Community Health Action Programme

The Community Health Action Programme is a series of projects we are undertaking to achieve the engagement and participation of vulnerable communities in preventing ill health.

Objectives of the Community Health Action Programme

The COVID-19 pandemic drew into sharp focus the disproportionate risks of ill health and poorer health outcomes experienced by particular groups in the community. This created an imperative for Public Health teams to prioritise how they support underserved, diverse, and marginalised communities.

Public Health’s refreshed approach includes community centred interventions, developed through the Community Action Model, which are focused on mobilising assets within communities, promoting equity and increasing people’s control over their health and lives.

Community Action Model

The Community Action Model is a five step, community driven model designed to build communities’ capacity to address health inequalities through mobilisation. The model empowers the community by allowing a local community based organisation to select an area of concern and work together with local authorities and/or organisations to conduct research and/or diagnosis of issues.

The goal is to provide communities with the framework necessary to acquire the skills and resources to plan, implement, and evaluate health related actions and policies.

Public Health have adopted the five step model for the local implementation and delivery of the Community Health Action Programme.

Community Action Group

To support sustainable and consistent community action, Public Health established a Community Action Group (CAG) in September 2020 as part of its COVID-19 recovery community engagement plans. This is a strategic working group which provides oversight and systems leadership on health and wellbeing initiatives.

The group’s membership includes officers from Public Health, Community and Partnerships, Commissioning, Community Safety, Children’s Services, Achieving for Children, Housing, and local community organisations and groups.

Community Health Action Programme projects to date in Richmond

There are currently six Community Health Action Programme projects in Richmond:

1. Public Health’s Community Action Research Project: using the Community Action Model to work with voluntary and community organisations in Richmond to provide them with training and resources to enable them to better support local vulnerable groups and communities
2. Richmond COVID-19 marshals recruitment, training, and deployment
3. Community Health and Wellbeing Champions Programme in Richmond
4. Health Equalities Partnership Project in Richmond (partnership working with South West London Kingston and Richmond CCG)
5. Supporting the Community and Partnerships Outreach Programme
6. Community Vaccine Champions Project – using the Community Action Model to support the delivery of the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities funded project to increase the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines in low uptake areas in the boroughs