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Craigmillar Health & Community Care Group

 

MINUTES OF THE CRAIGMILLAR HEALTH & COMMUNITY CARE GROUP MEETING HELD ON TUESDAY 28TH AUGUST 2007 IN THE LIBRARY, THE COMMUNITY CENTRE, 63 NIDDRIE MAINS TERRACE, EDINBURGH.

PRESENT

Cllr Maureen Child                                    -                                 City of Edinburgh Council

Valerie O’Rourke                                      -                                                    Local resident

Pat Mackinnon                                           -                                                           Keep Well

Marion Steedman                                     -                                                           Keep Well

Colleen Pinkman                                       -   CEC Violence against Women Partnership

John Nicholls                                              -                                                                     HOT

Cat Scott                                                    -                                                                    CBP

Janet McLean                                            -                                                       Forth Sector

Linda Kelly                                                 -    CEC Community Learning & Development

Liz Haggard                                               -                                                                   WISE

Lillian Ford                                                 -                                                                   WISE

Shaz Puri                                                    -                                                     Plan2Change

Bob Goupillot                                             -                                                     Plan2Change

Alison Littlejohn                                         -                                             Aberlour Outreach

Anne Beattie                                              -                       Craigmillar Social Work Centre

Bill Jameson                                              -                                                  Outlook Project

Jenny Ewing                                               -                        City Strategy Pathfinder (CCP)

John Quinn                                                 -                                                                  PARC

            John Palmer                                               -                                     Craigmillar Partnership

Graham Rowan (Chair)                            -                                     Craigmillar Partnership

 

1          APOLOGIES

Carl Bickler                                                -                               Craigmillar Medical Group

Midge Lamb                                              -                                         Caring-in-Craigmillar

Sheila Wallace                                          -                                 CEC Children & Families

Katrina Balmer                                          -                                                               SE LHP

Ian Williams                                                -                                             Thistle Foundation

Josie Booth                                                -                                                      School Nurse

Eigrrael Salinas                                         -                            Health in Mind (Men in Mind)

Jen Fairgrieve                                           -                                            SE Edinburgh LHP

Anne Jepson                                              -          Bridgend Community Allotment Project

Julie Boyle                                                  -                                             Aberlour Outreach

Vi Robertson                                              -                                                               Be Well

           

2          MINUTES OF MEETING HELD ON 26TH JUNE 2007 

The minutes were agreed as a correct record.

 

3          MATTERS ARISING

3.1       Be Healthy – Stay Well Research

John reported the research participants, using the findings from the first stage, had refined the questionnaire and other research techniques to be used in the second stage.  In particular they had developed a questionnaire to check the findings on what affected the quality of peoples’ lives.  A number of projects had asked their users to complete the form and there were already some interesting responses.

 

The questionnaire however worked best if the project helped or prompted the respondent to complete it fully.  Adult Learning Link had been successful with it.  John hoped other projects would take it and use it with their clients.

 

Capital City Partnership, as part of their evaluation of CRF funded projects, is doing a postal household survey.  They have agreed to distribute the questionnaire with their survey and hope to get a large response.  Through the LHP we have also been offered the use of an ‘opinion meter’ – a touch screen which would allow people to complete the questionnaire.  This could be placed in the Medical Centre. This offer has not been taken up at the moment because of the need to prompt people in completing the questionnaire.  

 

3.2       Brenda House and Aberlour Outreach

The correspondence Maureen had elicited from CEC Health & Social Care was noted.  Maureen said she had heard nothing more, and agreed to follow this up.

 

Alison reported Aberlour Outreach was now located at 63 Niddrie Mains Terrace and was continuing to work in the area.  It appears the only residential option now being offered to clients is in Brighton and there is no funding for them to take their children with them.  The meeting expressed concern at this information.

 

3.3       Older People’s Services Group

In Katrina and Midge’s absence there was no report.

 

3.4       Forth Sector

Janet said she had had a positive response from her publicity about their ‘Workspace’ project at the last meeting.  Sheila Wallace had come with a couple of OT colleagues plus some clients.  She however wanted to stress that while four of their businesses are based in Craigmillar, they do not employ any local residents.  She urged people who had clients they thought might benefit to get in touch.

 

4          PARC REPORT

John Quinn made the following report:

  • The joint Primary schools would be completed by summer 2008.    
  • Wauchope Phase 1: This is on site, building 63 homes.
  • Wauchope Phase 7, running between the schools and the Hays, is due to start in September and is for 24 houses.
  • Wauchope Phase 2, of 115 houses, is due to start in November.  The number may increase after resolving what to do with Brenda House.
  • Wauchope Phase 8, where the earth from the Joint Primary schools has been piled, is being developed with Link HA and architects have been appointed.  The earth will be removed and spread over the community woodlands area in Greendykes.
  • Greendykes:  They are beginning to re-house the tenants here, preferably in Craigmillar; they will all have a right-to-return. 
  • Phase B: They have started infrastructure works.
  • Phase A: They are creating the design concepts with Places for People
  • Phase C: They are commissioning a development team.
  • Hearts Supporters Club: A paper would go to the PARC Board recommending making a planning application for the Niddrie House site
  • Meadows: They have commissioned an organisation called ‘Projects for Public Spaces’, who have also worked with CEC and Greenspace, to hold two consultations on 29th August.  Any work on the Meadows depends on the Niddrie Burn proposals starting.
  • Castlebrae Sport Pitch: They have completed this all-weather, floodlit pitch, which is being run by Castlebrae CHS.  It is open for local teams to book and can be used by local young people for a kickabout.

 

Castlebrae CHS: Lillian asked about the proposal to close the school and how it would be possible for her daughter to get to Liberton.  John explained CEC had proposed two options; to close the school and bus the pupils to Liberton or run it as an annex before re-building.  Consultation on these particular proposals would start in January 2008.  Maureen added there are a lot of arguments to be gone through before these options become fact. 

 

Town Centre Consultation: The designers have produced a consultation programme, including two public meetings; one was held last Saturday and the next at beginning of September.  Unfortunately last Saturday’s meeting was not well attended.  They would meet with the Community Council.  A second meeting was also held with representatives of the Partnership sub-groups. 

 

Issues raised were whether Cairntows Park should be in the master plan area and what sort of development would be preferred; traffic calming; the size of the supermarket; the site and imprint of the Community High School and library and how to design in easily managed public access.  Obviously the proposal re the CHS creates complications; at the moment they would have to keep the footprint of the school in the plan.

 

5          CITY STRATEGY PATHFINDER

Jenny said the Pathfinder was a step forward from the Joined Up For Jobs programme under which all previous employment access programmes had been run.  Edinburgh was one of 16 Pathfinder areas approved by the Department of Work and Pensions, with the aim being to find ways to make all agencies work better together to help people find work.  The Pathfinder would test different methods of providing a better offer to jobseekers.

 

Edinburgh is different from some of the other areas because it has good employment statistics.  It has been included because the Joined Up For Jobs programme is a good model and it has an unequal job market with a large discrepancy in the statistics between the city as a whole and Craigmillar and Pilton.

 

The Executive Summary sets out the different workstreams that would be progressed.  A partner leads on each of these and there are three staff, of which she is one, supporting them.  There is a Job Strategy Group overseeing the Pathfinder, with Tim Montgomery on it representing NHS Lothian. 

 

The workstream ‘Customer Reach’ aims to get employment services to work better with health and social care teams.  There is currently nothing in NHS plans about employability, but they are trying to introduce this.  NHS Lothian and JobCentre+ are already talking and beginning to work together.  There is also some money available for projects.  The purpose is to make sure people get better support where they have health or social care needs which affect their ability to work and so that employment can be seen as part of their journey to recovery.     

 

She hoped people from the CHACC group and their projects would want to find out more about the Pathfinder, see how they could get involved and begin to take on board employability as something they could offer to their clients.  Contact details are 0131 270 6045, jennyewing@capitalcitypartnership.org

 

6          CHACC PROJECT FUND

John Palmer introduced the paper saying it was a coincidence the sum applied for exactly matched the sum available.  There was however a late application from Caring-in-Craigmillar that had changed this.  It was agreed a small working group of John, Cat Scott and Alison Littlejohn, who had no conflicts of interest, would meet this week to examine the applications and decide the grants to be made.

 

John drew attention to the report from CEC CL & D about their efforts to involve the Greendykes Young Persons Centre.  They wished to keep last year’s grant for a further attempt.  John Nicholls commented it was notoriously difficult to engage with young people in residential care settings and this looked like a valiant attempt.  The meeting agreed the grant should continue to be available to them.

 

John also said Craigmillar Community Arts were still trying to raise match funding for the grant they had been offered last year for a project on ‘School Dinners’.  It was agreed they should be given until the end of September and if they were still unsuccessful the offer of a grant would be rescinded.

 

7          INFORMATION UP-DATE

7.1       CHACC Health Action Plan

John Palmer reported he had set up two working groups, on ‘Family Work’ and ‘Signposting’, using Google groups as he felt this was a means of having them become self sustaining rather than have everything go through him.  Unfortunately neither CEC nor NHS internet systems allowed their staff to access Google groups and so this had not worked well.  It was agreed he should revert to using e-mail circulation.

 

Family Work:  One sparsely attended meeting had been held, which had been useful to those involved in clarifying their ideas.  It was now important to get people with more professional experience of family casework involved.  One way forward was to link with the East Edinburgh Early Intervention Project, which was jointly being run by CEC Children & Families, the Housing department and the police.  Marion said that when Diane Devlin was in post as Public Health Practitioner she had been involved with this project and this link could be resurrected. 

 

Signposting:  John said this group had looked to build on existing work on collating databases about projects and publishing them on-line.  CBP had such a directory and CEC’s Housing Advice network also had an interest.  There was a new web-site, www.craigmillaronline.com, developed by Napier University, which had a section where a database of projects could be linked to a Google map.  The web-site is being taken over by Haywired and it was hoped it could be the platform to carry the sort of information the CHACC group was looking for.

 

Marion said the Keep Well programme is also collecting information about available projects.  The difficulty is continually up-dating it.  There is a difference between information about services that is useful for professionals so they can make good referrals and information about what is available for members of the public.  The LHP is hoping to start a project in Gracemount with a member of staff available to help members of the public with their enquiries about what is available.  They may also arrange help for people to get to where they are being referred.

 

John said in consultations about the community wing of the new Secondary School, the library had said they could play a leading role in collating and providing information to the public about services available.  For example, it was proposed an information point would be required and the Library should be a focal point for learning and other community uses.  He felt that with www.craigmillaronline.com providing a platform for a database and the Library playing a central role, both elements of good sign-posting would be covered.

 

Mental Health:  John Palmer raised the issue of mental health services; one of the first actions was to clarify the proposals of the local mental health review.  Nobody from the LHP had recently attended CHACC meetings and so there was no information on services or staffing levels.  Yet mental health is a big issue locally; CAN’s latest quarterly statement showed 286 of the 523 enquiries they dealt with had a mental health component.  They felt they were untrained to cope with this.

 

Bill concurred this is a major problem.  Outlook is only a small project that is now beginning to offer services from the North East round to Craigmillar.  They run courses for self-help purposes.  Pat agreed it was difficult to know where to refer people.

 

Plan2Change: Bob introduced Plan2Change saying they are a pilot service based in the Thistle Foundation with expertise in working with mental health.  All members of staff have themselves been through major life crises, which they have reflected upon and learnt from.  They explicitly bring this into their person centred work with clients.  They build trust with clients, develop quality relationships, offer patience and persistence and if appropriate share their experience.  They focus on people’s strengths, help with goal setting, use person centred planning tools and work out with people how best to go forward.

 

They are a pilot project funded to the end of March 2008 and being tightly evaluated to that point.  Their target is anyone over 18 who is having problems with living.  For the next four weeks they have to receive their referrals through the GPs of the Craigmillar Medical Group.  Anne responded they sound ideal for many Social Work clients, but these would not go through their GPs.  In this area there is a well recognised willingness or preference to self refer. 

 

The meeting welcomed Bob’s report.  There was a clear consensus the referral procedure should be much wider and allow other agencies to refer.

 

7.2       Violence Against Women Partnership

Colleen reported on the East Cluster’s last meeting, saying they VAW Partnership has applied to the CHACC project fund for a grant to support the White Ribbon campaign.  She hoped all the projects would get the men they are involved with to participate.

 

She has learnt the VAW Partnership has funds available for Cluster members to receive basic training on domestic abuse issues from the Lothian VAW Training Consortium.  She invited CHACC members with an interest in the issues to become involved in the Cluster.

 

7.3       Brigend Community Allotment Project

John reported the Evening News is currently at Bridgend, following up the National Lottery’s press release that the project has received a major award of £230,000 over two years.  This means Anne Jepson would go full time and they would recruit another Project Worker, an administration worker, more sessional staff and a second Project Worker in the second year.  The meeting welcomed this news.

 

7.4       Keep Well

Marion said they were having a cluster meeting on 19th September for the GPs they work with, inviting voluntary sector organisations to set up stalls to show the GPs what they do.  The Keep Well practitioners would also report on the project’s progress.

 

8          AOCB

There was none.

 

9          DATE OF NEXT MEETING

Tuesday 30th October 2007, 10.30 am Wighton House, Thistle Foundation

 

 

MINUTES OF THE CRAIGMILLAR HEALTH & COMMUNITY CARE GROUP MEETING HELD ON TUESDAY 26TH JUNE 2007 IN THE SUN LOUNGE, THISTLE FOUNDATION, NIDDRIE MAINS ROAD, EDINBURGH.

PRESENT

 

Carl Bickler (Chair)                                   -                               Craigmillar Medical Group

Cllr Maureen Child                                    -                                 City of Edinburgh Council

Valerie O’Rourke                                      -                                                    Local resident

Katrina Balmer                                                        -                                                               SE LHP

Pat Mackinnon                                           -                                                           Keep Well

Colleen Pinkman                                                    -                      CEC Services for Communities

Mike Anelay                                               -   NHS / Jobcentre + Working towards Health

Ian Williams                                                -                                             Thistle Foundation

John Nicholls                                              -                                                                     HOT

Sheila Wallace                                          -                                 CEC Children & Families

Janet McLean                                                          -                                                       Forth Sector

Josie Booth                                                -                                                      School Nurse

Eigrrael Salinas                                                      -                            Health in Mind (Men in Mind)

            John Palmer                                               -                                     Craigmillar Partnership

Graham Rowan                                         -                                     Craigmillar Partnership

 

1          APOLOGIES

           

Cllr Stephen Hawkins                               -                                 City of Edinburgh Council

Midge Lamb                                              -                                         Caring-in-Craigmillar

Cat Scott                                                    -                                                                    CBP

Gillian Amos                                              -                                                       NHS Lothian

Elspeth Hosie                                            -                      CLAN Health & Literacy Project

Tony Clapham                                                          -                                                    Local resident

Neil Stewart                                               -                                                    Castle Project

Vi Robertson                                              -                                                               Be Well

Michele Mcdougall                                                -                                                                   WISE

Liz Haggart                                                                -                                                                   WISE

           

2          MINUTES OF MEETING HELD ON 1ST MAY 2007

     

The minutes were agreed as a correct record.

 

3          MATTERS ARISING

3.1       Be Healthy – Stay Well Research

 

John reported the research participants were developing the second stage of the research.  A summary report of the first stage had been produced, which outlined the range of responses from the focus groups on their quality of life, what affected how they felt and what they did to stay well.  Different methods were being devised to test how general these responses were.

 

These methods – they include some group discussion techniques and questionnaire type activities - had been tested at a recent event at Richmond church.  Since then a few people have met to look at what was learnt and refine the methods.  Hopefully a ‘questionnaire’ would be available by the end of the week, which could be quickly and easily administered in different situations by local organisations.  It was proposed to distribute them for use during the summer.

 

Carl wanted to know if demographic data was being collected; the target number of questionnaires to be completed and in what timescale.  John assured him that demographic data was being collected and the group recognised it needed more responses from men; he thought possibly 3-400 hundred responses would be sufficient; and the aim would be to have these achieved by the end of summer.  Carl suggested the electronic polling booth that belongs to the LHP could be used for this.

 

Maureen asked if it was intended to make this a longitudinal study.  John said while a main aim of the study was to monitor the effect of the regeneration on people’s well-being, particularly long-term residents, it had not been planned to follow up people who had responded in the first stages.  Confidentiality had been a major bone of contention within the planning group, but in the demographics section we were collecting information on people’s length of residence and ethnicity.  There was a much bigger, better funded and supported project in Glasgow that we hoped to learn lessons from.  It is also possible for the sort of monitoring undertaken in the project to be repeated at regular intervals.

 

Maureen also asked about targeting information from people with a right-to-return.  John said this had not been considered, but probably would be worth talking to CEC Housing, the RSLs and the tenants and neighbourhood associations to try and involve them.  It may be possible also to send the questionnaire by post.

 

John Nicholls wondered if the questionnaire could be used in street work, which they would be doing in the near future.  Eigrrael said the Men-in-Mind drop-in would participate.   John promised to send a copy to both.  It was also agreed the summary report of Stage 1 should be circulated.