structures and practices may continue to reflect colonial assumptions about whose knowledge, priorities and expertise are valued.
The webinar will consider how embracing the discomfort created by these reflections is essential to fostering meaningful change. It will explore how institutions can critically examine their own structures, relationships and practices, move beyond tokenistic commitments and fulfil their moral responsibilities towards children and communities affected by global health inequities.
The discussion will also highlight the responsibilities of paediatricians and child health professionals in promoting more equitable, locally led and accountable approaches to global health partnerships and practice.
Finally, the session will provide an opportunity to reflect on how the ICHG and RCPCH Global interrogate their own structures, relationships and ways of working, and identify practical actions that institutions and individuals can take to challenge racism, address colonial legacies and tackle intersecting inequalities in child health.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this session, participants will:
- gain a deeper understanding of how colonial histories and power structures continue to shape global health, including research, funding, education, policy, partnerships and decision-making
- recognise how institutional practices can reproduce inequity, including through knowledge production, agenda-setting, resource allocation, leadership and definitions of expertise
- explore what decolonisation means in child health and global health, distinguishing meaningful structural change from symbolic or tokenistic activity
- identify principles for more equitable global health partnerships, including local leadership, shared decision-making, reciprocity, accountability and appropriate recognition of expertise
- apply approaches to decolonising paediatric practice, research, education and advocacy, in the UK and internationally, while recognising how racism and other intersecting inequalities may reinforce colonial systems
- identify actions that individuals and institutions can take to support locally led and accountable approaches to child health.
Benefits for delegates
By undertaking this course, you will gain:
- a stronger understanding of how colonial legacies shape global and child health, including institutional priorities, knowledge systems, partnerships and health outcomes
- tools for advancing decolonised approaches to clinical practice, research, education, advocacy and global health collaboration
- inspiration to contribute to meaningful institutional change.
Speakers
ICHG committee members Maria Marcolin, Rebecca Rhodes, Kerry Blackett and Prudence Jarrett will be joined by guest speaker Dr Sridhar Venkatapuram, Senior Lecturer in Global Health and Philosophy at King's College London.
Audience
- General Paediatricians
- Paediatric trainees
- Community Paediatricians
- SAS doctors
- Locally Employed Doctors
- Midwives and Health Visitors
- GPs & GP trainees
- Public Health doctors
- Dieticians
- Pharmacists
It is also suitable for an international audience, with caveats on data (which is UK & Ireland) and treatment approaches, which will be most relevant to the UK context.
For more information
Please contact the RCPCH Education Team by email: rcpchlearning@rcpch.ac.uk