South Hams Area Wellbeing or SHAW is a not-for-profit organisation that aims to help enable and educate local individuals to be resilient in their own wellbeing. It is all about compassionate communities connecting local people of all generations with each other and with organisations, practitioners and agencies that can support and facilitate resilience with the main aim of improving lifestyle, knowledge, happiness and health.
Less than 2 years old SHAW has already seen one of its three goals being achieved.
Goal One – Community Connector / Linkworker.
SHAW’s first goal was to employ two community Linkworkers in the summer of 2019 and subsequently we received over 100 referrals from local GPs and other healthcare workers. The role of the linkworker is to connect individuals with appropriate organisations and activities and thus engender health and wellbeing. This is the very essence of social prescribing. Until recently the NHS has put very little of its massive resources in to this area, however, a sweeping change of direction has being taking place over the last six months. NHS England have now fully backed Social Prescribing for the next five years and via the Primary Care Network (PCN) of Salcombe, Kingsbridge and Chillington practices, they will be taking over this role. SHAW obviously welcomes this investment as it will allow us to focus on our other goals. April 2020 will see the start of two Linkworkers working directly for the NHS, based out of 3 local medical centres in the area plus community settings. Claire Jeffreys, our original Community Connector, will be partnering up with Rosie Jones. Congratulations Claire, keep up the great work and welcome Rosie to this exciting position.
Goal Two – Community Builder
SHAW is very excited to have recruited Helen Hamilton to its role of Community Builder. Following interviews earlier this year Helen shone through as an outstanding candidate. She started with a focus of introducing herself to the key community organisations – the arrival of Coronavirus has thrown her into that world at haste – and she is playing a vital role in helping to organize some key Coronavirus initiatives such as Prescription deliveries and Foodbank deliveries.
The list of local projects, which was to be Helen’s starting point, will hope to be addressed soon. Meanwhile SHAW uses all of its resources to help other organisations to combat the current threat.
Social prescribing and asset based community development– a brief note on how it works.
SHAW is continuing to develop its role in the local community and ever changing healthcare landscape.
Asset based community development (ABCD) is a localised and bottom-up way of strengthening communities through recognising, identifying and harnessing existing 'assets' (i.e. things like skills, knowledge, capacity, resources, experience or enthusiasm) that individuals and communities have which can help to strengthen and improve things locally.
Helen will use this approach to help facilitate the empowerment of individuals and communities by helping them to identify and share their strengths and then work together to create their own social innovations across the Kingsbridge District.
We want to facilitate your journey to improved wellbeing as a group and as individuals. There are no specific rules and no fixed pathways. It's about what matters to you, not what’s the matter with you.
