Agenda item

This report sets out the Council’s work with community champions and the depth of community experience to promote testing and vaccination, alongside their regular public health messaging.  

Councillor Richardson welcomed Dr Nicola Lang Joanne McCormick to present the item, supported by Jide Ogunro, Community Champions Project Manager, Old Oak Community & Children’s Centre. Community champions was a commissioned service and operated in the most deprived parts of the borough.  With the onset of Covid, the projects rapidly transferred activities online, undertaking welfare checks on vulnerable residents, delivering food and ensuring that public health messages were shared.

Jide Ogunro described his experience of migrating support services online.  Old Oak Community Centre was the only local community facility, a focal point in a very deprived area.  Fortnightly, virtual workshops had been held and a robust text messaging service established to maintain contact and share information. Community champion volunteers were trusted and deeply embedded within the communities they served.  Local clinicians had delivered small workshops on Covid and vaccination, emphasising the importance of the trusted, local voice.  This was a safe and open forum for people to explore concerns about Covid vaccination and had resulted in a gradual reduction in vaccine hesitancy. The project and its volunteers had worked hard to build trust within the communities and as a result was an organisation that had a positive reputation within the community.

On behalf of the committee Councillor Richardson thanked Jide and his colleagues for their dedicated and compassionate support of the community through the community champions service during this challenging time. 

Keith Mallinson welcomed the report and the approach adopted. He explained that he worked for the Shepherd’s Bush Family Project and was also a member of the local advice forum. However, there were many examples of silo working with numerous agencies involved but working separately.  He asked how this could be addressed and a seamless, holistic approach developed to avoid duplication. Jide Ogunro responded that the initial project targeted different wards and localities, each with a dedicated project manager with a local focus and remit reflecting the needs and priorities of the area.   The pandemic had led to much greater collaboration to avoid a duplication of activities, for example the workshops, which were accessible to all.

Councillor Amanda Lloyd-Harris also commended the work of the community champion projects and welcomed the report. She asked how the success of a project like Old Oak could be measured and evaluated. Jide Ogunro explained that the number of participants engaged in an activity were recorded. A database of approximately 3000 residents received regular communications about activities and special events.  Regular feedback was also used to shape future activities.

ACTION: That the Committee receives an update on all of the projects next year and the members are able to visit the projects, once it was safe to do so

Councillor Richardson asked if there were any plans to progress a mental health disability community champions project, or youth community champions, like the maternity champions project which had been so successful.  Joanne McCormick explained that they were currently reviewing the arrangements with the delivery of the community champions service, which had been evaluated just before the pandemic.  It was anticipated that future services would be commissioned with scope to incorporate a wider range of support.

RESOLVED

1.     That the report be noted, and actions included in the Committee’s work programme; and

2.     That the council continues to work with community champions as a successful way of method of supporting and communicating with residents and communities to help promote health and wellbeing.