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Welcome to WOW Now’s Greater Manchester edition – we’re pleased to introduce Emma Baylin who’ll be coordinating Wellbeing Our Way’s new regional communities of practice across Greater Manchester, Chris Larkin reflects on the impact of ‘Devo Manc’ for charities and community organisations, and there are opportunities to get involved in Wellbeing Our Way at regional and national levels.
Natalie Koussa, Programme Lead - Wellbeing Our Way
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I’m delighted to have this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Emma Baylin and I am the new Regional Coordinator for Wellbeing Our Way, covering Greater Manchester’s ten locality areas and hosted by Macc (the voluntary and community sector support organisation for the City of Manchester).
A little about me - I have worked in the health and care field for over 20 years, mainly in the voluntary sector but also in local authorities and the Department of Health. I have delivered local, regional and national projects and for the last 8 years have worked in voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) infrastructure. The common threads throughout my work are my belief in people, my passion for strengthening communities and my conviction in the power of working in partnership with others to create positive change.
Early in 2016 conversations took place in Greater Manchester between VCSE chief officers and National Voices to explore how Wellbeing Our Way could help foster local partnerships and shared learning across the region. Greater Manchester has a vibrant and diverse VCSE sector, made up of around 15,000 groups. The implementation of full devolution from April 2016 offers a real focus on Greater Manchester's health and social care system and the opportunity to do things differently. These conversations led to Wellbeing Our Way hosting two events and developing a commitment to develop further work in the region.
I am excited to be appointed as Regional Coordinator for Wellbeing Our Way at such a pivotal point in the transformation of health and social care systems and at a time where the rhetoric for person-centred care and true cross-sector working has never been stronger.
I am looking forward to meeting people at our upcoming events and working to develop two communities of practice across Greater Manchester, one focusing on supporting self management and the other on peer support.
I am keen to hear more about the wonderful work taking place in this inspiring region so please share your examples for inclusion in the WOW! Exchange.
Best wishes,
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Event: Coproduction masterclass
We are hosting a coproduction masterclass on 8 December for people working within charities, community organisations and wider health and social care settings.
The masterclass is in partnership with the Coalition for Collaborative Care and will be a practical introduction to coproduction including what it is, how to get started and how to develop your organisation’s approach to working alongside people with lived experience. Priority will be given to National Voices’ members and members of Wellbeing Our Way’s communities of practice; any remaining spaces will be available for Coalition for Collaborative Care partners. There is more information on our website.
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Events: Greater Manchester communities of practice
Wellbeing Our Way is hosting two Greater Manchester events to inform the development of regional peer support and supporting self management communities of practice. The events are open to staff within charities and community organisations working directly with people with long term health needs, as well as those who are commissioning and developing these approaches, and people with lived experience from across the Greater Manchester region.
For more information and to sign up:
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Blog: What does devolution mean for Greater Manchester's voluntary and community sector?
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Chris Larkin, Regional Director at the Stroke Association, blogs about what devolution in Greater Manchester could mean for the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector: 'Since getting involved, we have been starting to build partnerships with many more VCSE sector partners. By coordinating our skills and expertise we can achieve much more.'
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News: Realising the Value publications cite Wellbeing Our Way as example of voluntary sector leadership
Over the last 18 months, Realising the Value has analysed the evidence for person-centred approaches, working with five frontline sites across England. Today, the programme publishes a set of major new publications, developed in partnership with National Voices, which concludes that person-centred approaches are pivotal to improving health and care during financially restrained times. The materials are designed to show the system how to make a reality of the ‘new relationship with people and communities’ set out by the Five Year Forward View.
Wellbeing Our Way is included as an example of how the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector is showing leadership around providing ‘critical’ support for the VCSE and informal workforce.
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News: Community of practice online forums
Each of Wellbeing Our Way’s communities of practice now has an online forum - a space to keep in touch with your community, share invitations to events and links to new publications, and work collaboratively on community outputs.
The Greater Manchester forums will be accessible following the upcoming community of practice events.
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Wellbeing Our Way's WOW! Exchange is an online catalogue of more than 100 examples of how charities and community groups are enabling people to live well, in the ways which matter to them.
The examples are searchable by person-centred approach (e.g. peer support, supporting self management) and population group (e.g. children, LGBT+) so you can easily find the examples most useful for your own work.
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Being Well Salford is about enabling people to improve their lives in terms of mood, weight, being active and smoking or alcohol intake. Participants work with coaches, who motivationally train them to think about how they can make positive changes in their life.
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Healthy Me Healthy Communities aims to enable people to improve their own and their communities’ life expectancy and quality of life by reducing health and life inequalities. The social enterprise delivers a range of community projects and training programmes for building community assets.
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