ISSUE: 15 DATE: 24/03/2015
Community Health Network
Welcome to the newsletter from Social
Action For Health. Keeping informed on
all that is happening.
Inside this issue:
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Community Health Network
Student visitors
International Happiness day
Compassionate Neighbours
Health Wisdom Group
Patient Leaders
Volunteering
Social Action for Health (SAfH) is a dynamic community development organisation, based in East London, working with
marginalised communities. We engage with
up to 15,000 people a year through our
locally based projects. Read more...
Make A Donation
SAfH is a community development charity,
which works alongside marginalised local
people and their communities towards
justice, equality, better health and wellbeing. We could do more if we had more
money. Only 14% of our income goes on
running the organisation so 86% of our
funds directly reach local people. Read
More...
Our first Community Health Network Meeting recently took place and it was a great
success as we had 29 participants attend the meeting they all enjoyed the lively atmosphere. Most of our participants earlier attended the Good Move or the My Weight
sessions. We explained what the meeting was about and introduced them to their first
workshop which was based on Emotional Wellbeing. The group benefitted from this
workshop and we recorded feedback from them. Participants have mentioned they
would like to stay healthy but due to the current climate and finance its hard for them.
They would like to attend a regular exercise class at least once a week delivered by a
female Bengali instructor as they feel they get better care and tailored support from
this. They would also like this space for learning and development so they can befit
not just from self-care but preparation for future work or a community base work.
Most participants are very motivated and quit a few are active in the community.
Maharun Chowdhury
A group of 12 Masters students from Glasgow Caledonia University, based
in Fashion Street, Tower Hamlets are going to be undertaking placements
with SAFH over the coming months, helping us to hear the impact of participating in a SAFH project. We want to hear the voices of local people and
they will help us.
Elizabeth
International Happiness Day #HAPPYDAY 20th of March
Contact SAFH
Whitechapel Office:The Brady Centre
192 Hanbury Street
London
E1 5HU
Tel: 020 7426 5370
Fax: 020 7247 7447
Hackney Office:Unit A (First Floor)
Ment House
1B Mentmore Terrace
Hackney
London
E8 3DQ
Tel: 020 8510 1970
Fax: 020 8510 1960
eMail
Web
The International Day of Happiness is an official day celebrated every year throughout
the world. This day recognizes that “happiness is a fundamental human goal, and
calls upon countries to approach public policies in ways that improve the
wellbeing of all people”.
To celebrate this day, people all around the world are helping and bringing
happiness to others.
Try doing a random act of kindness each week and work your way up to one a day.
See for yourself how rewarding it can be!
Facebook
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Compassionate Neighbours
Compassionate Neighbours is a social movement taking place in East London and
creates a network of lay people/volunteers who provide practical, emotional and
social support to the family and friends of people who suffer from a serious illness.
Statistics show that 60% of people in the world die in hospitals. Statistics also
show that the majority of people, when asked, would like to die in their homes. As
such, this is also part of a larger movement in providing the skills and support to
make death and dying a more social and less medical process.
Volunteers offer social support to enrich the quality of life of families and friends
who are caring for someone seriously ill, the frail and the socially isolated. They
are not a substitute for a career and are not health professionals. They are individuals who want to help to support others in their community the same way they
would like to be supported in times of need, with empathy and compassion.
Open Day
We will be holding an Open Day for all that are interested in
becoming a Compassionate Neighbour.
In association with St Josephs Hospice, Social Action for
Health will be undertaking 4 training cohorts, 2 in Hackney, 1
in Newham and 1 in Tower Hamlets.
Date: Thursday 9 April 2015
Time: 10am—1.00pm
Location: Social Action for Health, Ment House,
1B Mentmore Terrace, Hackney, London E8 3DQ
Contact: Shuaib on 0208 510 1970
[email protected]
Date: Wednesday 8 April 2015
Time: 10.00am—12.00 midday
Location: The Brady Centre, 192 Hanbury Street, Tower
Hamlets, London E1 5HU
Contact: Nimo on 0208 510 1970
[email protected]
Selection Day
Selection days will take place as follows:
Monday 13 April 2015, 10.00am –1.00pm
Brady Centre, 192 Hanbury St, London E1 5HU
Wednesday 15 April 2015, 10.00am—1.00pm
St Joseph’s Hospice, Mare Street, Hackney, London E8
HEALTH WISDOM GROUP
The Brady Health Wisdom Group started in October 2014,
and during the space of 5 months, have been able to
address two of its main issues.
Despite the Health Action project coming to an end in
March, the group wanted to organise fitness classes for
local mums. Currently no classes are available in the
mornings so the group saw a need to take action! They
worked together and have applied for the Can Do Grant of
£500 to offer free fitness classes for women.
We hope they are successful in this!
They also carried out an mapping exercise to explore the
increasing anti-social behaviour tin their local area. Spending two months filtering the issues, carrying out listening
exercises - the group’s focus was to address the local park
space. Parents are currently not able to take their children
to the park and feel it is not accessible to the public.
They mapped out the park and collected the stories which
were presented to the Parks Manager last month. The
Council have now committed to putting fencing around the
play area, improve the lighting and slow down the cyclist
on the path.
Well done to the Brady Health Wisdom Group.
PATIENT LEADERSHIP PROGRAMME
This year we will continue to work together with Healthwatch and the local clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) in
order to deliver Patient Leadership Training. This is a programme of training and development for local people with
the potential to take on transformational leadership in the health care system in Tower Hamlets.
The programme is based upon a community development approach to learning, during which we will demonstrate
our ‘strong community networks’ and our ability ‘to identify and support grass-roots patient leaders in Tower Hamlets’.
The programme will offer training workshops, information, mentoring and networking to the participants so that they
develop their capacity to influence health and social care outcomes. The programme will be a platform for achieving
greater influence and change.
Participants from the first year have been engaged in a range of ways over the last year. They have attended a variety of events and engagement platforms for the local NHS . They have also been developing their own projects to
bring about change; projects developed include work on ‘improving provision of information community resources in
a GP surgery’, ‘exploring ways of responding to the stigma of mental health amongst Bangladeshi community’,
‘developing a more effective patient participation group for a GP surgery’ and ‘using nutrition as part of recovery in
hospital.’
The programme will take place from May 2015 to March 2016
Come and find out whether this is a programme for you and what we can offer.
Information Day
Monday 16th March, 10.30 to 12pm
Brady Arts Centre, 192-196 Hanbury Street, London, E1 5HU
Selection Day
Monday 20th April, 10.00 to 12pm
Brady Arts Centre, 192-196 Hanbury Street, London, E1 5HU
If you are interested in participating in the Patient Leadership programme or know of
a potential candidate please contact::
Nurun Nessa: [email protected]; or Rupesh Shah: [email protected];
020 8510 1970 or visit www: http://safh.org.uk/?s=patient+leaders+programme
We look forward to welcoming you.