07/05/2026
What a super star our GAP facilitator Corina McCarthy is 🫶 Congratulations on a well deserved award.
🚶♂️ Being active boosts your health and wellbeing, and even 30 minutes of brisk walking on most days will help you stay in good health. At Risdon Prison, a new initiative is encouraging inmates to take steps toward a better life.
Corina McCarthy, who works in the Health Promotions (South) team, partnered with the Heart Foundation to launch its first walking group in a prison. The program promotes physical activity while building social connections and support networks. 💚
Corina’s work has helped create inclusive health opportunities, says her colleague Michelle Towle. “Sometimes providing access to health and wellbeing activities can be challenging, and we have to take the service to where the people are.”
✅ Michelle and Corina are also training the inmates to deliver self-management programs, to empower them to manage their health and improve quality of life. Feedback from the programs is positive, for creating a safe space for people to share, and with clear health benefits including weight loss and feeling more connected to others.
Michelle and Corina are Australia’s only master trainers in the Persistent Pain and Get the Most Out of Life Self-Management Programs, and their work is creating a ripple effect by training prisoners to become trainers themselves.
👥 The pain program is designed to be led by people who are themselves living with pain and have an understanding of the communities they are serving. Risdon inmate Darryn is the first person in an Australian prison to train as a leader in these self-management programs. He has also become one of the walk organisers, and is a strong role model at the prison, empowering others to take control of their health in a safe and supportive environment.
Corina (pictured here) and Darryn are the most recent recipients of the Spot On! award for their wonderful work in health literacy – congratulations to you both! 💫
ℹ️ Spot On! is an initiative of the Department’s health literacy network, to recognise what people and services are doing to make it easier for people to find, understand and use information and services.
www.health.tas.gov.au/professionals/health-literacy
✍️ You can submit an online nomination to recognise an individual or service for good health literacy practices: www.health.tas.gov.au/publications/spot-nomination-form-0
