Author: Lisa Martinali
Introduction
Social Prescription – Compass Support - 2015
Loneliness takes up to 5 years off an older adults life (https://www.studyfinds.org/loneliness-years-off-older-adults). Within any community there are individuals, couples, or families who feel isolated from their neighbours and often seek medical help when it isn’t really needed.
Accessing non-clinical community support can improve well-being; reduce attendance at medical centres; improve health activation; reduce loneliness and provide sustainable community interventions beyond funding and health services. An improvement in health and well-being can be evidenced by community engagement in local cultural and support activities. This type of intervention is known as Social Prescription in the UK. Many social prescriptions providers use cultural activities to engage with their local communities, alongside a wrap-around of support services.
Your quest is to:
- Find out about non-clinical interventions to support health and well-being in your area
- Understand how people can access these services
- Understand the benefits/impact to people/local community
- Work with community groups to promote access to this support within your local community
- Add to the local community offer – are there any gaps? What is working? What isn’t working as well?
- Share learning
What’s the activity?
Zen Chung www.pexels.com
Find out what already exists:
If you are looking to engage yourself, or are aiming to support others, in community cultural activities to reduce social isolation you need to know what activities exists and how to access them. You may think about the traditional routes of community organisations, however, health professionals may also know about or be part of local projects to support their patients in ways which are non-clinical.
Find out what are the barriers to people engaging:
You may already know what is stopping people from getting involved, however, where possible it is important to understand these barriers to engagement as this will provide an opportunity to explore the possibilities, who can help, and how.
Is it time, money, access, confidence, lack of understanding of what is available, engagement techniques …
Find out how local health professionals are supporting activities;
- Does a local social prescription programme exist near you?
- How is this funded/sustained?
- How can people access this?
- Are people reaching out?
Impact
- find out what difference this is making – this is really important to tell the story and to encourage engagement by local community members
- can the community organisations/projects /professionals share learning/evaluations – how has well-being improved? Do people feel happier? More confident?
Future proofing
- find out will these activities be available in the long-term – it is important for people to understand if activities/projects are time limited or have a longer-term plan
- what will help sustain these activities beyond the project life – is this linked to volunteering, securing more funding, or will the activity have achieved its purpose?
- how are they working? – links to impact
- what would ‘better’ look like? This is about community engagement and ensuring the right intervention at the right time
What am I going to do?
You may already be engaged in community activities and know what is already taking place in your neighbourhood. However, you may be new to this and want a starting point for your journey.
Speak to community activists/groups/stakeholders:
It is important to build connections with local people. A good starting point is accessing your local community hub. A venue where people regularly meet or where activities take place often have amazing insight into what is taking place locally. These could be community centres, places of worship, medical centres, police stations, local authority offices/town halls.
Work with/support others:
There may already be networks that exist that you can link in with. You can either ask for information to be shared or ask to join in the network to help develop ideas and a local community approach.
There may also be likeminded people in your community that can provide support – taking things forward with others can improve enthusiasm and commitment. It will also develop a shared purpose and a common goal fo everyone to work towards.
Agreeing who will do what is very important – people want to know what they can and how they can do it. People also want to use their personal skills and experience to help and want to feel their contributions are helping. Always make it fun though – you do not want to feel like this is too much like hard work and people want to feel valued.
it is also important to see how paid officers can help. If activities already exist to support individuals through social prescription type activities, then paid officers should want to do as much as they can to promote this and engage with local communities further.
Remember your quest is to find out about cultural activities that improve well-being through local engagement and enable more people to access this – this doesn’t mean that you must do everything!
What will I learn?
- understanding of non-clinical activities to improve well-being
- understanding of impact – what is working /not working as well
- understanding of connectivity between partnerships and people – asset-based community development
- team working
- negotiation and influence
- organisational and promotional
- enthusiasm
- commitment and perseverance
- diplomacy
What will I take home?
Supporting local people to engage in cultural activities to improve wellbeing will provide an amazing feeling. However, the road can be bumpy, and you may experience barriers or challenges along the way to get you and others to be where you want to be.
It is always helpful to reflect, individually and collectively. This isn’t about rating the tasks you or others have undertaken – it is about understand the quest, so others can learn from you. here are are some things to consider when looking backwards and forwards:
- did you enjoy the experience/engagement?
- what did you like most?
- what did you like least?
- what have your learnt personally?
- has this made a difference to you/the person/s you were supporting?
- is there more to be done?
- What would you do differently ?
- Who else could help you on your journey?
- would you do it again?!
Frontline Worker Toolkit
- Aim - Improve well-being using non-clinical interventions to access community cultural activities
- Aim - Improve well-being using non-clinical interventions to access community cultural activities
- Research social prescription activities and your country’s/region’s response to non-medical interventions
- Understand impact/find evaluations – do this work?
- Is there value to exploring these tools/techniques/activities with others?
Top tips:
Understand the local health and well-being offer:
- Mapping - types of services/activities?
- How to service-users engage/referral process?
- How is this funded?
- Is there an appetite for non-clinical support?
- Who are the key stakeholders?
How does this work in other regions/countries?
- Find out about social prescription in the UK? (other examples …)
- Review the good practice examples/research included in the links ( to add)
- How are these funded?
- What are the drivers for this approach?
Building Community Capacity:
- Consider how local people can engage
- Make contacts with resident activists – is there an appetite to support?
- Find out what is important to them? What will make a difference in improving well-being within their communities?
- If a network/partnership already exists, can you join it? If not, can you develop one?
- What tools are needed to evaluate?
- Do / who has the time/commitment/resources to support?