East Oxford Healthy Living Initiative
Evaluation Report
January 2006
1 BACKGROUND
TO THIS REPORT. 3
2 THE
QUESTIONS ASKED Community
organisations 5
3 THE
QUESTIONS ASKED Partner
organisations 16
4 WHAT
EMERGES – ISSUES FOR THE FUTURE. 20
4.1 The
secrets of EOHLIs success – can they be repeated? 20
Appendix 1 Organisations taking part in the evaluation. 22
Appendix 2
Evaluators who took part in the evaluation. 23
Appendix 3
More about Framework 24
EOHLI is a three-year project, funded between 2003 and 2006 by the Governments Healthy Living Initiative. Its remit is to cover East Oxford, St Clements, Temple Cowley and Blackbird Leys – some of the most deprived wards in Oxford. Its purpose is to deliver five main strands of work: healthy eating, access to health services, complementary therapies, drugs work and childcare.
As the final year of its funding comes to a close, EOHLI carried out an evaluation of its overall impact on the health and well-being of people in East Oxford. Specifically, the evaluation was designed to assess awareness of EOHLI and its services, the impact EOHLI has had, whether its services could have been delivered by other agencies as well, and what EOHLI could have done differently or better.
In keeping with its ethos of empowering the community, locally-based researchers were employed to carry out a mixture of phone and face-to-face interviews, plus written questionnaires and group visits, to collect the raw data. The interviews were carried out in December 2005 and January 2006.
Overall, the feedback received has been overwhelmingly positive. Nine key factors emerged which contributed to EOHLIs success.
1. Practical steps - EOHLI has taken Government health messages out into the community with practical help, demonstrations and talks.
2. Unique style - EOHLI has had a particular style – an informal buzz and vibe. This has helped users overcome the barriers which beset more mainstream health education.
3. Community development - EOHLI has worked to support community groups to understand and act on these messages.
4. Funding – EOHLI has supported community activity by funding projects, salaries and equipment.
5. Outreach – EOHLI has been committed to outreach, and to funding work with unpopular causes.
6. Personal connections - EOHLIs staff have demonstrated a blend of attitudes and behaviour which has meant that many locals have been able to build personal connections with EOHLI staff and thus overcome barriers to accessing health care and healthy living advice.
7. Single agency, single focus – EOHLI has provided a single one-stop agency, with a clear role, at the heart of the community.
8. Social impact – EOHLIs way of offering direct and indirect services can be demonstrated to have created lasting change in terms of social inclusion, mental health, skills development and improved diets and lifestyle.
9. Partnership – EOHLI is an example of successful partnership working, linking statutory, voluntary and community agencies with the grassroots.
This section briefly describes the origins and history of
the East Oxford Healthy Living Initiative (EOHLI) and sets out the terms of
this evaluation.
EOHLI is a three-year project, funded between 2003 and 2006 by the Governments Healthy Living Centres programme through the National Lottery.
Based in Oxford Healthy Living Centre, above the United Reformed Church in Cowley Rd in the heart of East Oxford, EOHLIs remit is to cover East Oxford, St Clements, Temple Cowley and Blackbird Leys – some of the most deprived wards in Oxford. Its purpose is to deliver five main strands of work:
EOHLI was developed out of a one-year pilot project which
aimed:
EOHLI has worked with a number of partners drawn from local government, health providers and community groups to assess needs and ensure that services are properly targeted.
This evaluation was carried out towards the end of EOHLIs three-year funding period. Its purpose was to provide qualitative data on the overall impact of EOHLI during its existence. Specifically, it aimed to discover:
Partner organisations were also asked to comment on a model for continuing EOHLIs work in future and to assess the usefulness of the partnership with EOHLI over the past three years.
The methodology of the evaluation was deliberately in keeping with EOHLIs ethos of community empowerment. The qualitative research methods used aimed to provide a dip-stick of awareness, perception and reaction in the community.
Locally-based community evaluators were employed to carry out a mixture of phone and face-to-face interviews, plus written questionnaires and group visits, to collect the raw data. The interviews were carried out in December 2005 and January 2006. The raw data were sifted in a knowledge exchange meeting held on 19 January 2006. This was facilitated by an independent consultant, Andrew Woodgate of Framework, who also wrote this report.
More information on the partners and community organisations which took part in the evaluation can be found in Appendix 1. Appendix 2 contains the names of the community evaluators who carried out the interviews. Appendix 3 gives further details about Framework consultancy.
This report sets out summarised versions of the main points
emerging from the evaluation. The raw, typed-up feedback from the interviews
is available and can be read in a separate document.
This section summarises the main findings of community organisations responses to the evaluation. Each subsection lists the range of responses received to each question, and sums up the main messages arising from it.
To give some sense of differentiation between responses, those which were made particularly frequently or strongly are indicated by one to three asterisks (***), depending on the strength of the response.
Responses to this question are subjective. The question aimed at finding out which services or support respondents could recall having received personally, or as an organisation, without too much prompting. In other words – what impact do respondents recall EOHLI having made?
Respondents reported the main services or support which they received as:
Food hygiene training ***
General information – such as on diet, nutrition and healthy eating *** and on setting up a new kitchen
Speakers and presentations – food taster sessions ***, fruit taster sessions ***, cooking demonstrations *, quizzes and bingo
One-to-one support with users on healthy eating
General courses and training – tailored courses, courses on first aid and healthy living
Joint projects – helping run a project on healthy food
Support for community groups – EOHLI staff sat on steering committees, attended meetings, provided contacts, co-ordinated a network, helped produce a recipe book, and supported work on mens health
Events – respondents recalled events on womens health and leisure, one-off healthy food sessions, a Health Day and EOHLIs appearance at a range of other community events ***
Finding volunteers and
staff
Direct funding of activities and equipment – respondents recalled that EOHLI had funded research (eg: into sex workers in East Oxford), youth work, crche facilities and childcare *, complementary therapies, training, outreach as well as funding a community kitchen and other equipment **
Fundraising advice – respondents also recalled
that they had been given help and advice by EOHLI on where to access other
sources of funding.
Main messages from the responses to this question
1. There is patchy knowledge, especially about funding, among community groups. However, many respondents were aware that EOHLI has provided funding and funding advice.
2. There is a high awareness among respondents of the support provided through EOHLI to excluded individuals and sections of the community.
3. There is a high awareness that EOHLI provides support to community groups as well as to individuals.
4. There is a high sense of personal connection to EOHLI staff, who are seen as friendly and approachable. EOHLI is seen as the opposite of a faceless bureaucracy. Personal connections have allowed some individuals to access services and support which they otherwise may have found hard to obtain from less familiar providers.
5. Users of community organisations services supported by EOHLI were less aware of EOHLI than of the particular service provider and found it hard to distinguish between the two. However, this neither distorts the findings of the evaluation, not is it surprising or a problem: many respondents reported elsewhere (see for example responses in sub-section 2.4) that, without EOHLIs support or funding, their service would not be as extensive or as healthy – or may not even exist at all. That fact that EOHLIs impact has been partly direct (through services it has provided itself) and partly indirect (by supporting others to provide services) does not diminish the scale of its total effect on the community.
6. EOHLI has a high profile in the local community.
7. That EOHLI works on food is well-known. However, other strands of its work are perhaps less high-profile. Again this is not too surprising given a) the profile of the food sessions and b) the fact that food and cooking are inherently fun, up-beat and lively.
8. There seems to be less awareness among respondents to this question that EOHLI has provided access to health care professionals. This may be because these services are less visible or memorable – or that respondents perhaps thought health visitors, for example, were provided by the PCT or others than EOHLI.
Respondents were asked to list other services and support provided by EOHLI of which they were aware, even if they had not themselves received them. Respondents reported the main services or support of which they were aware as:
Training – respondents were aware of courses on: food hygiene ***, food and nutrition, sexual health, first aid, non-smoking, drugs and substance awareness ***, domestic violence, exercise; and of courses tailored to students needs*
Healthy living promotions ***- respondents were aware of healthy living promotions generally, and ones tailored to children, the elderly, and men
Supports community initiatives *** - respondents were aware that EOHLI supported services for excluded people, including: for travellers, on Blackbird Leys and for fathers. Respondents were aware that EOHLI had supported East Oxford Lifelong Learning, childcare initiatives, volunteering and Management Committees.
Information and resources – booklets * - diet information * - healthy living * - a recipe book
Kitchen and Taster sessions *** - respondents were well aware of cooking demonstrations and taster sessions. Particularly memorable were: making smoothies, fruit kebabs (mentioned a number of times) and a food gym
Complementary therapists
Sell healthy food – respondents remembered that EOHLI used to provide lunches
Access to health services
Services for children
– respondents
named school visits and holiday schemes aimed at school children
Funding – respondents were aware
that EOHLI had variously funded a Food Bank, projects *, a community kitchen
****, crche facilities or childcare. They were also aware that EOHLI had
provided ideas on where to access funding from other sources.
Main messages from the responses to this question
Respondents were asked to comment on the impact which EOHLIs support has had on members of the community, whether through direct or indirect service provision. The responses are naturally subjective – but some reveal the profundity of change which has been enabled in some peoples lives.
Change of lifestyle – one of the main areas which respondents
commented on was how being exposed to the work of EOHLI and its partners had
changed their life for the better. Examples given were: helping people save
money ***, improving peoples diet ***, helping people transform their lives,
making sure children get a better diet (especially more fruit), improving
peoples mental health and sense of well-being ***, providing a social focus
outside the house and thus combating loneliness and isolation ***, encouraging people
to become more active through tai chi and other exercise classes ***
Lasting change * - several respondents reported
that the changes effected were lasting – for example, by helping individuals
into drug rehabilitation, by preventing crime through lessening the impact of
drugs on some individuals behaviour, or by affecting childrens diet, thus
helping them grow into healthier adults
Empowerment – a large group of
responses focussed on empowerment. EOHLI and the groups it has supported have developed
greater confidence and responsibility among wide sections of the community, for
example by: allowing marginalised groups to have their voices heard on their
health needs, by helping individuals build their own confidence ***, by helping
people feel more positive about taking responsibility for their health *, by
encouraging people to help others and get involved in community activities, by
stimulating enthusiasm about cookery and food ***, by providing recipes and
encouraging groups to cater for different dietary needs, by giving people a
sense of choice, by carrying outreach to large numbers of people, by combating
social isolation *** and by enabling users to manage their own kitchen
Information and awareness – much of the empowerment mentioned above has been made possible through the information and awareness of health issues engendered by EOHLI. Examples given included: improving language skills; making people more informed **, encouraging people to go for annual health check ups and to be aware of the need for prevention of illness, by giving healthy eating advice and information, by promoting food hygiene to users and staff *** and by giving regular updates about events in the area
Complementary therapies – by providing easy access
to these (such as by providing crche or childcare facilities and taster
sessions), respondents reported improved stress levels *
Research – respondents reported that
EOHLIs funding of research has influenced decision-making on, for example, the
sex-worker community
Training and skills *** - many respondents felt that
EOHLIs intervention had boosted
skill levels through training
Funding – EOHLIs funding had
provided access to health visitors.
Main messages from the responses to this question