Agenda and minutes

(a)  To approve as an accurate record and the Chair to sign the minutes of the meeting of the Health, Adult Social Care and Social Inclusion PAC held on Thursday, 20^th October 2016 and Wednesday, 2^nd November 2016.

(b)  To note the outstanding actions.

The minutes of the meeting held on Thursday, 20^th October 2016 and Wednesday, 2^nd November 2016 were agreed as a correct record. 

Apologies for absence were received from Co-optee, Debbie Domb and Councillor Sue Macmillan.

If a Councillor has a disclosable pecuniary interest in a particular item, whether or not it is entered in the Authority’s register of interests, or any other significant interest which they consider should be declared in the public interest, they should declare the existence and, unless it is a sensitive interest as defined in the Member Code of Conduct, the nature of the interest at the commencement of the consideration of that item or as soon as it becomes apparent.

At meetings where members of the public are allowed to be in attendance and speak, any Councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest or other significant interest may also make representations, give evidence or answer questions about the matter. The Councillor must then withdraw immediately from the meeting before the matter is discussed and any vote taken.

Where Members of the public are not allowed to be in attendance and speak, then the Councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest should withdraw from the meeting whilst the matter is under consideration. Councillors who have declared other significant interests should also withdraw from the meeting if they consider their continued participation in the matter would not be reasonable in the circumstances and may give rise to a perception of a conflict of interest.

Councillors are not obliged to withdraw from the meeting where a dispensation to that effect has been obtained from the Audit, Pensions and Standards Committee.

Councillor Joe Carlebach declared an interest in Agenda Item 5, as a trustee of Hammersmith and Fulham Citizens Advice Bureau. 

The Community Champions is a neighbourhood based volunteer project which focuses on health. The paper describes the current 6 projects and activities delivered, and reports on the key findings from the Social Return on Investment Evaluation from 2014. The committee is asked to review the approach and make recommendations about how the approach could be extended or developed.

Councillor Rory Vaughan welcomed Christine Mead, Behaviour Change Commissioner, together with Rahma Ibrahim, a Community Champion from the Edward Woods Estate.  Ms Mead provided a background to the project which had started with The White City project, initiated as one of 16 projects under the Well London Programme, in 2008.  Three initial projects in Old Oak, Park View and Edward Woods had successfully established themselves within the fabric of the local communities they served.  This led to three more projects being established, also based within the Borough.  Ms Mead attributed this success to way in which the projects were structured and the responsiveness of volunteers within the community.   Volunteers worked towards improving their own as well as local health knowledge and also received training and support from the Royal Society of Public Health.  This process equipped them with skills and knowledge to enable them to undertake health focused projects within their localities that were of interest to them, allowing them to develop at their own pace and initiative.   Evaluations of the first three projects demonstrated significant impact beyond the broader sense of public health, so affecting positive change on community safety and cohesion, employability and improved health in terms of being more active.  At the core of each project was a strong sense of neighbourliness and the desire to affect change from within the community. 

Mrs Ibrahim was invited to share her experience as Community Champion, based in her locality, the Edward Woods Estate.  In 2013, Mrs Ibrahim explained that she had found herself struggling to cope with the demands of a growing family and expecting her fourth child.  Feeling isolated and seeking a wider purpose in life, she discovered the work of the Edward Woods Community Champions, who had welcomed her, offering support, information and guidance.  Mrs Ibrahim eloquently explained that the Community Centre had become a surrogate family to her, having herself, no immediate family residing in the UK.  She discovered a passion for volunteering, attending coffee mornings and organised events, and was subsequently motivated by a strong desire to help her local community flourish.  As her confidence increased, in time Mrs Ibrahim was sufficiently motivated by the experiences of mothers and families in the Somalian community to reach out to them, offering support, information and organising group trips.  Recognising a health need within the Somalian male community, and the high prevalence of drug use (specifically, “Khat”, a class C drug illegal since 2014) eventually led Mrs Ibrahim to paid employment with Turning Point.  Her experience as a Community Engagement Worker offered her invaluable learning and development opportunities, through which she was able to engage with Somalian community. 

Mrs Ibrahim expressed her gratitude for the opportunities she had gained through her work as a Community Champion, which she considered to be life-changing.  The beneficial impact of this role also extended to her family, and in particular her daughter, for whom she had become positive a role model.

Councillor Joe Carlebach thanked Mrs Ibrahim for her excellent  ...  view the full minutes text for item 108.

The Cabinet Member’s Social Inclusion Board was established in February 2015.  During its first year, the Board identified social isolation and loneliness as a priority for action, agreeing to develop a strategy for how best it might be prevented and addressed in Hammersmith and Fulham.  The Committee considered a report on this issue at its meeting on18^th April 2016.

Councillor Vaughan welcomed Anna Waterman, Strategic Public Health Advisor, together with Helen Leech, Open Age, Anne McApline-Leny, Soup4Lunch and Chris Mikata-Pralat, Fulham Good Neighbours.   Ms Waterman presented the report which set out the draft strategy on Tackling Social isolation and Loneliness.  The Committee’s scrutiny of the draft strategy would form part of the pre-consultation and engagement process.  Ms Waterman outlined how work on the strategy had been initiated by the Social Inclusion Cabinet Member Board (CMB) in February 2016, which had established social isolation and loneliness as a priority for action.  A workshop, led by The Campaign to End Loneliness (The Campaign), was held in April 2016, which explored contributory factors for social isolation and loneliness and how this would shape the size and scope of a work program.  It also explored how loneliness specifically manifested itself in Hammersmith and Fulham, with the aim of identifying which groups were at particular risk and what else could be done to improve health and well-being. 

The Campaign worked closely with Age UK to develop a framework for identifying social isolation and loneliness, which was adopted for the draft strategy. Four pillars were formulated within the draft strategy which were viewed as necessary to ensure a robust approach (listed at section 1.2 of the report).  The first was ‘foundation services' such as Community Champions, which were aimed at identifying and supporting those at risk. These were people who were not usually visible, contacting the Council through services such as refuse collection, bill paying or libraries.  The second pillar was ‘direct interventions’, addressing directly the needs of socially isolated residents, and the third ‘gateway services’, without which residents could not access direct interventions, such as public transport and on-line information and advice.  The fourth pillar was ‘structural enablers’; meaning the local environment shaping the right conditions for local residents to engage other residents, groups and service providers. This might include neighbourliness, dementia/age friendly neighbourhoods, places designed to engender social contact.

Two major conclusions that resulted from the April 2016 workshop were firstly that tackling social isolation and loneliness required a whole systems approach with collaborative intervention from health and social care practitioners and others. Secondly, a Task and Finish group was set up to develop the draft strategy, evaluating the evidence base and looking at current best practice.  Initially, the intention was to focus exclusively on older people, however, while it was accepted that there was a recognised set of structural triggers, for example, economic deprivation, divorce and bereavement, as well as personal characteristics such as disability and ethnicity, which either singly or collectively had a cumulative impact over time and evidence suggested that the prevalence of older people experiencing isolation or chronic loneliness was higher. 

The CMB took the view that they would adopt a strategic perspective using the set of triggers to inform the framework of the draft strategy.  There were a number of policy levers in Hammersmith and Fulham as set out in section 3, such as  ...  view the full minutes text for item 109.

The Committee is asked to consider its work programme for the remainder of the municipal year.

During the course of the discussion Members noted the urgent need to formulate a considered response to the STP and agreed that it would be helpful to discuss this in detail at the meeting scheduled for March 2017. 

RESOLVED

That the work programme be noted.

Tuesday, 31^st January 2017

Wednesday, 8^th March 2017

Monday, 10^th April 2017

The Committee noted the dates of meetings for the remainder of the municipal year:

Tuesday, 31^st January 2017

Wednesday, 8^th March 2017

Wednesday, 26^th March 2017