As part of work to support residents in their communities and empower people to get involved in healthy activities, the council is inviting residents to apply to be a community health champion.

The Council says that a ” community health champion is a volunteer, who with training and support from the council can help improve the health and wellbeing of their families, communities or workplaces by:

• Motivating and empowering people to get involved in healthy activities
• Creating groups to meet local needs
• Directing people to relevant support and services.

As part of a pilot scheme, community health champions will work closely with City of York Council’s Public Health team and raise awareness of health messages amongst communities, support older people and help to create supportive networks and environments for residents, making a real difference to their lives”.

For more information on this opportunity visit www.york.gov.uk/volunteeringopportunities,call 01904 553377 or email yorwellbeing@york.gov.uk.

Separately local residents groups have been told about another project.

Local Area Coordination

The Council says that “Local Area Coordination is an internationally recognised evidence-based approach to supporting people as valued citizens in their communities. It enables people to pursue their vision for a good life and to stay safe, strong, connected, healthy and in control.  As well building the skills, knowledge and confidence of people and the community.

Local Area Coordination supports people who may feel vulnerable due to age, frailty, disability or mental health needs.

City of York Council will be taking forward the programme in York and shortly be recruiting  three Local Area Coordinators to work in the following areas: Tang Hall, Westfield and Huntington & New Earswick. The Local Area Coordinators will take time to get to know you, your family/ carer and community.

If you would like to find out more and are interested in getting involved and making Local Area Coordination a success in York please come to one of our informal community awareness raising events shown below”.

• New Earswick Folk Hall – Monday Feb 6^th 4 – 6pm
• Acomb Explore Library – Thursday Feb 9^th 5 – 7pm
• Tang Hall Community Centre – Friday Feb 10^th 4 – 6pm

“It will be fine to drop in but to enable us to plan the sessions please contact Jack Derham on email jack.derham@york.gov.uk to register your planned attendance.

If you have any queries please contact Joe Micheli, Head of Commissioning (Early Intervention, Prevention and Community Development) on 01904 554477 or joe.micheli@york.gov.uk “

At there moment there is little substance to the plans.

There are no fact sheets indicating the scale of the problem, no indication of how success will be judged and no targets.

What precisely the workers will actually do on a day to day basis has also yet to be defined.

However, anything that can be done to combat the isolation felt by vulnerable people in our community is welcome and we hope that the Council will quickly refine and explain their plans