Have your say: the Scottish Parliament’s call for views on third sector funding
/Have your say: contribute to the SCDC and CHEX response to the Scottish Government’s call for views on third sector funding.
Read MoreHave your say: contribute to the SCDC and CHEX response to the Scottish Government’s call for views on third sector funding.
Read MoreThe CHEX team out and about: Sarah was in Dundee, meeting with Wendy and her team from Wellbeing Works.
Read MoreIn this blog, SCDC Director Susan Paxton asks why reducing Scotland’s worsening health inequalities isn’t Scotland’s most urgent mission – and what needs to change to make this happen.
Read MoreScottish Communities for Health and Wellbeing is dedicated to promoting and delivering health improvements and reducing health inequalities in many of Scotland’s communities in most need.
Read MoreThe Community Wellbeing Exchange gives community organisations access to up to £1000 for mental health activities provided by social enterprises
Read MoreCHEX is inviting any network members with a social enterprise element to their work to apply to have their services added to a programme of activities around mental health which will be on offer as part of this year’s Community Wellbeing Exchange.
Read More“The current cost-of-living crisis [is] the latest stage in a continuing crisis of health and health inequalities” – if the title of Professor Chik Collin’s keynote presentation is one of the key take-away messages from the 2023 CHEX conference, then the other would be that decision-makers urgently need to prioritise investing and supporting community-led health approaches - all as part of a broader and fundamental switch of policy direction towards prevention, participation and wellbeing.
The 2023 CHEX conference was held on the 21st March in the centrally located and very well-equipped Studio in Glasgow. The focus of our first face-to-face conference since before the Covid-19 pandemic was on the impact of cost-of-living and ways to address this, but nobody attending the conference was kidding themselves that the pressures on communities were anything new.
Nevertheless, there were audible gasps from conference-goers when Chik, who recently took up the role of Director at Glasgow for Centre Population Health, clearly illustrated that increasing mortality and health inequalities in Scotland since around 2010 are reversing more positive trends in previous decades. The obvious implication, which wasn’t lost on those listening, was that recent and current UK government austerity policy is the main factor behind this, and the question of whether Scotland has been doing enough, at a central government and local level, was also left hanging in the air.
“Opening comments from Chik were powerful and set the tone for the day.” (conference feedback)
Chik’s presentation began with a Thomas Hardy quote: “If way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst” (Tenebris II). This really captured something about the day in that it felt like the presentations, workshops and discussions needed an in-depth and honest setting out of the full impact of our unequal and unjust society on individuals and communities, before solutions at a community and policy level could be explored.
This need was evident right from the start of the day, when our excellent Chair Brenda Black from Edinburgh Community Food (ECF) gave a quick introduction to how ECF meets healthy eating and food security needs of people through sustainable and community-led activities which link food, health and well-being and social care. CHEX is really grateful to Brenda for doing such a brilliant job of chairing our conference.
After Chik’s input there was time for discussion and a chance to reflect on how the inequality presented by Chik is impacting on communities across Scotland. A quick tea/coffee break was followed by the first set of workshops which, this year, focused on a range of issues and approaches related to health inequality. The full list are as follows:
Supporting the health and wellbeing of the Gypsy/Traveller Community in Scotland, delivered by Charise Barclay-Daly from MECOPP
Cost of living and travel, delivered by Caro Kemp from Sustrans
The power of peer support – “let the group decide” delivered by Leanne McBride and Jenny Fulton from Chance to Change (C2C)
How many Health Issues in the Community (HIIC) tutors does it take…? delivered by Anita Aggarwal of Port of Leith Housing Association, Theodora Hidalgo of Edinburgh Community Food and Louisa Richardson from YMCA
“Trauma? What’s that got to do with me?!” delivered by Fiona Douglas from NHS Lanarkshire
Find out about all of workshops here.
If the workshops this blogger attended and helped facilitate were anything to go by (which were the gypsy/traveller and trauma workshops), then this year’s workshops were full of important and relevant information. For instance, both Charise from MECOPP and Fiona from NHS Lanarkshire had a wealth of experience and knowledge to impart about gypsy/traveller communities and trauma respectively. It was easy to tell that workshop participants were learning a huge amount about areas they were unfamiliar with, and there were a lot of hard-hitting and poignant messages in both workshops.
“The workshops were a great balance of informative and interactive” (conference feedback)
There was enough time in all the workshops for participants to come up with key take away messages for decision makers, which were captured on flipcharts and presented in the main room of the conference.
Some common themes across all of the workshops were:
Listen to communities – support and investment in proper participation and co-production is required in order to move towards a preventative/social model of health. Without the voice of experience inequalities are only entrenched.
Recognise the value of community-led approaches and resource it effectively - including long term (3 years plus) funding which is consistent and accessible to develop impactful and sustainable projects. Decision makers should also take part in community-based work to learn how it works for themselves.
Increased and improved training for staff in all organisations – including in trauma and gypsy/traveller communities
Fairer distribution of resources – Immediate measures include more support for the most vulnerable groups, including support for public transport and sustainable travel. IN the longer terms we need to restructure our society and economy so that resources are distributed more fairly and sustainably.
The second set of workshops (with 3 workshops repeated) ran after a tasty lunch, and then the conference reconvened for final reflections from Brenda, who expertly summed up how community-led approaches offer a way forward to tackle rising inequality and injustice. We’re just one part of what’s needed if a “way to the better” is to be found. All the workshop hosts and delegates were given a much-deserved thanks before the conference ended.
“Workshops and Chik were very useful. I’ve expanded my understanding of HIIC and have a better understanding of what the traveller community are up against” (conference feedback)
CHEX’s job is now to draw up a series of actions building on the conference messages. In the first instance, we’re going to target our next briefing at policy makers and decision-makers, and this will articulate and refine the key points which came out of the conference. We’ll be doing a lot more as well, including further development of the HIIC tutor network to help ensure this vital resource plays its part in tackling inequality. To stay updated with what CHEX is doing, sign up to our CHEX-point Snippets newsletter and ensure your community organisation is on the CHEX community-led health database.
The CHEX annual conference is a chance to come together to explore the key issues for community-led health in Scotland.
Read MoreThe Community Wellbeing Exchange gives community organisations access to £1000 for mental health activities provided by social enterprises
Read MoreEarlier this year, CHEX submitted a response to the Scottish Parliament Inquiry into Health Inequalities. We thought we’d summarise the key points we made in our submission.
Read MoreThe Scottish Government and NHS Assure have developed a draft Climate Emergency and Sustainability Strategy 2022 to 2026 for NHS Scotland. A consultation on the draft is open until the 10th March 2022.
Read MoreCHEX is helping People’s Health Trust with a survey to gather views on the state of mental health within the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS). The results will be part of a People’s Health Trust-led campaign to ask the government to recognise and address the mental health of VCS workers.
Read MoreThe Scottish Parliament’s Health, Social Care and Sport committee have published a survey for people to give their experiences of alternative pathways to primary care, which could include,among other things, many community-led health activities and anything termed social prescribing.
Read MoreNear Me is NHS Scotland’s free online video consulting service for health and care. Community organisations can use it in their work and may also want to help raise awareness of it among their community.
Read MoreSENScot, SCHW and CHEX are inviting expressions of interest in this programme which will enable 20 community organisations across Scotland to purchase a wide range of mental health & wellbeing focused activities and services supplied by social enterprises and third sector organisations.
Read MoreCHEX recently submitted our response to the Scottish Government’s National Care Service consultation. We’ve summarised our response to what was a very detailed consultation document, which should hopefully get across the key points without making you have to read through the whole thing.
Read MoreA new report shows how giving community organisations small pots of funding to buy in mental health focused activities and services from social enterprises can make a real difference to the health of people, workers and local organisations.
Read MoreCHEX is preparing to develop a submission to the Scottish Government’s National Care Service consultation and we’d like to invite our network to help shape our response.
Read MoreA free See Me online workshop for community-led health organisations in the CHEX network. The workshop will take place on Thursday 3rd June 2021, 10:30am-12:00pm, and is based on See Me’s suite of practical mental health inclusion resources for tackling stigma and discrimination in healthcare settings.
Read MoreA research report from Nesta, Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s ihub and Outside the Box has explored the role of commnity organisations in supporting people’s health and wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic. It also asks what insights and learning can help understand how to sustain, strengthen and grow community organisations’ role in supporting people’s health and wellbeing in the longer term.
Read MoreCHEX is part of the Scottish Community Development Centre. Explore our other programmes
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