September 14, 2015

Values Awards: Team Of The Year

Winners: Barnsley Health Trainers

The 2015 team of the year award goes to a service that embodies all of our values. As the person who nominated put it: ‘we support, motivate and encourage individuals and groups to make healthy lifestyle changes, helping to create a healthy and happy Barnsley.’

Improving group work

The team this year has really strived to make improvements to our healthy lifestyle interventions which include: fit mums, cook well be well, fit reds, activity 4 health and fit families.

The team have done a full review and focused on ensuring that goals are meaningful and personal to the individual even though they are in a group setting. Staff have been part of this process; creating new lesson plans, implementing the use of technology e.g apps in sessions and using the new ‘my journey card’.

The team put behaviour change at the heart of their work, and this year the percentage of service users from the most deprived areas of Barnsley has risen by 7%.

The improvements made to their group work is also paying off: with 65% of attendees now achieving their goal, compared to 47% of 1:1 interventions.

Barnsley were one of the first services to receive an Emerald rating from Jane Evans and the quality team- proof of their achievements and improvements over the past year.

Earning the trust of health professionals

Over the past 4 years the Barnsley Health Trainers have increased GP referrals by 49%, and are now present in 26 surgeries across the region. From one initial surgery, this is quite a turnaround and the GP’s now see the team as invaluable and give brilliant feedback to the team.

Understanding

As the nominator put it ‘Innovation is key to what we do, especially creating new ways to engage with groups of people who have the poorest health.’ And the team evidence it in their unique ideas that they confidently carry through to completion.

New projects such as; People and Paws engage those at risk of isolation using pet therapy and offer a holistic approach to both mental and physical health. One attendee commented: “I love it, just takes all my worries away”

Another innovation ‘FIT HOME DVD’ was created in response to requests from clients for exercises they could do at home. It supports clients alongside their personal health plan. It also reaches those who don’t want to engage in group sessions. Health Trainers lead each video session, clients receive a telephone consultation to start with and then weekly face to face or phone reviews in the weeks following.

Since it’s March 2015 launch the team have sent out 86 DVDs and have gained 64 new clients this way. They’re now supporting the Liverpool Health Trainers to develop their own version.

Bravery

After careful consideration and strategy meetings the team have branched out into social media and have achieved great success.118 people have self-referred through social media compared to just 60 through leaflets.

After a big push to raise the profile of the service through twitter, they gained over 500 additional followers over a 6 month period. They now have strong links with local councillors on social media and have gained freebies for People and Paws from local businesses. The services social media presence has also led to participation I academic interviews and in press attention from the Barnsley Chronicle. We have started new this year an Instagram and Pinterest page that operate alongside the well-used ‘fit mums’ facebook page that currently has 1,262 likes.

Choice

If the massive variety of groups and resources the team provides wasn’t enough choice, the also made 492 referrals to other services in the past year, 351 of which were to foodbanks.

As the nomination states ‘We provide people with choices and options for ways they can help themselves get back on track. This helping hand and point in the right direction can be at time of crisis for example this year our work with the Food Bank specifically in the Dearne has been a vital resource to local people’

Potential

Barnsley use the champion model, which really empowers people to take on challenges and learn new skills. Here’s some of the ways the team have used to this to help people reach their potential;

55 champion recruited this year 19 of whom were clients of the Health Trainer Service.

Champion led groups:

• Men’s Health – 8 champions delivering football sessions, disability football and cycling sessions.
• Community growing and planting- 6 champions support the running, delivery of groups and development of the Shaw Lane Community Garden.
• People and Paws- is a new area of work supported by a health champion who provides transport for the group every week.
• Community Gym- 3 dedicated champions helping with the running of the gym with duties including opening checks, fob maintenance and supporting with translation of written materials.
• Cook Well Be Well-8 Champions supporting work to pass on knowledge and skills around shopping, cooking and eating healthy on a budget in the community and are to be trained in Cook and Eat and Food Hygiene.
• Fit Mum-9 Champions supporting women and families to have healthy and happy pregnancies, supporting the Fit Mums team in delivery of sessions, peer support and sharing their own experiences.Over the last 3 years, 9 champions have gone onto further education or employment, 2 within the service as Health Trainers.