Last year we brought you news of the national launch of the Sláintecare Healthy Communities (SHC) initiative and we plan to keep you up to date on the ongoing roll out through a series of articles and videos which focus on the roll out of the various components of Sláintecare Healthy Communities.
The roll out of Sláintecare Healthy Communities represents a major multi sectoral investment in health and wellbeing and specially in area based health inequalities. There are many components to the overall initiative and to develop and deliver all these various components, partnership working is and has been at the core of the work to date. Across the country for the 19 designated Healthy Community areas the focus has been on establishing working relationships, contracts for commissioned services and the appropriate partnership and governance groups. The work is being led by the public sector partners – the HSE and the local authorities who are either in the process of finalising recruitment or have recruited staff to drive and coordinate the activities. Key roles in the implementation include the SHC Coordinators working in HSE Health and Wellbeing at local level and the SHC Local Development Officers who will be employed by the various local authorities. As well as these staff it will be the commissioned delivery of the local community based partners who will be the face of the initiatives as they are rolled out.
For instance in Tallaght where there was a strong history of community and local authority collaboration with the HSE, many of the health programme components are already in delivery phase, for example, Barnardos Family Support Tallaght are delivering the Parenting Programme component. They are delivering Triple P, an evidenced based parenting programme to promote positive caring relationships between children and their parent. Aine Buggy, the HSE Slaintecare Healthy Community Coordinator for the area said:
“The local community based delivery of the programmes is where we plan to get most positive engagement. Barnardos Family Support Tallaght have the experience and the expertise to support the roll out of the parenting programme. Working in collaboration with Barnardos and South Dublin County Partnership enhances the reach of these programmes to those who need it most”.
South Dublin Partnership Company are delivering a range of the SHC initiatives, including Social Prescribing, Healthy Food Made Easy and We Can Quit and have worked with HSE Health and Wellbeing to showcase some of these initiatives through video last year:
For more information and to contact the local HSE SHC Coordinator in your area CLICK HERE.