Community Involvement
Improving Health and Quality of Life
Childrens Activities
Social Inclusion

7.1         Introduction 

7.1.1  

The Cultural Strategy recognises the contribution of leisure activities to people’s physical and mental health and the creation of safe communities.   It also highlights the Government’s emphasis on more integrative working between leisure providers, Local Authorities, Primary Care Trusts (PCT’s) and Health Authorities (HA’s) to tackle health issues of coronary heart disease (CHD), obesity, cancer, accidents and mental illness and address health inequalities of target groups including women, older people, people with disabilities, disaffected young people, vulnerable children.  

7.1.2   

The Leisure Services Division has a growing reputation for innovative delivery in health improvement initiatives.  

i)       Examples include:

• Wellness Programme – exercise referral, stress management, nutrition, back care, weight reduction, smoke stop, etc.
• Walking for health
• Skin Care
• Play Development
• Sports Development

ii)     Working with a wide range of partners including:

• Primary Care Trust (PCT), Heath Authority
• Local Authority Directorates – Education, Social Services and Community Services
• Community groups e.g. Boscombe Network, Watch Groups, ‘Friends of’ Groups, sports clubs, governing bodies of sport and play associations
• Bournemouth University

iii)     And delivering the health improvement programmes utilising:

• Indoor leisure facilities
• Schools
• Libraries
• Community Centres
• The Workplace
• Parks, Gardens
• Countryside
• Seafront

iv)     The formation of the Bournemouth Health Network as a formal partnership between the Council, the PCT and the University.

v)     The Council’s bid in its Public Service Agreement (PSA) being negotiated with Central Government for the inclusion of a Health Improvement Project based upon expanding the successful exercise referral programme at the Council’s Leisure Centres. 

7.2         Future Strategic Issues

7.2.1      Ongoing sustainable resources for developing quality of life initiatives

The 1996 strategy emphasised the need to bring together the resources from statutory service areas to deliver initiatives with external funding to:

• Address Coronary Heart Disease through community outreach programmes
• Subsidise opportunities for leisure activities for disadvantaged groups e.g:
  –        People with learning difficulties using the Active Life Style Referral programme,
  –        Increasing the number of places for out of school organised play at Boscombe
            and West Howe,
  –        Increasing leisure   opportunities for young people and people over 60 years of age.
• Develop restoration proposals for Boscombe Chine Gardens and provision for a “Classroom of the Future” at Hengistbury Head.  

In the future it will be important to:

• Build upon the successful existing partnerships to access a multitude of funding streams available for health improvement
• Develop a sustainable skills base prior to delivering additional or expanded programmes.  

7.2.2           Investment in Outreach Work

The review of the 1996 Leisure Strategy highlighted the need to build a development team to facilitate and deliver sport, health, play, events, community involvement and safety initiatives.  

The small team created has been extremely successful in networking with a range of agencies, organisations and groups to both deliver and sustain initiatives and to seek feedback on community needs and issues in leisure. Pressures for increasing investment in outreach work are coming from:

• The public – as expressed in the 1999 household survey
• The Government – with the requirement for increased consultation and building capacity within the community to deliver leisure activities.  

7.2.3        Motivating targeted groups with health needs, to access lifestyle programmes through referral gateways

It is vital that more direction is given to both inform and persuade targeted groups to access healthy lifestyle programmes through a number of gateways where trusted people (advocates) work with targeted groups who are able to refer them to dedicated Active Lifestyle Programmes.   Future work will be to have a range of diverse strong advocates including:

• GPs
• District Nurses
• Social Services Personnel
• Youth Workers
• Voluntary Organisations e.g. Bournemouth Helping Services, Age Concern
• Hospital Personnel
• East Dorset Drug Advisory Service
• Local Businesses  

There is a strong correlation between poor health and low income and social exclusion.   Whilst the referral system is one mechanism to address this, affordability and location are the keys.   Other mechanisms to be pursued include:  

• Facilitating capacity building and delivery at a local level
• Stratified pricing of active lifestyle programmes using Freestyle Card (Leisure Card) to offer consistent fair pricing for people on low income
• Building partnerships with people, groups and organisations that can access targeted groups to understand their needs and barriers to leisure participation.