The WITS Health HUBB

(Help Understand Behave Become) NOW IN YEAR TWO

On the 1st of October 2020, twenty NEET youth from Soweto started the Health Advocate programme and their training to become Health Promotion Officers (NQF 3) within their community. These advocates visited homes providing basic health checks, and worked alongside the City of Johannesburg health promotion officers and primary care clinic staff through the COVID-19 pandemic. By end of 2021, 70% of these young people had ongoing employment.

A survey of community members (n=122) showed how much such services are needed:

 Over 93% of households said –

– they had not received similar home health checks before

– the advocates seemed very knowledgeable and answered their questions well with easy to understand information

– they would be likely or very likely to request this service again at home if it were available.  Community members experienced an average 37% improvement in how they felt about their health after the visit.

 When asked to estimate the value of the home visit to them in local currency, the median reported value was R68 (significantly higher for men at R76).

Four of the 2020 cohort have also joined the Wits Health Hubb core team and are helping to expand the teams’ capacity. During 2021, the team also expanded to employ a professional nurse part-time specializing in palliative care.

Excitingly, the team are now based at the newly opened Jabulani Safe Hub, in region D Soweto. Phase 1 of the centre (fullsize soccer artificial pitch, swimming pool, outdoor courts, gym facility, and kids play area) was officially launched on the 9th of September 2021. This was then followed by Phase 2 (a community centre and administration offices) opened on the 29th of October 2021. The aim of this centre in Jabulani is to promote youth development and to create a community of peace and protection against social ills.

Because of our success in year one, in October 2021 we have taken on another 30 NEET youth! They’ve had their baseline health assessments in partnership with the Wits Centre for Exercise Science and Sports Medicine (CESSM) and had training in the Jabulani Youth Café with Healthy Conversation Skills, a brief motivational interviewing technique to help them support the community toward better health.

Basetsana (21) from Dobsonville is one of our new 2021/2022 Health Advocates. She says “growing up I only knew health as being a doctor or a nurse, I didn’t know there were other things”. She now realises the importance of doing regular health-checks “I’ve never done any health checks before and I now realise that high blood pressure is a silent killer, you never know whether you have it or not, so it is important for people to go for check-ups”. She believes the program has a positive impact on youth and the community, and she’s looking forward to using the skills she’s learned.

WITS HEALTH HUBB – WHERE ARE WE NOW?

 One paper in submission and four in preparation  Leveraged funding: – Development Bank of Southern Africa of around R2 million per year – Corporate sponsorship from Wits Health Consortium of R290k in year one, increasing to R460k in year two – Several seed awards for pilot projects with UK universities (Edinburgh, Queens University Belfast,

Cambridge University) – Awarded R600k from CoE-Human to co-create and test a health literacy programme for youth in

Jabulani.