Healthy Places, Healthy People

One of the projects to come out of this year's Cardiff Futures programme is community engagement initiative Healthy Places, Healthy People. HereSophie Buchaillard-Davies, one of eight members of staff working on the project, explains more about how you can be involved.

Healthy Places, Healthy People aims to forge closer connections between the University and local communities. In the first instance the project sets out to engage with the community of Grangetown with the aim of promoting community health and wellbeing.

In the longer term, the proposal aims to establish a new Centre for the Development of Community Engagement to further enhance the University's profile by embedding and focusing its activity in partnership with Welsh communities, benefiting citizens and communities across Wales.

Members of the project team explain more about the initiative:

As the first step of this proposal, those of us working on the project recently met with representatives of Grangetown, including ward councilors, residents, and local organisations, who confirmed their desire to establish a long term relationship with the University.

As an interdisciplinary and cross-school collaboration, we would now like to invite staff from all Colleges and Schools across the University to tell us about any projects and ideas which we could potentially match with opportunities in Grangetown for short or long-term development with the community. These could include, but are in no way limited to,  themes of business development, education and widening access, health and well being, energy and sustainability, and built environment and infrastructure.

So, do you have a research or teaching project or idea which could help a local community in promoting health and wellbeing in all aspects of life, from personal and social health to the built environment?  Would you like to work directly with a local community, with the aim of creating tangible benefits over a long term period?  If so, please join us for a networking event, open to all University staff, on Wednesday 17 April in Committee Room 1, Glamorgan Building between 12.00-13.00 to share your ideas. Refreshments will be provided. For more information and to confirm your attendance, please contact healthyplaces@cardiff.ac.uk.

The project team is: Sally Anstey (Nursing and Midwifery Studies); Sophie Buchaillard-Davies (Optometry and Vision Sciences); Sion Coulman (Pharmacy); Richard Day (Healthcare Studies); Richard Gale (Planning and Geography); Mhairi McVicar (Architecture); Rhys Pullin (Engineering); and Lorraine Whitmarsh (Psychology).