Celebrating Our Communities Events

Celebrating our Communities across the County

The It's All About People Personalisation Team is constantly out and about, proactively building relationships with fabulous partners and the public across Lincolnshire, and, of course, spreading the good word about Personalised Care and Our Shared Agreement.

We were therefore thrilled to take part in three Celebrating Our Communities events - in Lincoln (18 September), Skegness (26 September), and Stamford (8 October) - which were organised by Shine Lincolnshire and the Community Mental Health Transformation programme.

Celebrating Our Communities - Skegness

Kirsteen and Caty from the Personalisation Team took part in the Skegness event and talked about the Our Shared Agreement ambition for people to have a better relationship with health and care providers. 

The main business of the day was to showcase the fantastic work being done by a diverse range of community-based organisations to support people’s mental wellbeing. 

Highlights of the Skegness event were:

• A short video story from a volunteer at Black Barn Bolingbroke, a therapeutic farm whose 'Mood Boosters' project is supported by the Mental Health and Wellbeing Community Investment Fund.
• Hearing from Community Connectors David Bruce and Heidi Freeman, about the importance of collaboration and partnership, and the value of Wellbeing Hubs as a welcoming space for tea, info, listening, support, chess, confidence, and many other things that make life worth living.
• The sharing of new Preventing Suicide in Lincolnshire campaign materials, available at https://haylincolnshire.co.uk/suicide-prevention/. These resources include social media graphics and posters in English, Lithuanian, and Polish, and are available for all organisations to use. 
• A busy marketplace of organisations, open to the public in the afternoon, where many conversations were had, connections made and information exchanged.

Our Shared Agreement in action!

The Celebrating Our Communities events provided a wonderful opportunity to fanfare all parts of the health, care, and wellbeing jigsaw, but specifically the work being done by community-based and voluntary organisations to support people's mental wellbeing.

What particularly struck us was how the innovative, co-produced, and people-focused work of participating organisations perfectly encapsulated how Our Shared Agreement and its 5 Foundations are being brought to life to make a real impact for people across Lincolnshire.

All of the participating organisations demonstrated that they are prepared to do things differently (Foundation 1), are driven by what matters to ourselves and each other (Foundation 2), are working together for the wellbeing of everyone (Foundation 3), are committed to having conversations with and not about the people they support (Foundation 4), and are making the most of what they have available to them (Foundation 5). And it's really working! Just so inspiring!

So, what great work are you or your organisation doing that brings Our Shared Agreement to life? Email us at lhnt.itsallaboutpeople@nhs.net to tell us all about it - we'd love to hear from you!