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CDHN Pathways to Health. Seamus Ward, General Manager of Bogside and Brandywell Health Forum Healthy Living Centre in Derry Presentation on our experience of Building Social Capital. Building Social Capital – A definition.
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CDHN Pathways to Health • Seamus Ward, General Manager of Bogside and Brandywell Health Forum • Healthy Living Centre in Derry • Presentation on our experience of Building Social Capital
Building Social Capital – A definition • ‘Social capital means the set of norms, institutions and organisations that promote trust and cooperation among persons in communities and also in wider society’. (Durston, J 1999) • ‘the social networks and the norms of trustworthiness that arise from them” (Sander et al 2006)
Building Social Capital – Why? • The core concept of social capital is that social networks matter, both for those in the networks as well as sometimes for bystanders as well. • At the core of social capital is trust
BBHF- How we developed Social Capital • Development of programmes into projects (OPSF/Pink Ladies/Born to Run) • Support and corporate development to enable community ownership • Encourage successful programmes and the people involved to ‘take final ownership’ of programmes
BBHF- How we developed Social Capital • Development of participants to become facilitators • Training and support offered to participants to offer services for and in our community. • Local people gaining experience of facilitation to gain confidence and experience • Encourage facilitators to accept more responsibility for promotion and public speaking
In a nutshell…. • In 2007 BBHF had a bank of 5 facilitators, 3 for physical activity and 2 for Older peoples services. Two were from the local area. We now have a bank of 25 facilitators. 23 are local people. 23 are previous participants in our programmes. They are all part of the fabric of BBHF.
Increased number of participants Increased number of classes Additional ‘next step’ for participants who have life changing experiences that can help others Closer relationship with the community Redirecting local £ to local people How has the approach helped
Consideration for Social Capital in Health • Community-led health is an “approach” to health improvement rather than a particular “technique” or “method”. It is fundamentally different from the provision of community-based health services as it is concerned with community, or neighbourhood, as the focus of, and mechanism for, change rather than community as a setting for health practice