Happy and healthy evaluation report
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Healthwatch Wakefield was asked to evaluate the Happy and Healthy Project provided by St George’s Community Centre and Home Start Wakefield and District.
St George’s Community Centre were successful in securing funding from the VCSE (voluntary, community and social enterprise) Health and Wellbeing Fund 2021/22. They worked in close partnership with Home Start Wakefield and District to deliver the Happy and Healthy Project between October 2021 and March 2022.
Project activity centred around two key areas: information giving and training. Information was given to parents and carers, at a number of community settings, in the form of talks and discussions about Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and bronchiolitis. They were also given written resources such as leaflets. Interviews with 12 people, who had received this information several months earlier, showed a very high level of retention, confidence, and behaviour change. All were extremely positive about the information that they had received and the subsequent increase in their confidence.
Training for professionals was developed to give key information and the necessary tools to enable them to support and advise parents and carers who were concerned about their child. Evaluation forms from sixty-eight people showed a significant increase in knowledge and confidence around both RSV and bronchiolitis after the training. Further follow up with three people approximately three months after they had attended the training also showed extremely high levels of retention, confidence, and behaviour change. Information was also widely shared through social media.
Professionals, parents, and carers who had received information, as well as those who had received training, spoke about the messages being more widely shared, for example with friends and family. This suggests that the reach of the project is far wider than the people who received information or training.
A survey, which ran over the course of the project, gave basic information about RSV and bronchiolitis and where support may be found. The survey was completed by 340 people, many of whom gained new knowledge from it.
The Happy and Healthy Project Worker completed six case studies. These case studies further demonstrate the increase in knowledge and confidence that people gained around respiratory illnesses because of this project. Furthermore, there are examples of the information being shared more widely.
It is recommended that information continue to be shared at community groups, particularly at key times of the year when paediatric respiratory conditions are most prevalent. It is also recommended that the training continues and that it is made available more widely.