Old and Alone: Not just an Isolated Incident Evaluation Summary Report Catherine Evans Public Health Network Cymru Coordinator October 2018
Introduction Public Health Network Cymru based within Public Health Wales provides a range of support to practitioners and researchers across all sectors that influence any aspect of public health and health improvement in Wales. Amongst the services they provide is a seminar series that seeks to promote best practice based on existing and emerging evidence. The series covers a diverse range of topics and recent examples have included topics such as The Contribution of Allied Health Professions to Public Health and Mental Health in the Workplace: Employing Best Practice. The topics are determined by the network members who vote on a list of approximately 12 topics that are circulated annually and Loneliness and Isolation among older people was voted for by members. The seminar was organised in collaboration with colleagues from Bangor University, Swansea University, Age Cymru and the Older Person’s Commissioners Office. The seminar took place on Thursday 11 October 2018 at the Reichel Hall in Bangor University and was chaired by Dafydd Iwan. The first presentation was by Steve Huxton from the Older Person’s Commissioners Office who gave an overview of Ageing Well in Wales. The next presentation was by Dr Deborah Morgan who is a Researcher at the Centre for Ageing and Dementia Research. The presentation was entitled ‘Behind the Figures: Loneliness and Social Isolation in Later Life.’ Dr Catrin Hedd Jones and Prof Gill Windle both from Bangor University spoke about ‘Inter-generational Work Tackling Loneliness, and Reducing Loneliness in Later Life: The role of resilience.’ The final presentation of the morning was from David Evans and Peter Harrison who spoke of the work carried out by Prestatyn Artisans Collective and some of the projects they have been involved in which help to prevent loneliness and isolation amongst the community.
The presentations were followed by three workshops: Community Connections: David Worrall, Positive Steps/Connecting Communities This workshop introduced the work of the British Red Cross in Wales and Community Connectors, the result of joint work between the Co-op and Red Cross, and the Positive Steps/Camau Cadarn project. The workshop explored the findings of the recent Co-op/Red Cross report ‘Connecting communities to tackle loneliness and social isolation’ and there was a discussion around the challenges and opportunities of working with people who are lonely and/or socially isolated. Informing Policy: Penny Hall and Rachel Lewis, Welsh Government This workshop provided an update on the Welsh Government’s response to tackling loneliness and asked delegates to feed in to the response via a number of questions. Overcoming Barriers: Valerie Billingham, Age Cymru This workshop explored overcoming potential barriers in communities to facilitate the inclusion and participation of older people, to help combat loneliness and isolation. A number of points were discussed including neighbourhood design and services and Age Cymru’s Community Calculator which can help gauge whether communities in Wales are age friendly. Individual presentations are available by contacting publichealth.network@wales.nhs.uk or can be accessed on the Public Health Network Cymru website.
Evaluation 56 people registered for the seminar and 56 attended on the day. The seminar was also live streamed via Twitter with 70 people viewing during the seminar and a further 114 people viewing the stream post seminar. An evaluation form was given to all delegates at the end of the event and 23 forms were returned.
Quantitative Results The first question asks delegates whether or not they were members of Public Health Network Cymru. The majority of people (70%) were not members of the Network even though the seminar was initially sent to the Network members. However the event was also promoted by members of the planning group and this included researchers at Bangor University who promoted the event amongst their students, a number of which attended the event. In the week following the seminar the Network had 10 new member registrations many of which were delegates from the seminar.
Another question on the evaluation form asks delegates to rank from 1 to 5, (where 1 is not at all useful and 5 is very useful) “how useful did you find the seminar?�. As can be seen the majority of people (78%) answered 4 or 5 to this question with 13% (3 people) providing the answer of 3 and 4% (1 person) stating the answer of 2. Following a closer look at this evaluation form there was nothing to indicate why this person gave the answer they did.
Qualitative Results Further questions on the evaluation form looked for a qualitative response which is detailed below. What was your main motivation for attending this event? The majority of delegates attended the seminar to find out more about the topic and to update themselves with recent research and good practice. Networking was also an important factor for a number of the delegates. “Update on this topic and whether we are or can do more to incorporate this issue into our work” “Develop thoughts, build new contacts, listen to views and examples of good practices” “To update myself and others about older people’s services in area” Was there anything that was of notable interest? Many delegates mentioned the presentations and in particular the presentation from Prestatyn Artisans Collective. It is interesting to note that the project has had a number of enquiries from delegates since the event asking to visit the project to find out more about it. “We have already had a number of delegates contacting us and asking to visit and in one case asking us to visit them, so for us a big success in helping to spread the word from a voluntary/3rd sector perspective” The workshops were also mentioned a number of times in the evaluation forms as being useful to discuss the issues in more detail. “An update from Welsh Assembly Government on their work was very helpful” “Intergenerational presentation by Dr Catrin Hedd Jones and Behind the Figures by Dr Deborah Morgan” “Ageing Well in Wales presentation” How do you plan to utilise the learning gained at this event? A number of delegates said that they would share the information with colleagues and raise awareness of isolation and loneliness within the community. As there were a few students at the event there were a few comments stating how they would use the learning gained from the event as part of their course. “Was good to understand knowledge gaps and what I can do in my role to fill them” “Cascade info to colleagues / referral for clients” “I am a research student - networking has been very useful for me to gain more knowledge” What seminar / conference topics would you like to see delivered in the future? Many of the topics that delegates said they would like to see covered in future events were in relation to older people and linked closely to the topic area of this seminar. Mental health was raised a few times and as this is always a popular subject the Network are planning an event for 2019. “More case studies of what is working well within rural and town settings” “How to transfer evidence/knowledge in to meaningful practice” “Joined up policy around loneliness”
Other comments Delegates had an opportunity to provide any further comments they had about the event. The only negative comment related to information sheets such as the evaluation forms being provided in Welsh which the Network will take on board for future events. The programme was available in Welsh and bilingual translation was provided for the presentations. Delegates were also able to register for the event in Welsh. “Very inspirational, useful, resourceful and informative event. Diolch yn fawr” “Very informative and opportunity to meet others working in same field” “The discussions within the workshops were useful to hear opinions of others” One word Participants were asked to give one word to sum up how they felt about the event. These words have been inputted into Wordle (www.wordle.net). Wordle generates word diagrams that give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the text. From this you can clearly see that informative and interested were stated most frequently.
Mentimeter Mentimeter is an easy to use web based presentation tool. It is a secure platform that can be used with different sized audiences to make presentations more interactive. We took the opportunity to use Mentimeter to interact with delegates and find out their views on the current situation. Participation was very good by delegates and a total of 38 delegates took part. The results are as follows:
Further Information Further information and a short video of the day is available on the Public Health Network Cymru website or by contacting publichealth.network@wales.nhs.uk