Healthier & happier communities are coming

So we’re officially launched and we’re really excited to be Building Healthier and Happier Communities in East Dunbartonshire. There’s so much which charities and third sector organisations can do to help people lead healthy and happy lives. We want to make sure that this potential is understood and realised, and it’s all starting in East Dunbartonshire. We’ve already held lots of events across East Dunbartonshire to engage with local organisations and projects. We’ve been able to get a better understanding of the ambitions of the sector in terms of reaching out to more people, developing new projects and becoming more sustainable. People have told us they feel more connected and have benefitted from good opportunities to network and find out what’s happening locally. We have more events on health inequalities coming up in June - watch this space for more details. Based on what local partners and projects have told us, we’re in the midst of planning a programme of support which will include more networking opportunities and free themed workshops on topics such as evidencing your impact, project planning, governance, partnership working and collaboration and marketing / IT. In addition to a general programme of support, we’ll also be working more intensively with a small number of organisations and projects in East Dunbartonshire. This tailored support will help the projects clarify their goals and identify how they might develop or change. We’ll be funding projects which are:

• Run by the third sector
• Have an idea / planned change / development which contributes to community wellbeing
• Have capacity to undertake the project
• Are committed to sharing learning
• Working across a range of client groups, activities, geographical locations and organisations
• Aiming to reduce health inequalities, focusing on prevention, impact on community health and wellbeing, and involving partnership working and collaboration

More details will follow. Make sure you’re signed up to our mailing list by dropping us a line so we can keep you updated and keep an eye on Twitter #bhhc.