As one of a series of the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care System's (NENC ICS) Health Inequalities events, VONNE led on coordinating delivery of the 'The voluntary and community sector's role in tackling health inequalities' webinar on June 28th 2022. The event was a showcase of the innovation and valuable contribution of voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations in tackling health inequalities across the region.
The event gave attendees the opportunity to listen to live presentations and videos from VCSE sector project leads and their beneficiaries across a range of current projects and collaborative approaches, showcasing the value of the work they are delivering in local communities and for populations they serve.
The value of the projects was clearly appreciated by more than 200 delegates from our regional health sector who attended, judging by the comments we received. The projects that were showcased clearly demonstrated from their presentations and case studies that they are successfully engaging, supporting and building resilience with some of our most excluded and disadvantaged groups and individuals who are least likely to engage with statutory health and care services.
A clear message around the need for accessible non-judgemental, trauma informed supportive approaches came across as key to engaging these communities and individuals, in addition to trust-based, person-centred approaches.
In addition presenters conveyed the need for long term funding to ensure sustainability of projects and a move away from piecemeal short-term grants to embedding these projects within wider integrated care delivery plans and funding streams. Many of the Primary Care Network (PCN) leads and social prescribing link workers who attended the webinar were keen to refer to projects having heard about their work, but weren’t aware that funding is required to sustain these projects and build capacity to absorb referrals.
Following the webinar, the ICS Health Inequalities Advisory Group will be exploring how we can ensure asset based approaches are supported in tackling the health inequalities in our region.
A full playlist of the videos can be found below:
Presentations can be accessed here:
Welcome and Introduction Slides FINAL 2.pptx (live.com)
Case Study 1 - RISE.pptx (live.com)
Case Study 2 - Bright Woods Forest School.pdf (vonne.org.uk)
Case Study 3 - A Way Out.pptx (live.com)
Case Study 4 - Sunderland Social Prescribing Partnership - please see video above.
Case Study 5 - Bridge Creative FINAL.pptx (live.com)
Case Study 6 - Angelou Centre.pptx (live.com)