Helpforce support Well Together, Bradford District Care NHS FT, to scale and evaluate their impact on the local community

Since November 2021, Helpforce has been supporting its Back to Health campaign partner, Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust, with Covid recovery, scaling and evaluation of their Well Together Service.

The service launched in 2011 as ‘Champions Show the Way’ and rebranded in 2021 becoming ‘Well Together’. The service aims to connect local people to activities in their community that enhance their health and wellbeing and reduce social isolation. A range of interesting, sociable, health-led activities are delivered by dedicated volunteers. Those activities include crafting, creative writing, mindfulness, peer support and walking groups. Groups are run in person or online across Bradford, Airedale, Wharfedale and Craven.

Pre the Covid-19 pandemic, the service was supporting around 700 service users a year and worked with 150 volunteers. During the pandemic, in line with Government restrictions and NHS guidelines, over half of the activity groups were closed and for those still able to continue, the number of group participants was restricted.

To support the service, rebuild its groups and increase the volume of service users it can support, Helpforce are working alongside the Well Together team to:

• Increase the number of referrals the service receives by improving referral processes, promoting the service, identifying more activities that meet local needs and building referral pathways with partners

• Implement a co-developed action plan tackling a range of operational challenges including those around volunteer recruitment and induction, access to appropriate venues, consistency in signposting and variation in group attendance rates

• Design and implement an approach for measuring the impact of the service. You can view work to date within our I&I tool

As we gather evidence of the impact this service has on service users, volunteers, and the organisation, we will share these findings and package the service model on our website so others can learn from it and adapt it to work for their local communities. To get notifications for when new materials are shared, you can set up notifications in your account's setting, or sign up to receive weekly digest or monthly newsletters by emailing your request to network@helpforce.community.

If you are interested in finding out more about The Well Together model, how to become Helpforce's partner in the Back to Health campaign, or want to understand how Helpforce can support you with evaluating a similar model please reach out to mg@helpforce.community.

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Champions Show the Way Programme - Bradford District Care NHS FT