Welcome to your latest Health and Wellbeing update from Tower Hamlets CVS. June is going to be a busy month with lots of interesting events, including the health and wellbeing forum on the new Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC) and the THT coproduction event.

THCVS is running a State of the Sector Survey that we hope you will complete and encourage your partners to also complete so that we can get a picture of the issues that are facing the sector in 2023.

Health and Wellbeing Forum

Thursday 22 June / 10.00pm to 1.00pm / Tower Hamlets Professional Development Centre 229 Bethnal Green Road, E2 6AB

Join the Health and Wellbeing forum to find out about the Health Determinants Research Collaborative (HDRC) and to give you the chance to tell us how you would like to be involved and how research can help your organisation. We will have presentations from LBTH on the new HDRC Programme and Queen Mary University (QMUL) on research approaches.

Our health is about more than eating well and exercising. Almost everything in our lives affects our health in some way; our homes, our jobs, schools, our families, communities and the environment. These are often called ‘wider determinants of health’.

Tower Hamlets Council, local universities and community organisations are working together on a Health Determinants Research Collaboration. This will make it easier to carry out and use research on health inequalities and the building blocks that have an impact on our health, such as housing, education, and food.

The programme wants to involve our communities in this work by:

• Finding out what you think we should focus on
• Designing our research priorities together
• Inviting you to take part in research
• Find out from QMUL how research can support your organisation

Over the last few years QMUL academics have been collaborating with peer and community-based researchers on a range of health related projects. We believe that research into health inequalities needs to be collaborative and co-produced. To support this work they have recently begun to develop some training that could be of use to community organisations who conduct, or aspire to conduct research to help build capacity and strengthen collaboration. In this interactive session we will:

• Share our approach to training peer and community-based researchers in research methodology
• Map current research training needs across our local academic and community research settings
• Discuss how we might collaborate to develop and support local community research capacity and opportunities

Click here to book your place.

What do Culture, Arts, Nature, Environment and Heritage organisations need? 

Thursday 8 June / 10.00 to 11:00am / Online

Join THCVS for a discussion on how you would like to connect and access opportunities and support. We can potentially offer support through networking meetings or newsletters but we want to hear what would work for you.

The NHS providers are interested in how communities can link into Culture, Arts, Nature, Environment and Heritage organisations in order to support residents to:

• Improve their health and wellbeing
• Reduce their isolation
• Connect with social prescribing programmes and other support organisations
• Opportunities to get involved in coproduction opportunities
• Other VCS organisations are interested in developing partnerships to apply for funding to address service users needs.

THCVS has been working with the Well Communities Research Collaborative who are researching the needs of communities in engaging with culture, arts, nature, environment and heritage programmes and the impact on resident’s well-being.

The feedback from the participants indicated that it would be useful for them to connect to:

• Build partnerships with THT partners, Social prescribing programmes and NEL ICS
• Network with other providers to develop partnership bids through NHS and charitable funding opportunities
• Connect to NHS and borough meetings to influence change to address inequalities
• Staff training to support work with complex service users
• Support to be involved in Health Determinants Research Collaborative through research and evaluation opportunities
  

Click here to book your place.

State of the Sector Survey 2023

We need your help to gather data to understand the pressures across the VCS in Tower Hamlets. It should take less than 10 minutes to fill in.  

The purpose of this survey is to:  

• Understand the challenges and current issues in the sector
  
• Address the situation by advocating to statutory partners and funders
• Enable THCVS to respond with appropriate support 

Results of the survey will be published on the THCVS website and in our news bulletin so that it can be used to advocate to strengthen the position of the sector. 

Our members have told us that this research would be useful to understand the very real challenges in our diverse sector. Your expertise and experience will give us vital information to advocate to funders and statutory partners, to coordinate a programme of action for our sector and for THCVS to plan to make sure our service are fit for purpose.

The survey is anonymous however you may enter the name of your organisation and email address if you want to be entered in our prize draw of three x £50.00 prizes for your organisation. Click here to take the survey.

If you would like to speak to someone about the survey please email jane.bell@thcvs.org.uk 

Coproduction event – Supported Mental Health Employment Provision

Wednesday 14 June / 10.00am to 1.00pm / Tower Hamlets Town Hall, Room TH409, Fourth floor, 160 Whitechapel Road, E1 1BJ

The Tower Hamlets Council Mental Health Integrated Commissioning Team are holding a co-production event. The aims of the event are:

• Help the Tower Hamlets Council Mental Health Integrated Commissioning Team understand what their current supported mental health employment pathways and service provision looks like in-borough
• Consider local need
• What are the gaps
• Next steps
  

They would like to hear from residents, service users, stakeholders and interested parties. Your experiences, thoughts and ideas are important as they will help to inform the planning of future supported mental health employment pathways and service provision.

This will be an in-person event. If you are able to attend, please could you confirm by responding to tristyn.eddings@nhs.net by 31st May at the latest.

NB: This is specifically a MH employment provision co-production event. A separate market engagement event will take place later in the year.

THT Co-Production Workshop

Thursday 29 June / 9.30am to 12.30pm / registration from 9am / Professional Development Centre, 229 Bethnal Green Road, E2 6AB

Improving local health and care services by learning how to work together better: As people of Tower Hamlets, you know what is needed to improve health and wellbeing in the borough. The Council, the NHS and Community organisations in Tower Hamlets can do better at listening and working with people to make sure health and care services better address people’s needs. You can help shape this so local services and opportunities are more in line with what people want.

Who is this event for?
We want a good mix of people who fund and deliver services alongside people who live in the borough with an interest in this issue. The final event we will invite more people so they can review our work and ideas. To ensure a good mix, there are two registration processes:

• People who live in Tower Hamlets or work/volunteer with a voluntary or community organisation: Click on this link to register if you live in Tower Hamlets or represent a voluntary and community group. We are offering people who attend a £20 per hour a love2shop voucher and for organisations, a £40 per hour payment for attending. To be eligible for this, you will be required to complete an event evaluation.
• People working in statutory agencies like the Council and the NHS

This work is being led by the Towers Hamlets Together partnership, where health, care and community organisations join up and seek to improve health and care services in the borough. To find out more about who they are and their work follow this link.

Please note this event is aimed at Voluntary Organisations based or delivering work in the borough of Tower Hamlets, we have limited places so we will give priority to these groups. Click here to book your place.
 

Interventions that impact loneliness

Deadline: Tuesday 15 August, 2023

The Public Health Research (PHR) Programme wishes to commission research on interventions aimed at reducing loneliness. Although social isolation and loneliness often come together, they are conceptually and empirically distinct from each other. This call is primarily interested in intervention aimed at reducing loneliness. The PHR programme is predominantly interested in interventions that are likely to have impact on populations at scale, addressing health inequalities and the underlying wider determinants of health.

Click here to find out more and apply.