The Community Health Champions Summer Celebration took place last Thursday – champions and community members made their way to Temple Street Methodist Church in the sunshine for a morning of cakes, coffees, crafts, and conversations.
We hosted the event in partnership with researchers from Keele University, who wanted to take the time to talk with community members in Stoke-on-Trent and find out how they want health research to make for them. Between food parcels being delivered from Temple Street’s food bank, people claiming rogue bags of oranges, chats about wildcats, and even a couple of magic tricks by one of the community members, some essential conversations were taking place about how people interact with health research, and what can be done to make it more accessible.
The champions were fundamental in supporting this event, providing their community expertise and knowledge, helping to facilitate conversations, and building relationships with the community members to help them engage with topics that can sometimes be difficult to discuss. There were some excellent conversations amongst champions too, about upcoming projects and ongoing work.
The volunteer team at Temple Street made sure toast, oatcakes and cuppas were at the ready, and Cultural Sisters provided some collage materials, knowing that arts and crafts can be an excellent way to open up conversations and keep people engaged.
Explanations of collages provided by champions/community members who made them (left top to right bottom)
- Stay well – no matter your age or background. Convene with each other and nature. Eat well, sleep well, be creative!
- Our unhealthy relationship with food and its effect on the NHS
- Community health champions!
- The tree represents the NHS with the animals in the top knowing what’s going on. The animals in the bottom have no clue what’s going on. We need more information shared.
The Keele Team also had an illustrative note taker on hand, who was whipping up an art board at the speed of light, depicting conversations as they were happening:
We’ll get the full break-down of the research questions from the Keele team soon, and share their findings with you!