youcankingston

Next steps…

youcankingston — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 15:30:23 +0000

When the YouCanKingston Report was finished in September 2009 the Royal Borough of Kingtson, NHS Kingston and the Young Foundation came together to create the post of Social Entrepreneur in Residence (SEiR).

One of the aims of the post is to support the recommendations from the YouCanKingston Report as well unleash the entrepreneurial talent of people in Kingston to help improve services and the health of residents.

Phil Tulba is the SEiR for Kingston and will be helping local residents and providers to take forward some of the recommendations.

Keep an eye on this website for more information about how you can get invloved!

Coming to the end!

youcankingston — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:20:53 +0000

You Can Kingston is almost at its end. A report has been completed that pulls together all the findings and all the community’s ideas, and it poses a series of recommendations to the local PCT. We will be presenting these findings and recommendations to key people within the NHS and members of the local communities at the end of the month.

Community design event a huge success!

youcankingston — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 09:46:48 +0000

This Saturday members of the thinkpublic team ran a community design event at Piper Hall on the Cambridge Road Estate in Kingston, Surrey.

The event brings the YouCanKingston project to a close and was creative, fun and very lively. A team of volunteers from Kingston University and the local community hosted stalls that focused on the 9 key factors that we found had the greatest impact on residents health and happiness on the estate.
Kingston NHS Primary Care Trust will now use this work to design and implement new services that meet residents needs and improve existing health inequalities in the area.

Thank you to everyone for all your hard work and to all residents who gave up their time to help make the estate a better place.

Free Design event this Saturday!

youcankingston — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:28:08 +0000

Come to Piper Hall on July 18th for an opportunity to explore and develop your own ideas for the future of the estate.
The event will be run by the YouCanKingston team who you may have met over the past few weeks. Just drop in and check out what’s going on, the event is open to all and will include art and design activities for adults and kids! Refreshments will be available all day.

DOWNLOAD THE FLYER HERE (PDF)

I want a safe place for my kids to explore

youcankingston — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:46:33 +0000

I want a safe place for my kids to explore from thinkpublic on Vimeo.

We want a bus service for the estate from thinkpublic on Vimeo.

Interview with residents on the Cambridge Road Estate.

Published in Design Week!

youcankingston — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:48:23 +0000

The project has been featured in this weeks Design Week magazine with an article entitled ‘Think Public battles health inequalities through design’. It is great to be raising the profile of some really important work.

You can read the article below or visit the Design Week site .

An ambitious project is under way to tackle health inequalities on the Cambridge Road estate in Kingston, Surrey, through research-based design.

Public-sector design specialist Think Public was appointed directly in May by Kingston Primary Care Trust to identify the key challenges to living ‘happy’ and ‘healthy’ lifestyles in the area.

The consultancy’s response is You Can Kingston, a project which looks to engage the community by setting up a text message feedback service, triggered by guerrilla murals (pictured) which have already started to appear on the estate.

This project, along with interviews with residents and a ‘design activity’ day on 18 July, is part of a research programme undertaken to inform Kingston PCT’s plans for future health services in the area.

Suggestions from the text message experiment will be aggregated and then fed back to residents on 18 July, when they will also be given the chance to design their own solutions.

‘Kingston PCT wants to be able to spend money locally and develop health services by pushing business proposals to NHS London,’ says Paul Thurston, head of design at Think Public.

Think Public was awarded the contract in tandem with the Young Foundation, a research group which will deliver the results of Think Public’s project, in the hope of developing a business proposal to change the way money is spent locally.

At the beginning of the consultation process in May, residents were consulted on the naming and identity of the You Can project through steering group meetings held by Think Public.

Thurston says local residents have ‘reacted well’ to the programme. He says, ‘There have been attempts to improve things before, but residents weren’t consulted properly.’

It is expected that the project will trigger other social improvements in the area.

‘One of the most important things for the residents is the availability of green space, and although that’s a housing office issue, it does have an impact on health,’ Thurston says.

Watch now: video interviews with residents

youcankingston — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:37:29 +0000

watch them all on Vimeo

Talking with people in the community

youcankingston — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:24:34 +0000

We have spent the last few days in the Cambridge Road area talking to people who live on the estate or who live locally. These conversations were a way of getting to know people much better and understanding more clearly what the challenges are for everyone living in this area. What we have found out will be used as a starting point for a Co-Design event that we will be running with the community on July 18th. This event will enable people to start developing their ideas for what could improve the health and happiness of people living on the estate. The event will be at the local community centre Piper Hall, if you would like to be involved please contact me on the You Can phone line - 07941143771

In the News!

youcankingston — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:03:17 +0000

Our work on the estate made it into the local news! To read the article click here - Surrey Comet

Kingston Cambridge Road estates life expectancy 5.7 years lower than affluent neighbours

8:30am Wednesday 24th June 2009
By Louise Robertson »

Residents on the Cambridge Road estates are suffering an inequality in health compared with more affluent areas in Kingston, according to a social innovation study.

As a result, Health Launchpad at the Young Foundation is working with NHS Kingston on an initiative exploring future healthy living initiatives for the estate.

Bold graphics and graffiti murals were put up around the estate on Monday in a social rejuvenation exercise.

A Young Foundation spokesman said: “These pockets have evolved in part through the lack of social housing resulting in deprived communities being squeezed into bounded zones, resulting in stark disparities in life expectancy.”

On the Cambridge Road estate there is a 5.7 year difference in life expectancy compared with men living in the more affluent Tudor ward.

Other markers, including premature death, mental health and self-reported measures of health, all paint a picture of marked health inequality in the borough.

Almost a quarter of the Cambridge Road estate are children aged under 16 and according to this year’s Child Well-being Index, they are in the top 2 per cent for deprivation, based on material well-being, and the top 3 per cent most deprived in regards to housing nee