Sunderland Health Champions: the story so far … With thanks to Gillian Gibson, Consultant in Public Health Sunderland City Council

Our Biggest Health Problems Sunderland population High levels of mortality – cardiovascular disease, – Cancer – respiratory disease High prevalence of smoking Harmful drinking High levels of overweight/obesity Worklessness Poor mental wellness People with severe mental illness Associated with – 2x CVD deaths – 2.6x cancer diagnoses – 3x respiratory disease Half of tobacco consumption 3x alcohol dependency Increased risk of overweight/obesity Very low levels of employment Discrimination, stigma, exclusion

Sunderland Health Champions: Assets in Action Reducing health inequalities Supporting members of the community during the economic downturn Develop a systematic approach to help people take the first steps along the pathway to improved health Improve the health of Health Champions, their clients, families and communities Shift in culture

Sunderland Health Champions: Who are they? Frontline workers, volunteers and community leaders trained to give brief advice and signposting 5 basic modules – Understanding health improvement – Smoking – Alcohol – Emotional health and resilience – Healthy money, healthy you 4 additional modules and another onstream – healthy eating, cancer awareness, sexual health, dementia awareness – Domestic violence.

Progress to date Partnership approach: City Council (Area Committees and Wellness Services), NHS (Public Health), Voluntary and Community Sector Programme developed in Washington at the end of 2010 followed by the West Area in March Aimed to sign up 500 by March Now have 1,100 signed up and 500 fully trained. Half employed by statutory organisations, remainder largely third sector. Evaluated positively by Leeds Metropolitan University in 2012.

“I think for me it (the training) linked up a lot of worlds I previously found separate, so if somebody came to me for financial help, we also talked about maybe perhaps they wanted to stop smoking or drinking, which linked into them spending too much, so it was linking to a lot of worlds, which for me and perhaps they had seen as quite separate so they all came together” Health Champion

“…we’re all doing our jobs and then now we’re also Health Champions. It doesn’t mean that we’re doing an extra job, it just means that we’ve got the knowledge and the skills to signpost people to services…I think that’s a real positive outcome of the Health Champions programme, is that now people have up-to-date information on key health issues” Health Champion

“It’s like the difference between, you know say you’re carrying your tool box round, instead of just having a screwdriver, you’ve got the spanner, you’ve got the drill, you’ve got the screws and you can pull them out as needed” Health Champion

Next Steps Continue to promote awareness of Health Champions in the City Recruit new Health Champions, especially in communities of greatest need Develop new training modules Build the networks Develop Young Health Champions Health Champions as core to Integrated Wellness Services

“Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events.” Robert F. Kennedy