Agenda item

This report updates the Health and Wellbeing (HWB) Board on the work of BCP’s Access to Food Partnership since October 2021. It has grown into a thriving collaborative network, with a breadth of partners, working together with place-based and strength-based approach to empower and build community resilience. The continued impact of the cost of living crisis has put significant pressure on frontline workers and food projects, but together they have shown strength in their ability to co-create new neighbourhood initiatives to respond to the evolving needs of local communities. The Partnership is now in the final year of its 3-year funding from the National Lottery Community Grant.

The Community Initiatives Manager and Chief Executive of Faithworks, and Chair of the Access to Food Partnershippresented a report and presentation, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'C' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

The report updated the Health and Wellbeing (HWB) Board on the work of BCP’s Access to Food Partnership since October 2021. It had grown into a thriving collaborative network, with a breadth of partners, working together with place-based and strength-based approach to empower and build community resilience. The continued impact of the cost of living crisis had put significant pressure on frontline workers and food projects, but together they had shown strength in their ability to co-create new neighbourhood initiatives to respond to the evolving needs of local communities. The Partnership was now in the final year of its 3-year funding from the National Lottery Community Grant.

The Board discussed the presentation, including:

• The Chief Executive, Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust, congratulated them on the positive work that had been undertaken and advised he would welcome working closer with them for some of the community groups he worked with as well as some staff groups who were struggling with the cost of living.
• The Director of Public Health put a challenge to the Board of considering ways in which the public sector could increase the basic infrastructures through long term resilient funding and strong connections to enable community empowerment to flourish and also felt that some two-way learning would be beneficial with the integrated neighbourhood teams regarding a more holistic approach.
• The Head of Community Engagement and Community Safety highlighted the enormous amount of work which had gone into the partnership which had been recognised nationally as award winning and made a plea for consideration to be given about how food insecurity could be tackled and addressed within the workplace
• The Board continued to discuss the issues highlighted and how they could work together to support those in need including staff and within the communities they served
• A Board Member stressed that a lot of the organisations and partnerships highlighted rely on volunteers and expressed concern regarding the depletion of funding which provided the important infrastructure for those volunteers.
• The Chair concluded by advising Board Members to consider any actions they could progress which had arisen out of the discussions on this item.

It is RECOMMENDED that HWB Board Members:

a)    Acknowledge how the work of the Access to Food Partnership (A2FP) has contributed to upstream prevention by supporting those most vulnerable to the impact of health inequalities and the cost of living crisis in BCP.

b)     Commit to highlighting at a strategic level the importance of the A2FP in addressing food insecurity and hidden hunger in communities, and champion local system change to enable community and voluntary sector partners to continue to grow and thrive.

c)    Recognise the significant ongoing challenges in high levels of demand from local people struggling with the cost of living and support the A2FP to meet this need.

d)     Recognise the A2FP’s increasingly important role as a point of trusted communication and collaboration in neighbourhoods and commit to ensuring that their frontline workers have up to date knowledge and understanding of the A2FP.

e)    Facilitate work between the A2FP and all system partners to enable better health outcomes and reduced inequalities.

Cllr Richard Burton left the meeting at 4pm.