All service examples related prevention examples and research

ConnectWELL

ConnectWELL

Introducing ConnectWELL - a social prescribing service – initially funded and piloted in 2014 by NHS Rugby CCG, which aims to improve health and wellbeing for patients and clients. ConnectWELL provides Health Professionals with just one, straightforward referral route to the many Voluntary and Community Sector organisations, groups and activities that can address underlying societal causes, manage or prevent compounding factors of ill-health. ConnectWELL has over 900 organisations and activities, ranging from Carers’ support, community groups, disability services, Faith / Religious / Cultural Activities, Housing / Homelessness Support, Mentoring, Music Groups, and volunteering opportunities.

Community Team Plus

Stoke on Trent City Council

Community Team Plus involves multidisciplinary health and care teams supporting people across six Stoke on Trent localities to 'help me to help myself to live well'. They are tasked with being accessible, creative, resourceful and helpful.

Wellbeing Service

H4ALL

Hillingdon H4All is a social prescription/wellbeing service that supports patients 65 and over to better manage long term health conditions and social isolation. The service operates as a Community Interest Company (CIC) and is a collaboration between five prominent local third sector charities namely Age UK Hillingdon, Disablement Association Hillingdon (DASH), Harlington Hospice, Hillingdon Carers and Hillingdon Mind and is commissioned by Hillingdon CCG. The service is an augmentation of the former Primary Care Navigator (PCN) project which was managed by Age UK Hillingdon and funded by Hillingdon CCG in 2014. The new service was established in April 2016 and used learning from the former PCN project to provide an enhanced service with the following features:

Moving Memory

Moving Memory Dance Theatre Company

Moving Memory Dance Theatre Company, grew out of a commission in 2010-11, in the run up for the Cultural Olympiad 2012, to develop a dance piece with a group of older women. Following the event, a group of women wanted to continue the dance group so Moving Memory was formed. Skipping forward a few years, along with the performance pieces that Moving Memory creates for public events, they also deliver workshops, bespoke participatory projects and training. Moving Memory's vision is for a society where older people live longer, healthier and more fulfilling lives because they participate in artistic, creative and physical activities. The work they produce – and the way they produce it – aims to challenge perceived notions of age and ageing, by asking audiences and participants to look beyond their assumptions and changing attitudes towards older people.

Chatty Cafe Scheme

The Chatty Cafe Scheme supports cafes to designate a 'Chatter & Natter' table where customers can sit if they are happy to talk to other customers. The scheme aims to tackle loneliness by bringing people of all ages together from mums with their babies to older people.

Oomph! Wellness

Oomph! (Our Organisation Makes People Happy) Wellness is a national organisation with the mission to 'help older adults live a full life, for life'. Oomph! has worked in care settings since 2011, to train and support staff and encourage older adults to get active and combat growing levels of social isolation.

KOMP

No Isolation

Described most simply as a ‘one button screen’, KOMP is a communication tool designed specifically for, and in collaboration with, older people. The product is designed by No Isolation (www.noisolation.com), an Oslo-based start-up founded to reduce involuntary social isolation and loneliness. Following the success of its first product, a telepresence robot named AV1, designed to help children with long-term illness attend school and stay connected with their friends, the company decided to focus on developing an initial solution for seniors and launched KOMP. To date, more than 400 KOMPs are in use in Norway alone, with seven being trialled in the UK. While many have a large family unit, and enjoy spending time with family and friends, older people are still the single largest group affected by loneliness. According to Age UK, 3.6 million older people in the UK live alone, with 1.9 million reporting feeling ignored and invisible. In 2017, Eurostat reported that 1.1 million seniors are in contact with relatives just once a month or less. Seeing the positive impact that being able to communicate has had on users of AV1, No Isolation knew the power that being connected could have, in terms of reducing feelings of loneliness. They were also acutely aware that the devices that are currently available to allow people to go online and socialise with family and friends are either too complicated or do not meet the needs of most seniors. Modifying existing technology simply wasn't an option, so No Isolation worked with older people, families and designers to work out exactly what KOMP needed to feature to work for its target user. By conducting extensive research into how seniors interacted with technology, No Isolation found that touch screens were not intuitive, and for some, not receptive, to the fingertips of the elderly - which led to KOMP only having one large, graspable button. To avoid confusion, the user can switch the device off and on by twisting the button, as well as change the KOMP’s volume by rotating it.

Older Carers Project (Every One)

Lincolnshire County Council

In acknowledgement of the particular difficulties facing older carers, Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) secured funding from the Better Care Fund to look at how it supports older carers who are looking after someone with a learning disability in their home. During early 2015 LCC commissioned what was then, Lincolnshire Carers and Young Carers Partnership (LCYCP) now known as ‘Every-One’ to undertake the Older Carers Project. The project provided support for carers over the age of 55 who had grown up children with learning disabilities to produce contingency and future care plans. The aim of this was to ensure that when the carers could no longer continue in their caring role, sufficient plans were in place to avoid a crisis where their son or daughter may be forced into residential care causing unnecessary stress and expense.

LAUGH research project

Cardiff Metropolitan University

The Ludic Artefacts Using Gesture & Haptics (LAUGH) research project was born out of an identified need for playful objects for people with advanced dementia and based on literature and previous research on the benefits to wellbeing of playfulness and hand-use. The aims of the project were to look at: How can handcraft and creative making inform the development of new devices and playful activities to promote individual and social wellbeing for people with dementia? And how might handcraft activities be augmented via new technologies and smart materials to produce new kinds of engaging, playful artefacts to amuse, distract, comfort, engage, bring joy, and promote ‘in the moment’ living for people with dementia?

My Guide

The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association

My Guide is a sighted guiding service, started by The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association (Guide Dogs) in 2014, in which trained volunteers assist blind and partially sighted adults by helping them get out of their homes: to the shops, community events, and other activities. This was mainly out of a recognition that not everyone had the confidence or ability to undertake more formal mobility training such as with a guide dog, but nonetheless, people with sight loss who had lost confidence and become isolated still by and large want to get out and about and participate in life. My Guide was therefore envisaged either as an alternative or even a stepping stone to other forms of mobility. Ultimately it is geared towards promoting and enhancing independence and wellbeing and supports people with sight loss in achieving outcome 7 (I can get out and about) of the Seeing It My Way, the national outcomes framework for people with sight loss.