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March 8, 2022
Best value lies upstream
It is widely acknowledged that the demands on the statutory mental health services have long outstripped what was available – and that was before the pandemic. Entirely new and different models of service are required as well as the means of accessing them. The case for community led health providers has been made many times before and in particular how this could ease the pressure further downstream. The highly innovative Community Wellbeing Exchange that has been pioneered by Senscot in recent years is just one example of a low cost/high value mental health initiative that merits closer inspection.
Community Wellbeing Exchange is a Pockets & Prospects Project, made possible through funding from the Scottish Government via Scottish Community Alliance.
SENScot, SCHW and CHEX are delighted to be collaborating again this year on the Community Wellbeing Exchange, following the success of last year’s Pockets Prospects Project that supported community organisations to address mental health & wellbeing needs within their local community. Read the Summary Report.
Our approach is based on the model developed through a partnership between GSEN & SENScot for the successful Glasgow Pockets & Prospects Project which aimed to tackle loneliness and to mitigate the negative impacts of welfare reform, whilst also connecting and developing social enterprises.
Community Wellbeing Exchange builds upon the valuable learning of previous work, with the approach based on the fundamental premise that community organisations have access to a small budget to purchase activities and services from social enterprises that contribute towards improved mental health. This enables community organisations who understand the needs of their local community to tap into services they may previously have been unaware of or been unable to afford, whilst also supporting social enterprise suppliers.
From March to May 22 we have 20 community organisations that each have an allocation of £1000 to access 100’s of brilliant and wide-ranging activities and services being offered by social enterprise suppliers.
Even if you’re not participating in the project as a community organisation with the £1000 allocation, we invite you to browse the range of activities and services offered by over 40 social enterprise suppliers this year.
For more information please contact:
Mary Sinclair : mary@senscot.net (SENScot)
Andrew Patterson : andrew.paterson@scdc.org.uk (CHEX)
John Cassidy : john.kcassidy@ntlworld.com (SCHW)