A glass half full: unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
Jody Pritchard Community Health Improvement Programme Manager Dudley Public Health Lorna Prescott Senior Development Officer Dudley CVS 1
A glass half full unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
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A glass half full unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
About us Jody Pritchard is the Community Health Improvement Programme Manager in Public Health, Dudley Primary Care Trust. She has experience of working in both the NHS and the Local Authority in Dudley and has been responsible for a range of health, wellbeing and active citizenship programmes. Currently she manages a team whose remit includes young people's health, alcohol, cancer prevention, healthy communities volunteers and community health champions, and commissioning responsibilities for the NHS Health Trainer Service. Jody has a degree in Sports Science and a Postgraduate Diploma and MSc in Health Promotion. She has always been very passionate about working and volunteering in a community setting and has volunteered for Dudley Youth Offending Service as a Community Panel Member since February 2002. Lorna Prescott is a Senior Development Officer at Dudley CVS, having previously led Dudley’s Community Empowerment Network for 10 years. Her work focuses on network development, community influence, empowerment and citizenship. She has an Advanced Award in Facilitation Skills accredited by the Institute of Leadership and Management, and a qualification to teach in the lifelong learning sector. She has also been trained to work with a number of community influence frameworks and to facilitate adult active citizenship learning. Lorna was the chair of a national community development charity between November 2009 and November 2011. She volunteers at a primary school in Brierley Hill where she was previously a governor. Lorna also volunteers at Social Media Surgeries in Birmingham and manages them in Dudley. Jody and Lorna each have over 15 years experience in community engagement and community development, working with community groups, young people, voluntary organisations and faith groups in Dudley Borough. They lead Dudley Community Partnership's Community Engagement activity, providing a range of training and support opportunities to officers and volunteers from all sorts of organisations. Lorna and Jody have both been trained in Participatory Appraisal and Facilitation Skills and both recently attended training in asset approaches. 3
A glass half full unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
Wellbeing When we are asked whether we are ‘well’, we tend to answer in terms of not being ill. We are thinking of wellbeing and illness as two separate things.
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When we are asked what makes us healthy, we think of the things that are good for you at one end and things that are bad for you at the other end.
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Some people have compared health and illness to a river. They say that if you are on the river bank you are healthy, and if you are in the river you are ill.
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A glass half full unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
More prevention and less treatment....... Lots of work has been done to try and prevent people from falling into the river, and therefore prevent them from becoming ill; for example, education and awareness raising campaigns to prevent people from taking up smoking or becoming overweight. By carrying out prevention work there should be less need for treatment in the future. For people already in the river, there is lots of support available to help them get out onto the river bank such as quit smoking groups and Weight Watchers classes. In 1996 a man called Antonovsky suggested an alternative story – Antonovsky believed that everyone is actually in the dangerous river of life. However, some people are able to swim well whilst others find even staying afloat to be a constant struggle. This can be because their river is more dangerous or because they don’t have as many resources available to them to help them to swim. This is where community assets come in...
What are community assets? They include the talents, abilities, ideas, skills, dreams and passions of people. These are sometimes called gifts. Gifts of the heart (passion, what you care about), gifts of the head (knowledge, things you know about) and gifts of the hand (skills, things you can do). People are the primary resource in any community and are the most important resource. Relational assets are the networks, relationships, friendships, group ties and so on which knit people’s gifts together. 5
A glass half full unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
Discussion: Five ways to wellbeing
Have a look at the five ways to wellbeing developed by the New Economics Foundation. With a partner identify one or more of these that you do a lot that you are good at remembering to do. You can jot down your discussion if you wish:
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A glass half full unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
Connect... With the people around you. With family, friends, colleagues and neighbours. At home, work, school or in your local community. Think of these as the cornerstones of your life and invest time in developing them. Building these connections will support and enrich you every day. Be active... Go for a walk or run. Step outside. Cycle. Play a game. Garden. Dance. Exercising makes you feel good. Most importantly, discover a physical activity you enjoy and that suits your level of mobility and fitness. Take notice... Be curious. Catch sight of the beautiful. Remark on the unusual. Notice the changing seasons. Savour the moment, whether you are walking to work, eating lunch or talking to friends. Be aware of the world around you and what you are feeling. Reflecting on your experiences will help you appreciate what matters to you. Keep learning... Try something new. Rediscover an old interest. Sign up for that course. Take on a different responsibility at work. Fix a bike. Learn to play an instrument or how to cook your favourite food. Set a challenge you will enjoy achieving. Learning new things will make you more confident as well as being fun. Give... Do something nice for a friend, or a stranger. Thank someone. Smile. Volunteer your time. Join a community group. Look out, as well as in. Seeing yourself, and your happiness, linked to the wider community can be incredibly rewarding and creates connections with the people around you.
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A glass half full unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
Discussion: Community assets In an asset approach, the glass is half-full rather than half empty.
In a group look at one of the five ways to wellbeing. Discuss and record on the flipchart paper: 1.What people in communities can do together, with their passions, knowledge and skills, to support people to take this action. Identify things which require no support from health or other professionals 2. What people in communities can do with the support of professionals We will rotate the flipchart sheets around every few minutes.
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A glass half full unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
Information to take away More on wellbeing An asset approach Activity in Dudley which aims to improve health and wellbeing by unlocking community assets
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A glass half full unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
More on wellbeing A few definitions of health and wellbeing “Health is a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living. Health is a positive concept emphasising social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities.” Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, 1986
Wellbeing is “a positive state of mind and body, feeling safe and able to cope, with a sense of connection with people, communities and the wider environment” Department of Health, 2009
“A positive physical, social and mental state; it is not just the absence of pain, discomfort and incapacity. It requires that basic needs are met, that individuals have a sense of purpose, that they feel able to achieve important personal goals and participate in society. It is enhanced by conditions that include supportive personal relationships, strong and inclusive communities, good health, financial and personal security, rewarding employment, and a healthy and attractive environment.” Defra, 2007 How dangerous is your river? We know that there are lots of things which affect our health and wellbeing in addition to the individual choices we make about what we eat and drink, how much we exercise and whether or not we smoke, take drugs or practise unsafe sex. Look at the rainbow diagram on the next page which shows the wider determinants of health. Some of these things are in our control more than others.
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A glass half full unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
The Wider Determinants of Health
Antonovsky (mentioned on page 5) noticed that some survivors of the Holocaust suffered from severe after effects (physical and emotional illnesses), while others did not show any symptoms, at all. He wanted to identify the things that help people to cope and remain relatively healthy even when their river is very dangerous. Antonovsky found that people who are able to swim in the dangerous river of life have resources that they can draw on to help them cope, for example determination, a sense of purpose or meaning to life (i.e. a reason to get up in the morning!), an optimistic attitude. These internal resources help people to react flexibly to challenges and deal with different situations. They help them to stay relatively healthy rather than becoming ill.
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A glass half full unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
Swimming well and joyously! Sticking with the river story, if we are to have good health and wellbeing we need to focus on: Resources
In the river....
Internal resources – the resources we
Our abilities to help us swim and keep
have as individuals that help us cope;
afloat in the river
things like our determination, a sense of meaning, our skills at finding and using coping strategies that work Our external resources – the resources The lifebelts and buoyancy aids that provided by others which help us; our
help us swim and keep afloat in the river
social support and involvement; our love from others The circumstances in which we live; its
The rocks and the current that we have
pressures, stresses and dangers
to deal with in the river, and the dangers of these
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A glass half full unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
An asset approach By looking at the things which help people to cope (or swim in the river) we can begin to really understand the things (resources) which make people healthy. We will do this by identifying and then protecting and promoting the resources which are associated with positive health. Asset working encourages and supports social networks to grow. This helps to promote health and wellbeing. We know that “individuals who are socially isolated are between two and five times more likely than those who have strong social ties to die prematurely.� (Marmot, 2010) Asset working can promote mental wellbeing. People with good mental wellbeing will be more confident and motivated to choose healthy behaviours, and will be less likely to suffer from physical ill health. Focusing on the positive is a public health intervention in its own right. Professor Sarah Stewart-Brown, 2011
A neighbourhood that is depicted in terms of emptiness, needs and problems will be on the receiving end of all sorts of services designed and delivered by outside experts. Residents will be positioned as passive, powerless and dependent on outside help and assistance. A neighbourhood that is portrayed as resourceful and gifted will be more likely to draw upon the skills of local people to address issues and solve problems. Outside assistance and resources may still be required but the agenda will be set by the local community. People in these neighbourhoods are positioned as engaged citizens, capable of shaping their futures. Shifting Focus: a resource kit produced by Latrobe City and Monash University
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A glass half full unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
Communities have never been built upon their deficiencies. Building communities has always depended on mobilising the capacity and assets of people and place. Kretzman & McKnight (1993) Building Communities from the Inside Out
The asset approach values the capacity, skills, knowledge, connections and potential in a community. It doesn’t only see the problems that need fixing and the gaps that need filling. In an asset approach, the glass is half-full rather than half empty. The more familiar ‘deficit’ approach focuses on the problems, needs and deficiencies in a community such as deprivation, illness and health-damaging behaviours. It designs services to fill the gaps and fix the problems. As a result, a community can feel disempowered and dependent; people can become passive recipients of services rather than active agents in their own and their families’ lives. Trevor Hopkins and Jane Foot (2010) A glass half full: how an asset approach can improve community health and wellbeing
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A glass half full unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
Activity in Dudley which aims to improve health and wellbeing by unlocking community assets Community wellbeing and health improvement Dudley Public Health Department and Dudley CVS are testing an asset based approach to community wellbeing and health improvement. An asset based framework for health improvement will be developed and tested between summer 2012 and 2013. It will involve supporting asset based community led health improvement activity in one geographical community. Rather than focusing on needs the project will pay attention to the skills, knowledge, connections and potential in community. Teams of local people from different neighbourhoods have taken part in a training session to find out about asset based ways of working. They are in the process of identifying some of the assets in their communities. Big Local East Coseley in Dudley is one of 150 Big Local areas across the country and the people who live and work there have been allocated ÂŁ1million by the Big Local Trust. Big Local is a long term innovative programme that aims to achieve lasting change. The funding and support provided will enable people who live in the area to build on local talents and aspirations and identify and act on their own needs making East Coseley a better place to live. Community visions and community assets are being explored. See more at www.eastcoseleyvisions.wordpress.com
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A glass half full unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
Ageing Well Ageing Well aims to provide a better quality of life for older people through local services that are designed to meet their needs and recognise the huge contribution that people in later life make to their local communities. Local authorities are being supported to improve their services for older people while there are the dual challenges of public sector cuts and an ageing population. In Dudley borough the Ageing Well project is working towards the following and is seeking to unlock community assets in doing so: • Meaningful and sustained involvement of older people in their communities and in a wider range of service areas than health and social care; • Realising a vision of a whole system offer for older people through improved links between relevant organisations and services (including the voluntary and community sector) at a borough-wide and locality/township level; • Improving intelligence about how older people access services and using this information to improve access routes Alcohol and Cancer small grant programmes The Community Health Improvement Team in Public Health run two small grant programmes which are designed to support people working in the local community to raise awareness of either alcohol (sensible drinking and harm reduction), or cancer (signs and symptoms and uptake of screening programmes). This year the Community Health Improvement Team are encouraging applicants to consider, and where possible apply, an asset based approach to their projects or activities. They have started this by asking applicants to identify the assets they will use to make the project happen.
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A glass half full unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
Sharing stories Tessy Britton from Social Spaces (www.socialspaces.org) says that there is a new creative and collaborative way that everyday people are participating in society. A pattern is emerging around the world, from community fruit collections and skills sessions, to resource sharing and many projects relating to food, growing, cooking, making and learning. These projects are all creative, and collaborative. Creative Creative social projects connect many new and existing resources and ideas to make entirely new things. They recognise and unlock community assets - both the primary assets of people (their passions, skills and knowledge) and secondary assets. Collaborative Collaborative social projects boost the potential and success of the work by collective and collaborative ways of operating.
A series of books called the Community Lover’s Guide to the Universe is being developed, containing stories about these new types of local projects from around the world, projects often characterised by their powerful ability to gently bridge social divides and encourage cooperation and creativity. Lorna Prescott and Melissa Guest from Dudley CVS are collecting stories and editing the Community Lover’s Guide to Dudley!
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A glass half full unlocking community assets to improve health and wellbeing
Want to know more or get involved? We can add you to mailing lists for updates on the activity in Dudley, and we will be starting a blog (website) about all of this activity very soon. Please contact Lorna Prescott if you have something to share or want to know more
Lorna Prescott, Dudley CVS
lorna@dudleycvs.org.uk
01385 573381 07501 722255
@dosticen
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