Promoting Well Being

Community Development is a practice discipline for people working together on change, underpinned by a clear value base. There are 6 value statements with associated practice principles:

• Social Justice
• Self-determination
• Working & Learning together
• Participation
• Sustainable Communities
• Reflective Practice

National Occupational Standards in Community Development Work, January 2003.

Within Health and Social Care, Community Development is a process by which the health and social well being of the community can be improved. Communities have resources and capabilities to define their own health and social needs. Resources can then be allocated in ways that enhance their collective health and social well being. Health and Social Care staff have a critical role to play in developing and facilitating the community that they serve and contribute 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 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

Within the Southern Health and Social Care Trust (SHSCT, the Trust) while community development is everyone’s core business; responsibility for driving Community Development sits within the Older People and Primary Care (OPPC) Directorate. Strategic responsibility lies with the Director for OPPC, the Assistant Director for Promoting Wellbeing and the Head of User Involvement and Community Development. Operational responsibility lies with the Assistant Director for Promoting Wellbeing and the Head of User Involvement and Community Development and is delivered through the Promoting Wellbeing Teams based in each locality and the Promoting Wellbeing Directorate Leads who support Trust staff across the different Directorates and programmes of care.

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

PWB Update

PWB Staff Directory