Promoting Well Being

Community Development is a key process in promoting the health and wellbeing of a community and in working together to reduce health inequality.

“Community Development is about the strengthening and bringing about change in communities….It is a way of working which seeks to encourage communities….to tackle for themselves the problems which they face and identify to be important…which aim(s) to empower them to change things by developing their own skills, knowledge and experience, and by working in partnerships with other groups and statutory agencies.”

HPSS Regional Strategy 1997-2002

Communities have assets and capabilities to define their own health and social needs.  Thesecan operate at individual, family or community level and act as protective and promoting factors to buffer against life’s stresses and include:

• The practical skills, capacity and knowledge of individuals;
• The energy and interests of local people;
• The networks and connections (also known as social capital) in a community including friendships and neighbourliness;
• The effectiveness of grassroots community and voluntary organisations in the area;
• The resources of statutory and other organisations that are available to support a community, and
• The physical and economic resources of a place that enhance wellbeing.

Health and Social Care organisations and staff teams have a critical role to play in developing and facilitating the community that they serve and in contributing to the community’s resources. It involves the proactive engagement of groups and individuals to help identify their own health and social care needs and in shaping service provision to meet those needs. It requires investment to build capacity and support the engagement

Community Development is a practice discipline for people working together on change, underpinned by a clear value base. There are 5 key values that underpin all community development practice:

1. Equity and Anti-discrimination
2. Social Justice
3. Collective action
4. Community empowerment
5. Working and learning together

 National Occupational Standards for Community Development, 2009.

Within the Southern Health and Social Care Trust (SHSCT, the Trust) community development is led by the Promoting Wellbeing Team within the Older People and Primary Care Directorate. All Directorates and Programmes of Care have a key role in ensuring community development is integrated into their mainstream approach to service delivery and the promotion of health and wellbeing. This work is supported by a Head of User Involvement and Community Development and by the leads for Promoting Wellbeing (PWB) within each of the locality teams. In addition support is also offered to Trust staff across the Directorates and programmes of care to develop and mainstream community development practice.

Contact details of Promoting Wellbeing Department staff and information on their specific roles and responsibilities can be found in:

PWB Update

PWB Staff Directory