Communitydialogue

Sinfin Funday Saturday 18th October 2008

  A combination of the usual favourites- a bouncy castle/bouncy slide,face and henna painting,food,music and dance workshops alongside the pulling power of some extremely dedicated local people and groups resulted in 4 hours of non stop fun.

Its estimated that over 1500 local people joined in on the day.

What did we learn from the day?

The results of the engagement activities provided us with a snapshot of the communities' priorities and what they felt would make a difference to peoples health. In addition to this hundreds of people found out about our commitment to improving people's health in the area and that we're ready to engage with local people at a level that suits them.

The majority of people interpreted health as being holistic. They felt that the things that had the most impact couldn't be defined as a service but instead as an activity or a change to something really simplistic like access to toilets on the local park or the creation of a space for young people in the area.The top three issues included young people,health and community activities.

How did we get this information?

We worked on keeping the activity interesting, relevant and quick so that the anticipated crowd could all access the activity.

We asked them to tell us their Make  A  Difference ideas ..!!!

At the start of the "Make a difference" challenge individuals, families and groups were invited to have their picture taken. This helped with capturing attendance, the demography of the people who participated on the day and created an opportunity to start a conversation with people. The pictures were added to a display titled "People who can Make A Difference". In total 109 people were photographed on the day.

The visual image of a community who can "make a difference" did attract attention. A number of groups and families responded well to the idea of having their photograph taken.

People were encouraged to look at the background information and respond to the question - What do you think would make a difference to your health and the health of your community? Their ideas were noted on brightly coloured cards and displayed next to the portfolio of "People who can make a difference".

In total 196 comments were recorded on the challenge activity.Some comments were given freely without deliberation. Others involved more prompts and explanations about what "health" means to different people. In such cases we explained our intention to develop improved services that will impact on people's health and asked people to think about what that service might look like for them.

When all comments are sectioned into themes it's clear that participants prioritise work with young people, future events and activities and health.

Conversations with a number of people were extremely detailed, with eight people consenting to being videoed whilst discussing their thoughts on what would make a difference locally.

Realising the limitations of the space given to the activity a member of the engagement team and a local volunteer worked on a detached basis, moving around the various activities and the surrounding area of the event encouraging people to take part in the activity.

For those people who didn't feel like talking we created - Your Space: no names - just your thoughts

We thought of using a book where local people could write down their comments without having to leave their name as people don't always like to be identified. 'Your Space' was a play on words using 'My Space', which is web based social networking site. The 'Your Space' book can be taken to future events to build up a portfolio of comments from local people.

Next steps

The community is ready to work with health on future service developments.

These developments might not be traditional solutions or those that have an evidence base but people are willing to work with us on improving things in the future. As a result of the engagement activity we now have a list of individual's names who have expressed an interest in remaining involved/informed of any future work.The next step is to meet with these interested indivduals at a preplanned Community events/activities meeting on the 6^th November - The aim of this meeting will be to identify and plan future events/activities within the community. The meeting was promoted at the event and will hopefully help to continue the momentum that Sinfin Fun day 18^th October 2008 kick started!

Early signs of success in Derby?

Our two projects in Derby really seem to be getting good participation and reach.

In Normanton, working with the Roma has generated a growing group of people who not only attend the meetings held by our team but are prepared to participate and work with us. The team, Sue & Kay, are organising a conference in February of next year, in which the Roma will play key roles; the conference will be used to share knowledge and raise awareness nationally about the Roma, their lives and culture. There will be invited guests from several countries and narratives from the Roma themselves, describing life here and in Slovakia.

Sue and Kay are also a lot clearer about the needs of the Roma in the UK and we started to sketch out some service ideas – assertive outreach and practice-based services – and how they might be designed to be most acceptable to the Roma families. In terms of coproduction, apart from their guidance and contribution to the conference, we’re wondering whether we could specify a service that hosts members of any new community to act as “ambassadors”, taking their hard won knowledge of UK life to newer entrants who share their language or culture.

The Sinfin Fun Day is almost upon us (as I write in early October); Michelle and Marlene, our two lead members of the community have been working increasingly hard to bring this together, but it’s clearly going to happen and be a success. And boding well for the future, they are now getting a lot of people coming forward with ideas and energy, so their plans for a significant Sinfin Carnival in the summer are getting support.

As a coproduction, the carnival is looking like a success. From a traditional health perspective, however, the story is harder to tell; clearly we have co-created a local initiative that has engaged, enthused and socialised, it may well have had tangible benefits to physical and psychological health, but can we tell and is it enough?

The team will take part in the Fun Day and assess its reach and impact, we will also use it to engage with the community on their health needs and see whether we can identify new capabilities or problems.

NHS Leicester City Community Dialogue Presentation

Here is the presentation from NHS Leicester City for the East Midlands PCT Development Programme Showcase on Tuesday 16th September 2008 Download nhs_leicester_city_cdp_final.ppt

The Highfields project

When Naim Razak talked about Highfields it became clear that there is no one health issue that transcends the others - they have high levels of most of the typical long term conditions and major health concerns. But when you look at Highfields' health issues and consider the incredible diversity within the area, it is clear that diet has an important role in determining their health.

Not only is this true, but the diversity of the people and of their diets, forces us to acknowledge that they have the dietary expertise that we need. They know the foods of their different cultures - what makes them well when they're ill, what to give a pregnant woman, what to eat for a lift or for a celebration - this is a great starting place for a dietary service that is sympathetic to their culture and which builds on where they are.

Naim is trying to gather a group of 5-10 people around him, people who know or care about local foods who will help us to develop ideas for a commissionable dietary service.

Keeping Saffron in mind?

This may become the title of the project we plan for this area; "may" because it really is for the community team to decide this and they are being identified and invited by Karen Pickering right now.

Whatever it's called, it will take as its starting place the high prevalence of mental health issues in Saffron; of all those people claiming incapacity benefit in the area, almost half are claiming it because of poor mental health. Our aim is simple - to work with people in the community, to help them to design a service that helps improve mental well-being, so that the PCT can commission a service on that basis.

Hence Karen is talking with local people and trying to get a group of 5-10 who care about this issue and will be prepared to work with us. Once we've got them together and discussed the project I suspect the first task will be for them to do a bit of user research - talk to people who have used the existing services and find out what are their 'lived experiences' of them.

Highfields Patch Walk, 6 Aug 08

Naim Razak took Delia and I around the delightful Highfields area of Leicester; some areas are reminiscent of London's Hampstead and the wealth that used to be in this quarter of the city.

We visited a number of small, succesful and well-run neighbourhood centres, all catering for a well-defined segment of the community. I couldn't better Delia's notes on this, so here they are...

"Community spirit - it amazed me how there was a different community project around every corner! Rarely have I seen a community with so much going on in such a small geographical space. I was also struck by how keen everyone was to invite us in and show us round the various centres. I think this enthusiasm may have been for a number of different reasons. Firstly, because Naim is obviously well respected and trusted in the area. Secondly, because the high density of projects leads to competition for funding and recognition and most importantly because of the pride that people have for their community's achievements.

"The wide rage of innovative projects also stood out for me. Such as, the solar panels used to power a centre and raise money, and the sewing workshop that reflected the area's hosiery heritage.

"Politics - It seemed a shame that a community that is so united in many ways is also divided by politics, (local, religious and council.) Although many of the places we visited seemed to have an inclusive approach and would welcome most members of the community, they were very clearly aimed at specific groups and their seemed to be little communication between them.

"The park - It seemed a waste that the park in the heart of highfields was not being utilised by the community.

"Hostels - It was interesting that Naim described Highfields as getting bail hostels etc "dumped" on it. There did seem to be a high density of these in the area.

"Architecture - There were some beautiful buildings and you could certainly see why people would want to live in the area as although it is practically in the city centre, it didn't feel like a city centre. It reminded me of Hyde Park where I live in Leeds (but with fewer students!)

"Diversity - I think the primary school where the children speak more than 50 languages is a perfect example of what a diverse community Highfields is. It did strike me that most of the projects were aimed at a specific ethnic or religious group rather than Highfields as a whole. The positive effect of that seemed to be that the services and activities offered are designed by people who clearly understand the needs and wants of the people who use them and therefore they are popular and well attended. However, part of me wonders if there are sections of the community who have been overlooked or felt excluded by this?"

Tues 12th August 2008 project update meeting

The Derby team at their weekly design meeting.

Saffron patch walk - extra

This is a photo of Tick Tock park as it is locally known, the whole estate was built around the design of a green lung in the centre of the estate, which is shown on aerial maps of the estate.   

This is photo of the railway bridge that connects the local secondary schools and the estate.  Although many people find graffiti offensive here it is hidden from public view unless you go under the bridge itself.    

This is the famous Porkpie library that is registered as grade two listed building and is conected to the porkpie island that learner drivers have for generations feared because of the amount of traffic that uses the roundabout.

Saffron patch walk, 23 July 08

Saffron is a tight little community hemmed in on one side by the train tracks to London and a main road on the other. A real mix of owner-occupied and council properties, overseen by a fair few CCTV cameras.

We walked the patch with Karen Pickering; from the vibrant Linwood centre through Tick Tock Park, past the railway line, through the school fields left totally unmanaged and back through quiet streets to the centre.  Along the way we met one of the local police officers on his bike; if it wasn't for his uniform and technology it would have seemed almost a scene from the 60's.

Modern health issues, however - high rates of drinking, smoking and teen pregnancy, cardiovascular diseases and mental health issues - and just one general practice within the area.

The challenge, it would seem, is to help Karen maintain and develop the things she's doing within the community; to mainstream that activity and assist the community to get more engaged in the PCT's work.

Ethnography and interviewing

In the project work in Derby we've already started to discuss the relevance of ethnography as a way of complementing the understanding we get from other, more traditional, sources.

But how to do it?

This video was created by students at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), a design school that has a great reputation for innovating in user research methods. It uses 'high quality jeans' as the area of inquiry, but it discusses what ethnography is and is not, it describes how to do the fieldwork and looks in detail at one-on-one interviewing skills. If you can get access, it's well worth the 30 mins.

Also available here