Category: News & Events

Covid 19: Stay safe in your community. The videos below have been translated into English, Punjabi, Polish, Somali, Arabic, Chinese, Romanian, Urdu, French, Portuguese.

Getting the message out in many different ways has always been a core message from Common Unity in respect of the importance of good health and wellbeing across communities. However, with the devastating impact of Coronavirus, the importance of getting the messages out there to help people keep themselves and their loved ones around them safe takes on ever greater gravitas. Charities have highlighted the concern that the core messages regarding this deadly virus are often going unheard by communities whose preferred written language is not English and it is clear that certain BAME communities are over-represented in respect of the number of deaths from Covid 19.

It is therefore imperative that we recognise the importance of getting Health Information responsive to the needs of vulnerable communities. This is of huge significance in the City of Birmingham where there exists 108 different languages spoken across 87 different ethnic groups. At the point of producing this post, Birmingham has been highlighted as being on the Government’s Covid-19 watch list as a designated “Area of Enhanced Support” meaning the potential for further lock-down in Birmingham and surrounding areas at some point in the future is a very real prospect unless we can get the message out their to all communities.

The Birmingham Public Health team, supported by sector experts and local partners, have stepped up to this challenge with running a series of COVID-19 related webinars for leaders and professionals who have a direct reach into communities and have an established, trusted relationship with them, for example: community leaders, social prescribing link workers and faith leaders. The webinars, and additional information, can be found on the Birmingham City Council website here: https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/info/50… We at Common Unity have also been doing our bit to get the simple messages out. First through further rolling out Healthy Brums recommendations on wearing face masks in 12 languages (https://www.common-unity.org/our-comm…) and now through the key information being translated and dispersed through social media through short videos. Just remember we are all in this together for the bigger community known as Birmingham. Stay well and stay safe. Help and support networks can be found on : www.the-waitingroom.org This video is brought to you by: www.common-unity.org

We were approached by the Royal Society for Public Health to be highlighted as a best practice example of an organisation that empowers communities through Healthy Conversation.

We have a longstanding trusted relationship with communities across Birmingham and wider, engaging effectively through a variety of innovative means with communities that are often viewed as hard to reach. One of the ways in which we do this is by engaging and training community facing professions to pass on positive health messages and signposting to services that can best meet the need – One such profession is hairdressing, or more specifically, the Barbershop.

This ground-breaking work, originally piloted in Preston, has recognised that for many African-Caribbean Men, one of the only places they would truly open up about their feelings and concerns was whilst sitting at the Barbers’ Chair. Barbershops for the African Caribbean Community(ACC) are seen as welcoming, safe, social hubs for engagement – Recognising this we adopted the Barbershop approach in Birmingham through the BarbershopMagazine – written by members of the ACC for the ACC on topics that were relevant to them.

The news these days always seems to be bad news. Headlines talk of recession, poverty, crumbling NHS and Social Care services, homelessness, violence, abuse, drugs, mental health problems, fragmented communities and the list goes on.

At Urbrum we love to recognise that across Birmingham and Solihull there are organisations working tirelessly to help the most vulnerable people out there, organisations and projects that want to make a real difference, offer hope and possibility. If your organisation or project is making a difference in our communities we want to hear about it – we want to shout out about it. All you have to do is get in touch with us and we can make the arrangements with you to highlight your organisation through the Urbrum website.

We can do this in loads of different ways. It can be written with photographs, or an audio recording or even come in and film your organisation/project so that people out there know all about what you do to support communities across Birmingham and Solihull. Recently Urbrum were invited to the Bethel Health and Healing Network to highlight the fantastic work they do to support communities. You can check out the film HERE.

Got a service you want to share through Urbrum? You can email us at info@urbrum.org so that we can start to look at highlighting the amazing work you do.

Unless you are living in a cave with no access to social media, newspapers, Blogs, Vlogs etc etc…. then you will know that the NHS is struggling to cope with demand. In fact – every part of every health and social care service is struggling. Demand is increasing but money is scarce to meet the increasing demand. Something somewhere has got to give at some point. Or maybe not. Maybe there is another way to look at health, and more specifically “mental health and wellbeing.” Maybe we need to stop looking so much for answers from the big old service providers out there and start to look at solutions in our own backyard – even in ourselves.

The Connecting Community Networks Programme is all about workingupstream – meaning we need to recognise that before crisis kicks in, there areoften many things we can do to look after our own mental health and wellbeingand even be better prepared for when “stuff” hits the fan. So, the Being Well Works Well Conference in October 2018 was an opportunity for us all to discuss what we already have in Birmingham and Solihull and how to better take care of ourselves by knowing as much as possible about where to go, what to do and best take control of our own lives. 

With over 150 delegates, 80 represented organisations, a range of experiential wellbeing stalls and a diverse set of forward-thinking speakers from across the board, The Being Well Works Well achieved way beyond all our expectations. It successfully turned on its head the notion that World Mental Health Day was all about Mental Illness support by instead, focussing on what we can all be aware of in respect of our own wellbeing and owning it.

Presentations were heard from Artificial Intelligence guru Pete Trainor, Suicide Prevention and ManMade Founder Terry Rigby, Adults Safeguarding Lead and Workplace Wellbeing Specialist Cherry Dale, Loss and Bereavement Counsellor and Trainer Adam Page, Health and Wellbeing Champion Councillor Paulette Hamilton and the ever-awesome Mental Health Commissioning Lead, Tom Howell.   

….and all of it was free.

If you want to see the full report on the Being Well Works Well Conference, then you can download from this link

If you want to keep up to speed with future events being hosted through the CCN programme then signup to our mailing list HERE.

Welcome to our Common Unity Vanguard! our newsletters that looks to bring you up to speed with the work that Common Unity continues to deliver alongside and on behalf of often seldom heard communities. This first edition of Vanguard looks to provide you with a quick overview of the key areas of work we deliver across a range of settings alongside our Grassroots Associates. I would like to thank our partnering organisations and associates for their support in delivering some excellent projects and services.

Click image to view vanguard issue:

Our approach to improving wellbeing recognises that short term investment in individual wellbeing has huge benefits in the long term. That’s why people are at the heart of everything we do. So, all our programmes don’t start with illness, they start with building health and wellbeing – Through programmes that Educate, Protect, Intervene and Champion we support people to know what needs to be done to keep themselves as well as they can be.

Educate
Knowledge is power, and if people are educated to understand what makes them function in a healthy way, then people have the power to look after themselves.

Protect
Life often throws us a curveball. Our programmes support people to know what tools they can utilise to best cope with the challenges we often unexpectedly face.

Intervene
Everyone needs someone to lean on from time to time. Much of the learning we promote is one that helps people help others. Being able to recognise and support others when they are struggling
has benefits for all.

Champion
To improve wellbeing, we must promote wellbeing through recognising and highlighting that wellbeing is not fixed, but is ever-changing and seen differently from one person to the next.