Health in The Park was the first event of its kind for the BBP. It brought together more than 30 organisations from the health, council, voluntary and community sector. The purpose was to deliver a fun and interactive health and wellbeing engagement event for Hounslow residents on Saturday 29 July at Redlees Park. The event aimed to motivate visitors to become more active and lead healthier lifestyles, so that they are not impacted by long term health conditions.
Over 2000 residents attended the event on the day visiting more than 40 health and community stalls, or got involved with a range of healthy activities such as football, tai chi, yoga, African dancing, or cycling on a smoothie exercise bike plus much more.
As part of this engagement evaluation process the event successfully manged to demonstrate behaviour change in residents’ activity levels. As a total of 15 residents participated in follow up conversations a month after the event.
63.6% said yes to making changes to their health lifestyle post event.
- 18.2% said no to changes in their health lifestyle post the event.
- 18.2% said they were already maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
The following themes were:
Focus on diet – A resident shared she booked a weight loss appointment with her GP and is looking to go on a diet plan. The resident was referred to the Healthy Hounslow Cook and Eat course. Another resident shared how her family is counting their portions of food and making it a competition to raise awareness about food consumption. One resident picked up a healthy cookbook and is currently using it.
Being more active – Residents shared stories about being more active with their children. The range of activities mentioned were football, gymnastics, swimming, biking, and walking. Residents shared they are spending more time in local parks and pools. One resident mentioned he purchased a bike.
Health checks – Residents reported they booked and saw their GPs. Additionally, residents mentioned they did a cancer screening and got a BMI check. Another resident mentioned he had a blood pressure check at the event and was recommended by the Healthy Hounslow team to follow up with a nurse. The resident completed this action.
On the day of the event, we spoke to 35 residents at the event to get their experience of the event and below are the following findings.
- 94% felt they knew more about the health and care services available in Hounslow.
- 63% felt confident and 29% felt keen to use the services in Hounslow.
- 31% indicated they would likely apply healthy lifestyles (exercise and eating well) daily and with 19% indicated they would do it weekly.
- 94% would you like to see more of these types of Health Information public events within the borough.
32 stallholders provided feedback on the event.
- 81% said they received a sign up (newsletter, membership, voice group) or participated in a consultation.
- 18 blood pressure check were carried out.
- 8 NHS health checks with carried out.
- 100% of facilitators said yes for another event.
In summary, the engagement process has been divided in to three parts.
- Part 1: Face to face co-design workshop with stakeholders to confirm the objectives of the project and discuss opportunities to raise awareness of the event through various local networks.
- Part 2: Deliver the event and collect resident and stakeholder experience of the event.
- Part 3: Run follow up discussions with residents who attended the event to see what they learned is being applied in their regular lifestyle.
Dividing the engagement process into three parts ensured that stakeholders were involved at the beginning to shape the event. By having the workshop, it was an opportunity to network with other community groups and build a sense of trust to deliver this event as one team with a united vision. With the trust being established with stakeholders, in the build up to the event, several opportunities arose with volunteers wanting to support on the day, communications and marketing reached out to at risk community groups, and more creative activities were developed with groups supporting on another.
The success of this event ultimately came down to being authentic, genuine, and transparent to work alongside our community groups. This is very much what the BBP wanted to demonstrate, and this event was led by the community and for the community.
Key learnings that were picked up were:
Focus on children and young people – The event encouraged children and young people to be physically active. It gave time for parents to meaningfully engage with stallholders and have conversations about their health. Children also learned about healthy eating and good oral health practice.
Community spirit – There was a relaxed atmosphere on the day where residents naturally connected with each other. The positive vibe and less formal agenda provided a place for residents to engage about health more easily.
Cost of living – With the event being free, it encouraged a lot of residents to attend and get involved in the activities. Families expressed the challenge to find affordable health activities in the community.
Cultural diversity – a wide range of cultural activities were co-designed with facilitators and advertised by community and faith group to ensure the event appealed to a diverse audience.
