| Summary: |
Session six of the Symposium. Talks about projects on partnerships with communities done with regard to the Christie Commission. The first is the Healthy Wealthy Children Project, the second the Equally Well test site in Govanhill. Gives the background on GCPH's work in developing inequalities thinking and support partnerships. The Healthy Wealthy Children project spanned 15 months and looked at the impact on service users and models of development for community health partnerships. Partners were NHS midwives and health visitors. He describes the project. It linked issues to do with gender, lone parenthood and risk with action on inequalities and money advice services. It looked at changes in service delivery by midwives and health visitors. It led to increased access to benefits that customers were entitled to. Onward support was increased and there was a good reach to ethnic groups and lone parents. There was excellent engagement from midwives and health visitors. The Govanhill project concerned participatory budgeting and developed from work done in Brazil. It gave local people a democratic involvement in how public money was spent. GOCA was a main driver, it was facilitated by Oxfam UK and evaluated by GCPH. He explains how the money was spent. Lessons learned included that an independent facilitator was important, and that people felt empowered. The money was used wisely. Challenges included time pressures, community representation, perhaps more young people could have been involved. The Healthy Wealthy Children project is ongoing, GCPH has a light touch involvement. They are now looking at new work with the voluntary sector on the changing nature of work, in work poverty and the impact on health. The welfare reforms that are taking place in the UK are very significant with regard to public spending, work and other issues. How can the GCPH extend methods of doing things differently for the challenges ahead? |
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