Workshop 1: Supporting the health and wellbeing of the Gypsy/Traveller Community in Scotland

Delivered by Charise Barclay-Daly from MECOPP 

Charise described how the Community Health Matters service works closely with the Gypsy/Traveller community in Scotland. The project supports anyone with a carer role in the Gypsy/Traveller community to improve the physical and mental health of individuals, increase access to services and support better health outcomes using outreach work.  

The service provides direct support such as advice and rights advocacy, raises awareness on health- related topics, builds community capacity and resilience through training and uses creative arts to support community-led health. It also supports community engagement with service providers and advises on policy.  

Charise linked her work to health inequality findings related to the Gypsy/Traveller community and the workshop  

Main points from workshop discussions on messages to decision makers 

The workshop was a chance to discuss challenges presented by increasing inequality and the rising cost-of-living as well as ways forward to address these issues. 

1. Need for consistent support across Scotland for gypsy/traveller communities,  

1. Requirement for better and more consistent cultural awareness training for professionals/staff in relation to gypsy/traveller communities. 

1. Increased resources needed for spending time, building trust and growing relationships with gypsy/traveller communities in order to provide more appropriate and culturally sensitive services. 

Workshop 2: “Trauma? What’s that got to do with me?!” 

Delivered by Fiona Douglas, NHS Lanarkshire 

Fiona Douglas, a HIIC Tutor and NHS Lanarkshire Trainer who has worked in this field for 17 years, presented on the experience of inequalities as trauma and how that fits into our understanding of the wider determinants of health.  

Her work is underpinned by the NHS Education for Scotland (NES) Trauma Training Framework and its accompanying materials.  

The workshop considered how we respond to trauma, and the impact that trauma can have on us as we try our best to help others. Whether paid or unpaid, the burden of listening to, and attempting to support and empower others in distress is a high one, and the current economic crisis means that we work with an increasing number of people experiencing the trauma of financial poverty and its consequences.  

The workshop also introduced potential sources of support and tools that we can use to improve our own resilience, as well as the resilience of the communities and people we work with day in, day out.  

Main points from workshop discussions on messages to decision makers 

Participants then had the chance to come up with key messages to send leaders about the communities we work with, and the impact that trauma has on us ourselves.  

There was a strong emphasis on the fact that the cost-of-living crisis is creating further trauma for people in already disadvantaged communities. 

Key messages for decision makers

1. Dedicate funding to support trauma-informed training as core to all workforces so that we can achieve the NES vision 

1. Importance of listening and giving people who have experience of trauma a meaningful voice in decision-making about services and  

1. Invest and trust in our sector as a way of supporting people through trauma and of preventing trauma. 

Workshop 3: Cost of living and travel

Delivered by Caro Kemp from Sustrans 

Workshop summary 

Caro from Sustrans Scotland Communities Team delivered this practical workshop, examining the impact of the cost of living crisis on our travel choices and behaviours, not just as individuals, but for the communities we live in.  

The workshop covered:  

• Who is most impacted by increased travel costs  

• The implications for existing inequalities  

• Other factors that influence how people move around their local areas  

• The impact on community life and the knock-on effects  

• Public transport, diversifying the transport sector and low emission zones  

• 20 minute neighbourhoods and making active travel easier  

• The total and real costs of different forms of transport  

• Key messages for policy makers  

• How some of these issues are being addressed by communities around Scotland,   

• and how Sustrans can help people take action in their area  

 Main points from workshop discussions on messages to decision makers 

Participants had the chance to discuss the key messages they would like to give policy makers in relation to the cost-of-living and travel.  

The 3 reflections from the two Sustrans-led workshops were: 

1. Women, carers, disabled people, and those from ethnic minorities are most impacted. This can be a safety issue with public transport being unsafe or limited and some walking routes being seen as unsafe. Also, carers may have to make multi-stop journeys (dropping children off at care provision on the way to work or family tasks, taking their cared for person to medical and other appointments, collecting essential shopping and medication) and often these journeys are impractical on public transport. 

1. Those on lower incomes are impacted as they may need to rely on public transport that can be costly in relation to their income and often viewed as unreliable. Those working in care, hospitality and shift workers may be further impacted if public transport is not reliable around their start and finish times for working, which can lead to reliance on costly private transport like taxis or limiting work availability. 

1. Costs of more sustainable travel are very expensive upfront – whether that is travel passes for buses or trains, or the cost of buying and maintaining a bike, and the cost of time taken was viewed as being more important than the savings – particularly for those who work in multiple locations like home care providers, have caring responsibilities or those with antisocial hours or who live in rural areas where the services are not frequent enough. 

There was also discussion that peak fares for using public transport are not attractive as paying more for a busier service puts people off, and also the free travel for young people was welcomed as being a way to embed behaviour change as they would get used to using public transport, and hopefully as routes are used more, demand increases and the companies would invest in their fleet and frequency of services.  

Workshop 4: The Power of Peer Support – “let the group decide”

Delivered by Leanne McBride and Jenny Fulton from Chance to Change (C2C)  

Workshop summary  

Leanne, the peer facilitator of Chance to Change told us how the group originated from the local GP Dr Peter Cawston and went on to become an Expert Reference group with Lived Experience for the Scottish Government’s Primary Care Health Inequalities Short Life Working Group. Leanne also filled us in on their continued work with the Scottish government.  

We heard example of the transformation of people via peer support where traditional medication alone had failed to work. 

We also heard Jenny’s powerful story from homelessness and addiction to being a much respected member of the group and how peer support continues to support her as she supports others. 

We explored the power of language and the key role that peer support plays in empowering people to challenge and influence change in their communities. 

Main points from workshop discussions on messages to decision makers 

Language and Power 

 No more jaggy words (jargon) The workshop discussed the use of language. How the use of language can disempower people, wrong foot them, make them feel less than.  If you don’t understand the language of the DWP or medical environment then it can leave you feeling powerless and frightened as these folk have power over your life. It is the responsibility of agencies and services to ensure all their correspondence is in plain language. Also, it is something for all workers to bear in mind when they speak to folk. This use of jargon can also take way from the richness of working class language as people internalise the feeling that it is less than. This can drive feelings of us and them. 

 Support our frontline 

Support our frontline before they become our vulnerable (burnout) Frontline includes workers and volunteers. We need to support the workers and volunteers so that they can support the community. Just now they are at a crisis point. 

Listen to communities and act! 

• Listen to the community, properly listen. People are the experts of their own lives and communities, they know what their communities need, listen to them.  

• Invest in community work so that we can create opportunities for real voices to be heard, supported and actioned.  

• Put money into peer support, it builds confidence and skills far quicker than expensive medication. Though we need both. We need more recognition and education on the social model of health. 

• Communities need action - You keep talking. We keep dying! 

Funding 

• We need long term (3 years plus) consistent, accessible funding to develop impactful and sustainable projects. We need that time for relationships to develop and community led work to unfold. 

• We need funding that doesn’t change the goalposts and that values continuity and quality rather than focusing on innovative projects. 

• Funders talk about partnership and cooperation but the way they actually work promotes competition. 

• Organisations are in competition for limited funding, this makes collaboration more difficult. 

 Others points that stood out…. 

• One of exasperation and resignation - We’ve told you all of this before! 

• We need to redistribute wealth and power. 

• We need transformational rather than transactional leadership 

• Safe, nurturing spaces are invaluable to health and wellbeing – fund these! 

• Join groups together to be a bigger collective voice – continue voices/conversations between CHEX conferences. 

Workshop 5: How many Health Issues in the Community (HIIC) tutors does it take…? 

Delivered by Anita Aggrawal from Harbour Connections, Louisa Richardson from YMCA and Theodora Hidalgo from Edinburgh Community Food. 

Workshop summary 

Anita, Louisa and Theodora talked us through how the Health Issues in the Community training has been delivered through a partnership arrangement in Leith, Edinburgh.  The partnership is made up of staff from Edinburgh Community Food, YMCA Edinburgh, Bethany Christian Trust and Harbour Connections. 

They talked about how they have worked collaboratively to deliver the course,  how it was funded, what is working and what has been difficult and explored the wider impact of both the training and the delivery model.   

We also heard contributions from Mike Kerrachar from YMCA Edinburgh and Colin Campbell from the Bethany Christian Trust by video about the benefits of the project for their organisations and from some of the course participants about the impact of the course. 

In the discussion section, participants considered the support that HIIC tutors need to make a course run well and those who also had experience of delivering HIIC shared their experiences and highlighted benefits they saw in the partnership approach. 

Main points from workshop discussions on messages to decision makers  

Decision makers need to recognise the value of community based work and resource it effectively.  It was recognised that communities can work to deliver the solutions needed but that there needs to be the right support in place for them to be able to do that.  Participants at both the morning and afternoon workshops talked about the value of community based learning programmes and the value there would be in decision makers (and cld students) having the opportunity to participate in programmes like HIIC themselves to gain a better understanding of work like this.  It was also noted that participants feel there is a general lack of understanding of the value of community work and the specialist skills required to do it well. 

Support needs to be put in place for people to be able to participate in courses – and this costs money.  It was recognised that while the same barriers came up from all participants e.g. childcare, travel, confidence, the nature of these varies from area to area and there are different challenges delivering in urban and rural areas.  There needs to be a flexibility to be able to find the right solutions for communities, rather than a one size fits all.  One participant spoke about the support she had had from cld staff and how it has changed her life.  The support went beyond participating in the course and she is now engaging with NHS services that she was reluctant to before, and while her anxiety is still a factor, she is able to attend public events and speak at workshops like this one. 

There should be a community presence at decision making tables. This links to comments about decision makers participating in courses like HIIC so they have direct experience of the value and impact of the work.  Participants felt that it’s important for communities to feel that they are being listened to and that action is taken as a result.