Rushey Green Time Bank - Centre for Innovation in Health ...

Rushey Green Time Bank
Local People sharing time and skills To build
happier, healthier communities
Co-producing wellbeing
In a health care setting
Philippe Granger
Development Manager
Rushey Green Time Bank 2009
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VISION
Our vision is to achieve a cohesive community in
the Rushey Green area, where neighbours know
neighbours and can rely on each other for help
and support. Where people of different ages,
cultures, backgrounds and abilities interact with
each other on an equal footing and with mutual
respect and understanding.
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MISSION
Our mission is to empower the residents of Catford
(including but not exclusively the patients of the
Rushey Green Group Practice) to improve their
own health and sense of well-being, and thus
improve the health of the Catford community as a
whole.
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Rushey Green Time Bank
• Based in GP practice (RGGP) - 9000 patients
• Over 200 time bank members
• Catchment area - Rushey Green Ward, same as RGGP - local,
easily accessible.
• Started 10 years ago by Dr Byng, to offer alternative solutions
to combat isolation and depression, and make patients more
active .
• Life Expectancy in the Rushey Green ward : 74.5 years –
(lower than London average).
• Holistic approach to health, complementary solutions.
• Referrals from doctors, self referrals, and by word of mouth.
• 41% of members have some sort of disability (including
mental ill-health).
• 30% members over 55 years old.
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Why a Health Based Setting?
• Time banks are particularly effective at engaging
people from socially excluded group who can also
be subject to health inequalities.
• Have a positive impact on the health of people with
mental and physical ill health – and particularly on
people who have a combination of the two.
• Enable people who have been passive recipient of
care to become active in achieving their wellbeing
• Provide people who are socially isolated with a
caring network of social support.
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What is a Time Banking?
• Time banking is a way of linking people’s needs
and others’ assets through a mutual exchange
system that uses time as a currency.
• For each hour a member spends helping
another, they can get an hour of somebody
else’s help in return. Doesn’t have to be from
the same person.
• Everyone’s time is worth the same. Everyone is
equal no matter the skills, knowledge and help
one offers to another.
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Core values
• ASSETS :Time Banking values people and recognises that everyone
has something special to offer others - knowledge, skills, time. Every
human being has the capacity to be a builder and contributor
• REDEFINING WORK: Work must be redefined to include whatever it
takes to raise healthy children, build strong families, care for the frail
and vulnerable, make neighbourhoods safe and vibrant, make
democracy work, advance social justice. That kind of work needs to be
counted as real work, recorded and rewarded.
• RECIPROCITY: giving and receiving are the basic building blocks of
positive relationships and healthy communities. Wherever possible, we
must replace one-way acts of generosity in whatever form with twoway
transactions. "You need me" becomes "We need each other."
• SOCIAL CAPITAL: belonging to a community or a social network
gives our life more meaning, more quality and can rebuilt trust between
people. Networks are stronger than individuals. Social Networks require
ongoing investments of social capital generated by trust, reciprocity
and civic engagement.
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The main determinants of health
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Policy Levels for Tackling
Inequalities in Health
Time
banking
impact
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Low support
High support
Feelings
Anxiety, fear, frustration,
despair, isolation, failure
CHALLENGE AND SUPPORT MAP
CO-PRODUCING SUPPORT
High Challenge
Feelings
Excitement, enthusiasm,
positive, power, sense of
mission
Raise your own
support to meet
your challenges by
co-producing
opportunities and
resources through
getting involved in
the time bank
community
Outcomes
People will avoid this type of situation.
Depression, isolation, recoil.
Seeking easier way out, little personal
growth, short cuts and poorer quality.
Outcomes
Achievement, learning.
Positive, hopeful, active. Stamina
Vision, Wanting to achieve more
Self- confidence, self–sufficiency,
self-esteem, wellbeing
Feelings
Boredom?
Outcomes
Apathy, inactivity, lack of
incentive. No learning, no
growth. Poor self-esteem
Feelings
Relaxed, comfortable,
easy life!
Outcomes
No learning
Not motivated or able to adapt to
change without external help
Not equipped for tough times
Low Challenge
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Co-Production
• Co-production emphasises that people are not
passive recipients of services and have assets
and expertise which can help improve services.
• Co-production is a transformative way of thinking
about people, resources, partnerships, power,
risks, and outcomes.
• Co-production happens when people are partners
in the delivery of services they benefit from as
well as when they are simultaneously also active
in achieving their own wellbeing.
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Members’ activities
• One to one exchanges: admin help, typing, filling forms, teaching IT
skills, shopping, knitting, sewing, massage, cooking, babysitting,
DIY/decorating, gardening, domestic help, buddying, befriending, giving
lifts, cleaning, walking with someone, walking dog, picking mail up, picking
up prescriptions, research on the internet, giving a hand, etc.
• Group activities: walking group, chair based exercises, social gatherings,
gardening, parents and babies group, poetry, task groups , crafts, outings,
fundraising for projects initiated by members.
• For the time bank: general admin, mailings, diaries, newsletters, proof
reading, website maintenance, updating databases, artwork, ringing others
around, set up and set down at events, cooking, representing the time
bank.
• For the doctors practice: help with bulk mailings, franking mail, assist
with health promotion events.
• Civic engagement: Ward Assemblies, Pensioners forums, Patients forums,
Lewisham LINk (Local involvement Networks),
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What members say the time
banking does for them
• The Time bank is a friendly place; is your family; a community
• Gives a chance to get out and chat to others. Provides a social support
• Makes you feel valued.
• Helps to come out of your shell.
• Helps you forget your worries.
• Offer opportunities for improving health. Boosts your wellbeing.
• Provides opportunities to learn and train
• Gives a sense of purpose.
• Helps build confidence. Builds optimism.
• Widens your horizons.
• Helps you become independent.
• Gives you more control.
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Social relations and health
• As people start to help each other and get to
know their neighbours, they rebuild a sense of
trust and start to feel that they are part of the
community - they rebuild community wealth
and health.
• They are “co-producing” their improvement in
wellbeing and in social functioning despite
health problems.
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Mental wellbeing
Five ways to mental wellbeing
Foresight Report (Oct 2008)
The wellbeing equivalent of “five fruit and
vegetables a day”:
1. Connect
2. Be active
3. Take notice
4. Keep learning
5. Give
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Local contribution
The members’ activities contribute to the aims of our borough:
“Together we will make Lewisham the best place to live, work and
learn” - and in particular with the following actions from the 2005
Catford town centre are action Plan -
• Action 1 - make Lewisham a safer place and reduce the fear of
crime.
• Action 2 - sustain and improve the health and wellbeing of local
people (Identification of sites which can / should provide facilities
linked to health and well being)
• Action 8 - help local communities to develop the capacity to
support themselves, act independently and participate in providing
services and wider support to the borough.
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“The greatest good
you can do for another
is not just share your riches,
but reveal to them their own.”
Benjamin Disraeli
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Contact details
Philippe Granger - Development Manager
Charmaine Jacobs - Broker
Rushey Green Time Bank
C/O The Rushey Green Group Practice
The Primary Care Centre
Hawstead Road
London SE6 4JH
Tel: 020 7138 1772/1785
Email: rusheygreen@gmail.com
Registered Charity No 1101616. Company limited by guarantee, registered in
England and Wales. Company registration number 4681564
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