Feeling Good About Where You Live

Aideen Silke17 March 2010South East London Housing Partnership

Health and Wellbeing Board

Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy Group

Improving Health Cutting Inequalities Partnership

Health, Wellbeing and builtenvironment sub-group

Healthy Urban PlanningFramework

Active EnvironmentsEstates InterventionMajor estatesregeneration

Health, Wellbeing and Built Environment Structures

Why does feeling good about where you live matter?

• The environment can exert an influence at the individual, household, community or area level

• Not feeling good about where you live is associated with significantly poor mental health

• Having poor mental health is linked to poor physical health

• Poor mental health is one of the top 3 causes of poor quality of life in Greenwich

• Having poor mental health is a significant cause of health inequalities in Greenwich

Aims

• to pilot an integrated approach to delivering low cost physical and social interventions on an estate to improve mental health and wellbeing and to reduce the incidence of depression bought on through living conditions.

• To tackle loneliness and isolation on the estate to build an enhanced sense of community and engagement

• to provide causal evidence describing the relationships between physical and social aspects of residential environments and psychological well-being.

Initial research

• One of the first UK studies to date• Postal survey to 1,600 households in 9 areas in

Greenwich • Response rate 38%• Asked questions about the environment and about

people’s mental health• Identified the factors that influence mental wellbeing• Highlighted need to intervene on both design and

social features of residential areas to promote psychological health

Identified 13 Intervention factorsBeing dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with any of these factors

meant 200% to 300% more likely to be in the lowest group for mental health*

• Damp• Liking the look of the place• Noise -street, neighbours & home• Feeling overcrowded in the home • Access to green spaces• Feeling afraid to go out in the day and at night• Needles and syringes left lying around• Places to stop and chat• Events to get people together• Community facilities• Transport and accessibility* After adjusting for income, age, sex etc

“If your home environment is damp, cold, noisy and falling apart then there's not one place you feel safe and relaxed, it makes you feel miserable, depressed and trapped”

Fear of crime and harassment –especially in the day time

Cars dominate and take over pavements- nowhere to stop and chat

Well I would sit there for a while…

The research question:which relationships are causal?

Case-control study• Three year study

• Two estates in Greenwich

• Selected to be similar on – Architectural features eg age, mix of dwellings– Decent Homes Status– Level of council tenancy– Ranking on the index of multiple deprivation– Other socioeconomic factors

• One estate receives environmental improvements, the other does not

• It is envisaged that the ‘control’ estate will receive interventions on completion of the follow up period

Current position

• Baseline survey has been completed on two estates - 810 responses (from 1500 households)

• Launch event held on 12 September in Abbey Wood• Delivery partnerships with NHS Greenwich, Metropolitan Police,

Greenwich Council, local schools established• Ongoing programme of engagement activities and continuing to

recruit residents to work with the project over the next 15 months

• Developing a sustainability strategy and ensuring activities are replicable elsewhere

• Strong steering group chaired by a Cabinet Member ensuring senior ownership and buy in

Six themes

Interventions

• Based on the 13 factors that influence mental wellbeing

• Aiming to make places more liveable• Based on an estate engagement and problem solving

model• On going programme of community engagement and

consultation• Delivered through innovative uses of existing

resources and existing mechanisms• Replicable and low cost

Delivery Model

FGAWYL Steering Group[Cabinet Member, Health, Adults and Older People]

ResearchGroup

Community Empowerment

[Community participation]

Residents Group

Chair: Flowers Estate Resident [GC Resident liaison]

Environmental Change

[Community Safety]

Individual level change[Tenancy]

FGAWYL Delivery Structure

Ongoing activities

• Estate Gardening• Sports classes in conjunction with the primary school• Painting of communal areas• Repairs audit of activities• NHS Health Training Programme• Ranger led walks programme• Overt CCTV on main road• Cookery Clubs• Targeted work with households concerned by damp or noise• Crime prevention work• Graffiti cleaning demonstration at local school• Community event

Anti graffiti work with

local primary school

A few photos

What do we hope will come out of this?• to improve mental health and wellbeing • to reduce the incidence of depression bought on

through living conditions. • Understand what makes a difference to mental

wellbeing of Greenwich residents• That learning from this project will help inform future

engagement with residents and delivery of services in Greenwich

• To add to international research evidence

For further information:

Contact:

Aideen SilkeProject Co-ordinatorNHS Greenwich/Greenwich Council Aideen.Silke@greenwich.gov.uk020 8921 6752