CDHN Pathways to Health

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CDHN Pathways to Health

• Seamus Ward, General Manager of Bogside and
  Brandywell Health Forum
• Healthy Living Centre in Derry
• Presentation on our experience of Building
  Social Capital

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Building Social Capital A definition

• Social capital means the set of norms,
  institutions and organisations that promote trust
  and cooperation among persons in communities and
  also in wider society. (Durston, J 1999)
• the social networks and the norms of
  trustworthiness that arise from them (Sander et
  al 2006)

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Building Social Capital Why?

• The core concept of social capital is that social
  networks matter, both for those in the networks
  as well as sometimes for bystanders as well.
• At the core of social capital is trust

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Values and Practice Principles of Community Development
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BBHF- How we developed Social Capital

• Development of programmes into projects
  (OPSF/Pink Ladies/Born to Run)
• Support and corporate development to enable
  community ownership
• Encourage successful programmes and the people
  involved to take final ownership of programmes

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BBHF- How we developed Social Capital

• Development of participants to become
  facilitators
• Training and support offered to participants to
  offer services for and in our community.
• Local people gaining experience of facilitation
  to gain confidence and experience
• Encourage facilitators to accept more
  responsibility for promotion and public speaking

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BBHF Social Capital
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2007 -2015 whats changed?
2007 2015
Advertised and recruited specialist facilitators on needs basis for programmes Commitment to train and develop volunteers and participants (we look within)
Limited staff resources Large bank of local, trained volunteers for health related facilitation
Passive recipients Building on peoples learning and experiences and putting this to work
Delivering services Supporting things to happen and catalyst change
Engagement with the community Community part of the decision making
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In a nutshell.

• In 2007 BBHF had a bank of 5 facilitators, 3 for
  physical activity and 2 for Older peoples
  services. Two were from the local area. We now
  have a bank of 25 facilitators. 23 are local
  people. 23 are previous participants in our
  programmes. They are all part of the fabric of
  BBHF.

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How has the approach helped

• Increased number of participants
• Increased number of classes
• Additional next step for participants who have
  life changing experiences that can help others
• Closer relationship with the community
• Redirecting local to local people

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Consideration for Social Capital in Health

• Community-led health is an approach to health
  improvement rather than a particular technique
  or method. It is fundamentally different from
  the provision of community-based health services
  as it is concerned with community, or
  neighbourhood, as the focus of, and mechanism
  for, change rather than community as a setting
  for health practice

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Questions?