To consider the presentation.

The Sub-Committee considered the presentation on the progress of welling circles. 

The Transformation and Community Service Lead informed that partners included in the project were Frimley Health, Royal Borough, Maidenhead Magpies and the wider voluntary sector.  So far there had been 53 referrals and 37 plans created and uploaded onto shared records.  There was a stakeholder delivery group meets every four weeks and a range of WBC videos to be released as part of the ongoing recruitment of volunteers.  There was also a monthly newsletter sent to volunteers.

A new learning and development training programme had been developed for the considering personalisation budgets.  Bristol University had been commissioned to carry out fist year evaluation review.

There had been a new tier system produced using Lyon 2, this was:

Tier 0 – Email links only – no intervention

Tier 1 – Social Prescribing Support

Tier 2 – Eligible for the WBC

Tier 3 – Housebound referrals – befriending only

Tier 4 – Dementia diagnosis or other high needs – sign posted to relevant support groups.

Members were provided with cost analysis of the project and its benefits.  The figures indicated the number of older people budgeted for vs the number of older people entering Adult Social Care by the end of March 2022.  Although Adult Social Care does not only reflect older people, we know that the majority of entries being referred by Adult Social Care into the Wellbeing Circles Programme are older people who are isolated and lonely.

A number of case studies were presented to Members illustrating the benefits that had been achieved. 

Moving forward the key priorities for the next 12 months were to manage the WBC support for referred individuals, within the resource currently available to support a minimum 40 individuals during the year.

Maintain and grow the team of WBC volunteers to provide support to individuals including implementing appropriate volunteer recruitment, safeguarding checks and training approaches.

Develop the “suite” of WBC volunteer training materials which can be shared with partner community organisations including a revamped, tailored Stop, Look, Care training video.

Develop an alliance of “Wellbeing Partner” organisations from the voluntary and community sector engaged with and supporting the WBC community support model and promoting WBC volunteering opportunities and training.

Promote WBC’s as a community resource available to support vulnerable local people and to promote WBC volunteering opportunities and to capture and share learning from individual support interventions, including the production case studies.

Cllr Hilton said that this had been driven by the pandemic and asked how were residents referred to it and what safeguards were in place.  He was informed that referrals were made by their GP’s, hospitals or social care and we used the Lyon system.  All volunteers are DBS checked and trained prior to any contact being made. 

Cllr Johnson said that this was excellent work and mentioned that there was a target of at least 40 individuals per year and asked if there was a maximum.  He was informed that the year 1 pilot was for 20 referrals but they had 55, so for year 2 they wanted a minimum of 40 but would aim towards getting 80.

Members noted the presentation.