Community Wellbeing Champions
Leicester’s community wellbeing champions work with public health, communities and organisations across Leicester to support and improve health and wellbeing.
What are Community Wellbeing Champions?
Community Wellbeing Champions are organisations and/or individuals who work within their own communities to support and improve health and wellbeing.
They work for, and alongside, Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector and faith organisations, health professionals, businesses, and other partners sharing health information and promoting relevant services. This local understanding of what communities need, supports the council’s work to reduce avoidable health inequalities and improve the health and wellbeing of the city.
The champions help to ensure that providers of health and wellbeing services are aware of the views and needs of residents, and the barriers that people face in having their health needs met, which can result in some communities experiencing poorer health and wellbeing than others.
Who can be a Community Wellbeing Champion?
Anyone can become a Community Wellbeing Champion. Whether you are from a VCSE organisation, help to run a sports club or social group, attend a place of worship or other community venue, run a business that gives you contact with customers, or have a circle of friends locally or on social media, you could be a voice for your community.
If you aren’t linked up with others, you can still be a valuable part of the network. For example, you could share a skill like a language that will help us to reach an underserved and underheard group, or you could share insight from your personal health story to help improve understanding of how others like you experience services and care.
Either way, as a Community Wellbeing Champion, you could play a role in helping to ensure that the health and wellbeing needs of residents are better understood and met by services in Leicester.
Leicester Community Wellbeing Champions Network
The Leicester Community Wellbeing Champions network has been set up to help connect and support organisations and individuals working to improve the health and wellbeing of people in Leicester. By joining up these efforts, a greater impact can be made on the city’s wellbeing as we work to tackle health inequities and achieve better health for everyone.
The network includes representatives from VCSE organisations, leaders of faith and other bodies such as sports clubs, other trusted community figures, and individuals with a passion for improving the health and wellbeing of the people in their circles. As the Community Wellbeing Champions network aims to support closer working across all organisations that can help to improve health and wellbeing in Leicester, it also includes people from a range of council departments and partner organisations such as the NHS Integrated Care Board and Social Prescribers.
Network members receive weekly emails and have the option of attending conferences and monthly online forums. The Network also provides a platform where organisations can promote their services to each other, learn about funding opportunities, participate in consultations, and access information and training.
Public health in communities
The Public Health team in Leicester also supports projects and attends events across the city to bring health information and services to residents and consult with people about their needs. Our engagement activities can be about health and wellbeing in general or focus on particular conditions depending on the needs of each community. To explore how we can work with you to help improve health and wellbeing in your community, please contact us on wellbeingchampions@leicester.gov.uk.
Help Leicester Stay Connected
To support the council’s response to the cost-of-living crisis, Public Health has set up ‘Help Leicester Stay Connected’, a project that gathers and shares information in an easy-to-use Excel workbook about warm spaces, free activities, and other support available to the public during this difficult time.
The information for Help Leicester Stay Connected is gathered from the council, partner organisations, and Community Wellbeing Champions, and is shared across the network in a weekly email. The resource is used by Champions and other partners, such as social prescribers in GP surgeries, to find services and activities for the people that they support.
To receive the Help Leicester Stay Connected workbook, and share information on any activities or support you are providing to help people with the cost of living and their health and wellbeing, please contact wellbeingchampions@leicester.gov.uk to join the CWC Network mailing list.
How do I find out more or become involved?
To find out more about Community Wellbeing Champions or become involved with the Network, please contact us on wellbeingchampions@leicester.gov.uk.