ConnectWELL was delighted to receive an award for the volunteer team’s contribution in 2021-22. The team was a worthy winner in the COVID initiative category at the annual Rugby Volunteer awards, which is a partnership event between Rugby Borough Council, Warwickshire County Council and Warwickshire CAVA.
ConnectWELL connected people to practical and emotional, non-medical community support, such as information services, leisure activities, lunch clubs, self-help groups, sporting activities, and lots, lots more.
Amazingly, in this reporting year alone, over 544 hours of expert volunteer time has been donated to ConnectWELL across the varying pathways in multiple roles such as Health Buddy, Telephone Befriender, and Publicity volunteer.
Project Manager Gemma Smith said “It is disappointing that the project has now finished, but it was heartening to conclude the 8 years of delivery with another award. I have been delighted to see the ConnectWELL team consistently working with individuals in a person-centred way. The team has empowered people (aged 6-103 years old) to improve their health and wellbeing through linking to some of the wonderfully diverse activities in the local community. At the award ceremony in July we celebrated with over 100 amazing and dedicated volunteers from many other local organisations”.
Tracy Southam, the Mid-Area Manager at CAVA believes that “You cannot undervalue the impact of community engagement and activities in people’s daily lives and we are lucky to have such vibrant and varied VCSEs in Rugby and the wider Warwickshire and Solihull Area.”
The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation (one of the funders) recognised that “since August 2014, ConnectWELL had been able to increase the awareness of the community wellbeing benefits of participating in social activity. It has been wonderful to see this positive impact and to see CAVA continuing to support the strengthening of communities in Warwickshire.” Over the years, there have been several other funders for this innovative social prescribing service: most recently the project was supported by Rugby Health Primary Care Network, and Warwickshire County Council.
Since 2014 referral rates have consistently risen; last year there was an overall 43% increase in referrals, which were primarily for the social prescribing link worker pathway for Rugby Health. Monitoring shows that 89% of people on the ConnectWELL pathway reported a positive benefit to their health and wellbeing. An impressive 100% on the ConnectWELL pathway who responded said they would recommend the service. Gemma Smith commented that “These figures are awesome, but it is the many and varied personal stories that paint the full picture of the positive impact that has been achieved. We are immensely proud of the spectacular results achieved for people over the years through the team’s amazing work”.
“As a local infrastructure organisation” Gemma continued, “we at CAVA are continuing to champion the voluntary and community sector’s needs for sustainability as they continue to play such a vital part in tackling various aspects of health and health inequalities”.
For further information please see https://www.wcava.org.uk/social-prescribing
Left to right: Mike Slemenseck (Communities and Partnerships Service at Warwickshire County Council), Jacky Wright (ConnectWELL Health Buddy volunteer), Chris Newnham (ConnectWELL volunteer).
Clockwise from top left: Jacky Wright (ConnectWELL Health Buddy volunteer), Carol Kavanagh (previous Volunteering Coordinator), Chris Newnham (ConnectWELL volunteer), Amy Muzyka (previous ConnectWELL Link Worker), Gemma Smith (Project Manager)
