Creating healthy connections in Camden!

This blog has been co-created by Niccola (from the UCL Centre for Co-production in Health Research) and Sarah (from UCL Students’ Union Volunteering Service).

We thought we’d share a little about our last Creating Connections event that took place at the St Pancras & Somers Town Living Centre, a great local community centre not far from UCL, the British Library and Euston Road. We hope you enjoy reading it!

Sarah: So what is Creating Connections?
Niccola: Creating Connections is a regular networking event that brings together staff and postgraduate students from UCL with representatives from community organisations, charities, residents’ groups, social enterprises and statutory organisations. We have a mixture of themed discussions in small groups (the topics discussed at this event are listed below) and the potential for more informal networking throughout the event with the aim being for attendees to find areas of common interest and encourage collaborative working. This event was 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 and had a particular focus on health, wellbeing and co-production in research.

Niccola: Ok so now we get down to the nitty gritty…. how was it??
Sarah: This was my first experience of a Creating Connections event, having fairly recently started working in the UCL Student Union Volunteering Service, I really enjoyed it! It was great to see so many people turn up to discuss the issues affecting our borough. I was in my element bringing together charities, members of the local community and UCL academics and students, to network and discuss how we might able to work as a collective to start to tackle the issues.

Sarah: My turn! How were the topics to be discussed decided? And what were they?
Niccola: The focus for the event was the co-production of research and so in true co-production style we didn’t decide upon the topics as an organising committee instead we took time to ask the potential attendees what they felt were currently most important topics to the local Camden and Somers Town community that they wanted to discuss. This resulted in some great round table discussions in relation to:

• Homelessness and wellbeing
• The impact of construction on the health of a local area
• Air quality and health
• Local antibiotic use
• Greening and the community
• Social care integration with health

If you aren’t familiar with what co-production is INVOLVE explain it below…

“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”.

Niccola: What did you get out of the event?
Sarah: A project that I am working on and was keen to discuss, is the Community Research Initiative that looks to connect UCL Masters Students with local charities, so that they can use their academic dissertation to research a real community need, with the hope to benefit all involved. As I talked to attendees, I networked with many whom I probably would never have met if it was not for Creating Connections. I now have a much bigger foundation on which to launch the initiative, which is fantastic.

Sarah: What about you Niccola, did you find the event useful?
Niccola: I’m currently working on setting up the UCL Centre for Co-production in Health Research so this event was a great chance for me to get to know more of the local community, to talk about things that we are all interested in and to discuss the plans for the Centre. I had some great discussions with local charities, local residents and researchers from UCL, The Crick and further afield.

Niccola & Sarah: That’s all from us! We would like to say a HUGE thank you to the rest of the organising team (Sarah Elie, Hannah Camm, and John Braime) and all of the staff involved at the St Pancras & Somers Town Living Centre, the Francis Crick Institute, the UCL Public Engagement Unit and the Students’ Union UCL’s Volunteering Service. A great team that resulted in a great event!

Keep an eye on the Public Engagement Unit newsletter to avoid missing out next time!

Have an idea for an upcoming Creating Connections event? Please contact us at publicengagement@ucl.ac.uk

For info about the next event (coming soon!) and to find out how to book your place watch this space!