On Tuesday 25th February more than 120 people from across the country came together to explore the huge contribution that community organisations have made to the health and wellbeing of our communities. Along with this, we were also delighted to be celebrating 20 years of CHEX working to tackle Scotland’s health inequalities.

The day was jam-packed, with insightful speakers, interactive workshops and plenty of discussion - all the while learning from each other's good practice and stories from community-led health organisations across Scotland.

Our chair

Brenda Black from Edinburgh Community Food chaired the day and brought her experience and knowledge about the hard work that goes in community-led health organisations in Scotland. Edinburgh Community Food has been working for 24 years delivering their mission to ‘get people into healthy food, and healthy food into people.'

Brenda told us her community-led health journey and took us through the day, sharing her reflections on the great line up of speakers and workshops.

Speakers

Lizanne Conway and Janet Muir

As part of our celebration of community-led health CHEX we heard from Lizanne Conway, formerly of NHS Health Scotland and Janet Muir, former CHEX Manger.

They both shared their reflections about the early days of CHEX and how the organisation was established 20 years ago. They told us about how the work began and about the progress, sometimes slow, that they’d made to earn recognition for community-led health as an approach to tackling Scotland’s health inequalities.

It was great to hear their thoughts and understand how, and why, CHEX was formed and see how community-led health and grown through their work.

Ann Duffy

Our next speaker was Ann Duffy - a Health Issues in the Community tutor and Health Improvement Lead at South Glasgow HSCP. She brought her own experiences to demonstrate the impact that can be had using community development approaches to health.

Health Issues in the Community is a course that helps people understand what affects their health and the health of their communities.

From setting up a youth work projects in Gorbals to developing the Youth HIIC pack, she shared her personal story about how community-led health shaped her life and the impact HIIC has on course participants.

Workshops

Removing barriers to participation - Glasgow Disability Alliance

This workshop focused on the work undertaken by GDA to improve the participation of disabled people in the matters that affect their lives. In particular they spoke about how they have developed and supported their ‘Drivers for Change’ group of over 150 members who campaign, raise awareness and seek to influence the services and policies of public bodies, politicians and funders to be more inclusive of disabled people.

They also showed a short film about their Participatory Budgeting work and how they have removed barriers to disabled people participating in PB processes in different parts of Glasgow. Participants welcomed the opportunity to discuss how they as organisations could learn from GDA and actively work to be more inclusive of disabled people in what they do and how they operate.

More here.

Evaluating Stepping Stones for Families’ Family Wellbeing Service

IIsobel from Stepping Stones for Families introduced the Family Wellbeing Service which was funded by the National Lottery Community Fund to work with nurseries to provide holistic support to parents of pre-school children in north east and north west Glasgow.

Glasgow Centre for Population Health match funded an evaluation of the service. This showed how the service led to a wide range of positive health and wellbeing outcomes for parents and children.

Workshop participants discussed the value of using preventative community development approaches with vulnerable families. Participants also discussed the strengths of different evaluation approaches, highlighting the power of sharing individual stories while recognising the value of independent evaluation.

More here.

Exploring Social Prescribing - SPRING

Clare Cook from SPRING’s social prescribing initiative provided the workshops with an overview of the work of 10 community-led health organisations providing this service across Scotland.

Louise Taylor from the Annexe in Partick Glasgow (who are one of the delivery organisations involved in SPRING) gave us an insight into the practicalities of delivering the service and showed two videos of participants who described how they have benefited from having tailored support.

Discussions with workshop participants explored the issues relating to gaining the trust of people using the service, overcoming barriers to participation, linking with other organisations who may support people and the process of evaluating the impact and ‘making the case’ for continued resourcing of these services.

More here.

Health Issues in the Community in Action - Glasgow HSCP (South)

This workshop focussed on the practical application of HIIC by using the new resource Poverty:Our Hidden Shame? A resource developed by Glasgow City HSCP (South Sector). After a brief introduction by Ann Duffy, we watched a portion of the video before doing an exercise from HIIC. You can access both the video and exercise here.

Participants felt that they could use the resource in several ways; to raise awareness of the reality of poverty; of the different levels of poverty and as a tool for intergenerational work.

Demonstrating 3rd sector impact on inequalities - Evaluation Support Scotland & CHEX

This workshop focused on a new resource, ‘Recognising our rich tapestry’ developed by Evaluation Support Scotland (ESS), CHEX and others to help 3rd sector organisations measure their contribution to tackling health inequalities.

When asked if they could see their activities and outcomes reflected in the model, the vast majority of participants said that they could and that they could use it to help others better understand their work, including funders and commissioners. CHEX and ESS are following up with NHS Health Scotland on how people can be supported to use the model, you can download a copy here

More here.

Young people leading the way - YOMO Young Movers

This workshop was delivered with Young Movers, who run activities that empower young people living across the North East and North West of Glasgow. We heard from Caitlin McGlynn on their Health Champs

Work which included #KeepItPositive , an event designed entirely by young people to tackle the negative stigma that comes with mental health, captured in this film.

YoMo shared some lessons from being young person led, specifically that wholistic support is required, that flexibility is and partnership working essential. Because, a young person can’t meaningfully contribute if they are hungry or stressed, that sometimes young people will just not be in the right headspace to work to our set agenda, so the agenda should be scrapped, and that young people might come to you through that ‘one good adult’, a pathway we should all pay forward.

Participants were excited about opportunities for intergenerational work, agreed on the importance of making clear what is in it for young people, and overall agreed that in making engagement attractive and accessible for young people we make the attractive and accessible for the community as a whole.

More here.

Wrapping up

After our afternoon workshops we came together for the last time to conclude the day and share some final thoughts about what we’d heard from our speakers and in our great workshops.

We were delighted to see so many people come together to share their experience and ideas about the impact community-led health continue to make in Scotland.

We took the time for a short moment of reflection using a guided meditation. It was a chance to take a minute to think on what we’ve heard today and end the and what we can take forward as part of their work.

We also took a moment to thank a very important person who will be leaving us in March after more than 15 years. Elspeth Gracey has been an integral part of the CHEX team and her contribution, insight and knowledge of community-led health will be very much missed.

Finally, we’d like to say thank all of ours speakers and workshop hosts and everyone who contributed towards to the day. If you made it along we hope you enjoyed the day.