Perth and Kinross Healthy Communities Collaborative Community Led Health: Engaging Communities – Changing Lives The Healthy Communities Collaborative first established in February 2005, is joint funded by Health and Local Authority and one of it’s most important features is that it is community led.

Aims :- To give local people skills and confidence to work in partnership with professionals from a range of agencies and organisations Objectives :- To use these partnerships to effect changes in communities, which would result in improvements in health care and social well being The work aims to raise awareness of the need for change by spreading the news that the topic is important Enables communities to lead the process supported by “insulated professionals” allow residents to lead supported by professionals Focus energy on common goals Enhance social systems by including people who are isolated, keeping building the teams Raise expectations

The Community Action Model (NPDT 2001) Topic Stimulates Desire for other topics Successful action Introduce a topic into a community , support successful action on that topic, develop communities and sustain those changes, going on to support action on other topics. In the second year the teams chose to progress their work from Falls focusing more on keeping physically active and in the third year they have moved to Mental Wellbeing in later life It’s an application of best practice in real life settings it’s about doing things Teams are brought together, exposed to evidence of best practice and the tools to understand and implement that locally. Enhances Community Development

     Who Are The Teams Made Up Of ? Voluntary and Charitable Organisations      Community Members We started by recruiting three teams from areas of around 10,000 population. The teams comprise of local older people, representatives from statutory and voluntary bodies including nursing, community learning, care and repair, Woman’s Royal Voluntary Service, Physiotherapy and Age concern to name but a few! After the second year we spread the work geographically, extending two of the original teams to include neighbouring areas and establishing a forth, completely new team, in Aberfeldy Health and Local Authorities

The Formula Understand the need Come up with some ideas Test those ideas (PDSA) Understand what works and do more of it! Today we will give an example of the work we have carried out in Alyth, using the formula which had worked so well for us before.

This is a common sense approach to change and improvement It is a quick and simple, no blame method of working We plan an action/intervention, try out the idea, meet back to study the results and work out how to modify the next action to ensure a more successful outcome.

Five main areas of influence Report findings Five main areas of influence Discrimination Relationships Physical Health Poverty Participation in meaningful activity The teams were looking for a new topic and were given a choice of four possible options for them to vote on. They overwhelmingly chose the topic of Mental Health and Wellbeing in Later Life following the findings of the report of the same name. We organised a learning workshop to give the teams the knowledge and skills to take forward this new topic in their communities.

Benefits of this work Reduce isolation Promote Mental Wellbeing Promote active ageing Improve social capital Where there was little frailer older people to do – we are organising events, helping include the more isolated members of our community, looking out for and supporting each other We have surprised ourselves with our new found ability to organise things! We are empowered by the success and are looking for ways to further enhance the area for our peers As a result of this ongoing work, the new lunch group has provided excellent socialising opportunities and extended to include exercise provision promoting physical activity, all essential to maintaining health and well being in later life. Other interests are being considered but the bonus has been a huge increase in social interaction and sense of community cohesion.

The HCC meets a number of National and Local Policies including Healthy Ageing – A Challenge for Europe - December 2006 All Our Futures – Planning for a Scotland with an ageing population, March 2007 National Standards for Community Engagement – May 2005 NHS Tayside Health Equity Strategy “ Communities in Control” 2009 2006-2020 Working Together for Perth & Kinross: Community Plan

Focusing on Lunch clubs we are involved with in general, a logic model was created to highlight the inputs, outputs, and short, medium and long-term outcomes Looking specifically at the inputs from the Alyth Lunch Club, they are now self sustaining and have voluntary help rather than staff etc