Healthwatch Blackburn with Darwen

Volunteer Engagement Meeting

03/08/16

Blackburn Enterprise Centre

Present:Ben Pearson, Susan Covill,

Karl Riding, Nancy Kinyanjui,Richard Moorby, Muhammad Patel, Phil Thain, Danielle Bolchover, CharanBhamra, Anne-Marie McKay, Madhu Pandya

Sir Bill Taylor, Mark Rasburn (part of meeting)

Apologies: Alwyn Cooper, Stephen Gallagher, Diane Adams, Dorothy Ross, Mavis Williams, Stephen Sharp, David Boultwood, Adrian Polding

Agenda Item / Meeting Notes / Action
Certificates / Volunteers introduced themselves to Sir Bill Taylor, Chair of Healthwatch and explained a little about their involvement in Healthwatch.
Sir Bill presented the volunteers with ‘Recognition of Service’ certificates.
Ben explained volunteers had given 679 hours of service between January and end June 2016. (This would equate to 3 full time members of staff).
Ben and Sir Bill thanked all volunteers for their contribution to Healthwatch.
Volunteers were asked to ensure they let the office know when they attend any training courses, meetings etc. in order for us to record the volunteer hours.
Engagement Update / Adult Carers
3 month project which has been live since beginning of June and will run until the end of August. To date we have spoken to 44 Adult Carers.
Great Practice Project
6 month project running from July until January ’17. We have had a good response to-date. Starting Thur. 4th Aug. we will have weekly drop-ins at YSYC and we will be visiting different GP surgeries throughout the Borough.
Homelessness
This project will launch later this month with a full week of activities.
We will involve not just the ‘rough sleepers’ but those people not in permanent residence and work in partnership with Shelter, Thomas, Nightsafe and The Salvation Army on parts of this project capturing the views of the public on the local provisions and the challenges they face.
There will be an art group with the Nightsafe residents and two drop-ins at The Foyer plus monthly task group meetings.
Sensory Impairments Task Group
The first task group meeting was held in June at Darwen Aldridge Enterprise Studio with a further planning meeting to be held in September for and end of September launch.
Amplify / Young peoples project led by young people.
This project began in October 2015 and now has 27 young volunteers and champions. We have held over 30 workshops in lots of schools and engaged with over 1200 young people. We are continuing to develop new partnerships and are engaged with Blackburn Youth Zone, a group of LGBT students and the National Citizen Service.
Mental Health & Wellbeing Task Group Update / The task group meets bi-monthly and is very well attended with over 20 attendees at the last one. We now have a guest speaker at each meeting. The next meeting is Tue. 23rd Aug. and the guest speaker will be AfsanaTutla, Health and Wellbeing lead for Inter Madrassah Organisation, talking about BME women’s mental health.
Nancy gave an overview on the Loneliness and Isolation project being run by the volunteers. The group meet weekly and have now discussed their ideas for the project and are developing a questionnaire and a name for the project. The next phase will see volunteers going out and speaking to people and the group will continue to meet monthly at YSYC. Anyone wishing to be involved or just drop in for a chat they are more than welcome. This group is very informal, relaxed and very welcoming.
YVYV Update / There will be no meeting in August for YVYV. The next meeting will take place on Fri. 23rd Sept. which will be a follow-up to the Physical Health project on fibromyalgia.
Fri. 28th Oct. ‘Older People’ topic will link in with the Sensory Impairment project and Fri. 25th Nov. will be ‘Men’s Health’ – a follow up to the #Blokesviews project which has been very well received and has been ‘picked up’ by Healthwatch England and forwarded to all the Healthwatch network.
Training Update / Ben explained to volunteers they could request any training needs they feelthey would benefit from. There is also an opportunity to do a Level 2/3 in Health & Social Care, Business Admin, Customer Service and Team Leading – please let the office know if you are interested.
Volunteer Update / Richard Moorby informed the group he had built up a good relationship with Boots and they were going to promote the Healthwatch Public Meeting which has a guest speaker on the agenda talking about Pharmacies.
Nancy asked if the office could add the partners of the ‘Loneliness & Isolation’ project to their circulation database.
Upcoming Dates / Ben updated the group on the forthcoming meetings.
Adult Carers Task Group – Fri. 5th Aug. 10-12 pm
Mental Health & Wellbeing Task Group – Tue. 23rd Aug.
10-12 pm.
GP Task Group – Thur. 25th Aug. 10-12 pm
Homeless Task Group – Thur. 25th Aug. 2-4 pm
Sensory Impairment Task Group – Wed. 7th Sept.
AOB
Date of next meeting: Wed. 5th Oct. 1.00 – 3.00 pm