01st September 2001

Report on Progress September 2001

Introduction

As stated in the report for the previous meeting the main aims of the Triangle Project are:

To support three LHA's in the development of their roles, helping to shape their strategic priorities and facilitating relationship building with ongoing project work in communities
To help support the capacity-building of three selected communities to address the determinants of poor health in their localities
To engage in formative, process evaluation, observing developments in LHA's and communities and feed the research into the development work in an iterative, cyclical manner
To date the progress in these areas in the three target communities have taken the following forms.

Recent Developments

Following consultation with project partners at the prior steering group meeting the structural nature of The Project has now been altered to facilitate better network building with Project partners. As identified at this meeting it was difficult for Project partners to identify the exact roles and responsibilities of specific Triangle Project executive group member. In order to address this issue and construct better communication networks individual group members have now taken the organisational lead in specific target localities. The respective member for each locality is:

Neil Caldwell; Cardiff and South Riverside.

Martin O’Neill; Merthyr Tydfil and Gurnos/Galon Uchaf

Gareth Williams; Powys and Ystradgynlais.

This restructuring enables representatives from each LHA and target locality to identify a specific individual who can provide a direct line of communication to the TP executive group in relation to any topic.

Representatives of The Project have now built up good relationships with all three LHA’s and the respective lead TP executive member sits on the LHA board.

In the target localities the lead executive group member together with the respective Local sustainable Health Co-ordinator have now constructed strong links with key individuals and organisations in the target localities. A local steering group is in place in the South Riverside area and one will be meeting immanently in the Ystradgynlais area. The recently appointed LSHC for Gurnos and Galon Uchaf, Deanne Rebane, is also in the process of consulting with local representatives with the aim of establishing such a group for this area.

The establishment of these groups in the respective localities has proved to be a challenging and time consuming undertaking as all these communities consisted of various interest groups, which it has been important to consult in order for these local steering groups to achieve validity in their particular communities.

In all three target localities events have been or are in the process of being organised so as to provide a forum for identifying community needs and wants. These events are being organised in partnership with representatives from the LHA's and provides the first concrete examples of the links The Project has started to forge between the communities and the LHA's

Projected Future Developments

The TP executive feel that, to-date, progress with partners has been good. Although, as to be expected, there have been challenges along the way, through consultation these have been addressed. However, it is important that these relationships with both the LHA's and the communities are not taken for granted, as this may well result in them perishing. It is necessary to nurture and develop such relationships, as this will provide a strong base for the progress of The Project.

From the developments outlined above it is hoped that by December 2001 there will be local steering groups in place in all three localities that will consist of representation from members of the local communities, the LHA's and TP representation in the role of support and advice.

From the data generated by the event in Ystradgynlais in July and the forthcoming events in Gurnos/Gallon Uchaf in October and South Riverside in November it is the be expected that certain specific initiatives can begin to be identified, developed and evaluated by the first quarter of 2002.

Conclusion

The members of the Triangle Project team would like to take this opportunity to invite comment and observation on the above report and express their gratitude for the assistance and constructive comment that the representatives of the project partners have displayed throughout the past few months.