Between November 2019 and September 2020, Oxford Community Action, along with community volunteers, worked collaboratively with Healthwatch Oxfordshire to understand what Oxford’s new and emerging communities think about wellbeing. Previous joint work had highlighted that mental health and wellbeing was a concern.
Together we took time to collaboratively plan the project and develop a way of working that built trust, understanding and open dialogue. We ran three focus groups and designed a questionnaire to reach out to Oxford’s new and emerging communities. 152 people responded to the questionnaire, along with many ongoing conversations. Respondents represented the diverse and multi-ethnic communities in Oxford. This report is the result of the work we did and what people told us.
This report shows that there is a huge appetite within the community to learn more about, gain skills and receive support to improve health and wellbeing. However, it also shows that there are significant barriers to getting the support that is needed.
The message is loud and clear- that to build access, trust and create culturally appropriate services- communities want to see support designed and delivered with their input, within community settings, and building on community networks.
Services need to actively engage and reach out to enable this to happen, in a continuous ongoing dialogue, and build relationships over time.