Building community wellbeing - A day in the life of a Health Promotion Professor

Before I talk about my day, I’ll start by introducing myself as the Director of the Centre for Health Promotion Research, a small research centre that’s been going for 25 years. I’m Professor of Health and Wellbeing Evidence and I focus on research about reducing health inequalities. This includes community wellbeing, social relations and preventing loneliness – in essence, preventing the things that contribute to poor health.

My work mainly focuses on places and spaces - what it is about the places we meet in, or potentially meet in, that can foster social connections where the community can feel part of something. Those spaces can be a real lifeline. In a recent systematic review which had 102 studies, we found strong evidence for the benefit of community hubs and green and blue spaces, with mixed responses to community events and public art. I’m also passionate about intergenerational interactions to build community wellbeing.

My days are always varied between literature reviews, interviews in the community and some teaching around research methods. This day I was out and about but it gives a good flavour of the people our research supports!

In the morning I visited the lovely Hollybush Conservation Centre in Kirkstall to listen to a group of volunteer coordinators who are part of Leeds Green Activity Providers. This project is part of a Seed-corn funding grant which they were awarded from Leeds ACTS to partner with an academic to develop research or evaluation. With this funding they chose to develop a common evaluation/measurement framework to evidence the impact of their activities on peoples’ health and wellbeing, to make what they do more sustainable and secure more funding to keep going.

My meeting helped us to scope this – we discussed what people experience, what impact this has, and what we could potentially measure. I shared my knowledge about what tools are out there and we explored the approach – from users attending for their mental health but not wanting to talk about their health while taking part in the activities, to their contribution in making a difference to the environment and sustainability.

Since our conversation, I’ve been investigating grants and appropriate short tools which will encompass all of their work, and I’m looking forward to visiting more lovely locations soon to speak with the on-the-ground volunteers.

After a quick lunch in the beautiful green space, I travelled to Tenants Hall Enterprise Centre in Middleton to meet some of their community groups. Tenants Hall is a community centre funded and supported by a community anchor institution called Health for All. Leeds Beckett and Health for All are coming together to bid for a project about the role of community anchor institutions in tackling health inequalities as part of the wider public health system – they often connect communities who would not traditionally access statutory health services but would take part in creative activities.

So with my cup of tea, I got chatting to the crafters who said by attending the group they heard about the GP drop-in session next door (which also has tea and biscuits – always a bonus!) and they now stay up to date, while learning how to keep themselves healthy in the heatwave and other tips. I was then late for the choir (too much chatting!) and heard about the impact the choir had had on the people there, mostly around loneliness and mental health but also for help with breathing.

After choir, I went down the road to a women’s mental health support group who were doing some crochet and collages while chatting away, and they were able to take from the food pantry as they left to take home. It was a lovely afternoon for me but it also contributed a lot to the grants – I’d spoken to the people who run these organisations but when you speak to those who actually use the services, you realise the impact the grant could make. We’re hoping to work with the Story Makers to build on this too, so fingers crossed for this grant!

After a busy day of listening, and a quick dog walk, I took some quiet time at home to start our evaluation of Calderdale Council’s Warm Spaces provision. There’s little evidence been published yet about the impact of the Warm Spaces campaign and Calderdale are interested in the impact on both physical health and the process – they gave grants to local organisations to develop the warm spaces and want to understand who applied, what was delivered in the spaces and the impact it had on those using the spaces, while learning who didn’t use the facilities and why.

Next steps will be to analyse their data and interview the managers and staff at the warm spaces to build a full picture.

It wasn’t in this day, but I wanted to mention I also sit on the board for HomeShare – the board meets bi-monthly and we mostly look for evaluation and funding opportunities.

Leeds HomeShare is a council scheme that carefully matches two types of people: a householder (who has a spare room and needs a bit of support with daily tasks and chores) and a homesharer (who can give them 10 hours of support per week in exchange for accommodation at a low cost). I’ve been involved through Leeds Beckett since 2015 – it’s a great programme that contributes to intergenerational connections in the community and I’d love to see it flourish more in the North.