INVITE: Creating Connections 24 April – The St Pancras & Somers Town Living Centre

Creating Connections
Tuesday 24 April 18.00 – 20.00

The St Pancras & Somers Town Living Centre, 2 Ossulston Street, NW1 1DF (5 minute walk from Kings Cross & St Pancras Underground station)

 

Register via the Students’ Union UCL Volunteering Service website where you can also find further information.

 

Creating Connections is a regular networking event that brings together staff and postgraduate students from University College London (UCL) with representatives from community organisations, charities, residents’ groups, social enterprises and statutory organisations. We have a mixture of themed discussions in small groups and the potential for more informal networking throughout the event with the aim being to find areas of common interest and encourage collaborative working. At this event there will be a particular focus on health, wellbeing and co-production in research.

 

As outlined by INVOLVE:

 

“Co-producing research is an approach to research in which researchers, practitioners and public work together, sharing power and responsibility from the start to the end of a research project, including the generation of knowledge”.

 

If you are interested in making links with community organisations from St Pancras and Somers Town, Camden and beyond – please come along!

 

Topics will include:

 

Homelessness and wellbeing

• What services are available locally and how do we mobilise local organisations and institutions to collectively provide ongoing, cross-sector support all year (not just at Christmas) to prevent those at risk of homelessness becoming homeless?
• How can we work together to ensure that pro bono clinical care reaches those most in need in community settings?

 

The impact of construction on the health of a local area

• How can we work together to minimise the effects of large scale construction work on our health?
• What are the most useful ways to address the impact of lost green space and green infrastructure on the mental health and wellbeing of us all?

 

Air quality and health

• How can we move from strategic thinking to practical ‘on-the-ground’ solutions to health challenges that have come about because of poor air quality?
• Are there ways that we can use technology and/or people power to address air-quality-related health problems?

 

Local antibiotic use

• How can we work together to better understand how society can influence the use of antibiotics and their effectiveness?
• Are there some practical solutions that we can start to put in place, such as social prescribing (referral to local, nonclinical community services), in order to improve local community health?

 

Greening and the community

• What are some practical approaches to greening that everyone can work together on, in order to improve the mental and physical health of the neighbourhood?
• Are there key places within the community that lend themselves to greening that we can easily take advantage of as a group?

 

Social care integration with health

• How can we integrate social care more closely within the local healthcare system in order to avoid duplication of effort by patients and clinicians, lost notes etc.?
• What role might social prescribing play in social care?
• What are the biggest challenges to the concept of a lifetime home becoming a reality and how do we address these?

 

Note that the event is a short networking event for people interested in these issues – a starting point for finding like-minded people you might want to collaborate with. It’s intended for experts, beginners and everyone in between. It’s not a conference and there won’t be long plenary speeches or workshops!

 

Light refreshments will be provided.

 

Register via the Students’ Union UCL Volunteering Service website where you can also find further information.

 

If you have any questions or comments about the event, contact Niccola Hutchinson-Pascal at UCL’s Centre for Co-production in Health Research (n.pascal@ucl.ac.uk), John Braime at Students’ Union UCL Volunteering Service (j.braime@ucl.ac.uk), Sarah Elie at Somers Town Community Association (sarah@somerstown.org.uk) or Hannah Camm at the Francis Crick Institute (hannah.camm@crick.ac.uk).

 

Creating Connections is organised by UCL’s Public Engagement Unit, Students’ Union UCL’s Volunteering Service, The St Pancras & Somers Town Living Centre, Somers Town Community Association, and The Francis Crick Institute.