Issues of Health and Well Being in Youth and Community Development - Research Paper Example

Issues of Health and Well Being in Youth and Community Development Component I: Project Report 0 Introduction The Bromley by Bow Centre is a well established organization that has been in existence for 30 years now. This is an innovative community organization based in east London but it works in the most deprived boroughs throughout England to support people of all ages through art, health and well being projects. The organization has expanded over time since its establishment in 1984 to include other programs that build the capacity of the society, particularly based on social enterprise. Information about the organization, its mission, programmes, and projects can be found through the organizational website at www.bbbc.org.uk/. Bromley by Bow Centre is undertaking a project in South London whose objective is to help youth overcome obesity and related complications through education, games, and art. This is a community development project that aims to improve the lives of young people affected by weight problems by helping them overcome their health problems and gain self-confidence. This report outlines the nature and conduct of the project since its inception, its objectives, activities, benefits to the society, and challenges. The report critically analyses what the project set out to achieve and what has already been achieved. 2.0 Project: Overcoming Weight Problems among Youth through Art, Sports, and Health Education The project covered in this report is titled ‘Overcoming Weight Problems among Youth through Art, Sports, and Health Education’ and is being implemented by Bromley by Bow Centre in the less affluent boroughs of South London for the benefit of young people aged between 8 and 20 years. This chapter examines the background of the project and what it targets to achieve after successful implementation. 2.1 Project Background Community development projects are mainly informed by the needs of communities, particularly communities which need support to develop capacities for better livelihood (Barr, Stenhouse, and Henderson, 2001, p.2). This project was particularly conceived by young people working with Bromley by Bow Centre in the boroughs of London when they recognized the problem of obesity and weight issues among young people in the deprived neighbourhoods that they worked. The centre has been involved in various activities touching on the health and wellbeing of communities. However, the projects typically have a wide scope with all age groups being covered and different type of programmes being implemented. The decision to target youth with such a programme was borne out of the realization that an increasing number of young people was being affected by weight problems and needed an integrated form of intervention to help them overcome this problem. According to Rigler (2000, p. 33), youth development should not be approached as a sophisticated solution that is prescribed by any organization to “solve the problems of children”, rather it is supposed to be about programs, systems and processes that provide the youth with support and opportunities necessary to empower the youth. Such development, in the context of a community should target youth across the board, whether they have problems or not (Hashagen, 2000, p.21). The project in this study was conceived to target youth with weight “problems” but with some research and project planning it was decided that the best strategy would be to widen the scope so as to include other youth so as to foster a proper community development atmosphere with benefits to the youth with weight problems. From a strategic perspective, this was a good strategy as it integrated various activities under the same project that would benefit youth across the board but emphasize on the ones with weight problems with the aim of empowering them to overcome their problems with help from peers and the implementers. 2.2 Project Objectives According to Davis and Jones (1997, p.356), projects that target the youth in a community development context should have the key objective of empowering them to achieve something because this is a group of people with great potential. The youth are supposed to be viewed as a respected and valued asset in the community (Hendry and Kleop, 2007, p. 68). This project was planned with the aim of achieving a number of important objectives with regard to the health and wellness of young people in the boroughs of South London. The following main objectives were envisaged; To impart bring youth together, organize them, and orient them towards achievement of better health and social wellbeing. To utilize art in educating youth about common lifestyle diseases and conditions including obesity and weight problems. To help youth affected by weight problems achieve better health and wellbeing through a range of strategies including sports, healthy eating, and other physical activities. To create an environment within the youth organization where the youth can learn freely from one another about health issues and help those affected by different conditions to improve their wellbeing. The main objectives of the project as indicated above emphasize on one main theme, health and wellbeing. All the other activities that surround it including art, sport, and education are aimed at achieving improved health among the youth with emphasis on overcoming weight problems. This overall objective resonates with the overall national aims and policies with regard to health in general (DoH, 1999). As indicated by DoH (2004), it is essential that all stakeholders in society come together to promote health and wellbeing in the society by complementing government efforts. The UK government has indicated its concern over the increasing cases of obesity and weight problems among youth and children in the recent past (Great Britain, 2004, p. 4). Concerted efforts are being implemented by all stakeholders across the country to combat this problem with community organizations being in the forefront in helping deal with it at the lowest level possible (Naidoo and Wills, 2000, p. 23). In this regard it can be said that this project is both strategic and timely because it addresses one of the main issues affecting society in the UK today. 3.0 Project Design 3.1 Project Planning The planning process for this project was one that incorporated important aspects of theory and practice. Having worked with communities for three decades implementing projects, the organization has rich knowledge and experience of what is required and expected in implementation of youth community projects. This project was a conception of the younger members of the organization and they were required to carry out thorough theoretical research to understand underlying concepts and good practices in youth community development, particularly with regard to health. The research carried out as part of project planning was so important for the project because it helped underpin the objectives of the project in the national health context and therefore make it relevant. The planning team indicated that the recent development of theories of social capital placed emphasis on social inclusion and connectedness for community health and wellbeing (Handerson, Summer, and Raj, 2004, p. 9). The theories that were explored informed the community-based approach to promotion of health through tackling of weight conditions among youth. This illustrates that the planning of the project was well executed to resonate with the new trend in community development and national health objectives. Being an organization dealing largely with art in promoting community development, Bromley by Bow Centre projects utilize art mainly as the element that bring people together. In this case the project planners re-examined the concept of art and expanded it to include as wide a range of activities as possible, including creative sport, so as to draw greater numbers of youth to participate in the project. Although no study has illustrated any direct relationship between art and health, there is in evolving body of evidence that indicates the importance of factors such as greater esteem, social wellbeing, connectedness, and role participation in advancement of health (Allan, 2005, p. 23). Art has been utilized as a tool in this project to ensure achievement of all these factors and the consequent advancement of art. With respect to that the project was planned to include an array of artistic activities including drawing, painting, moulding, carving, modelling, graphic design, textile design and many others. Different sporting activities were also included as part of the project. Finally, all the art sessions were interfaced with short training sessions relating directly to healthy living. Such sessions include short lectures, video sessions, group discussions and other activities. 3.2 Project Implementation The implementation of the project can be viewed in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of the approach employed. As planned, the project has been implemented by approaching it as an ‘art for health’ project; this implies that art is the main element that has been used to draw the youth together so as to pursue health objectives. Secondly, a variety of health and wellbeing objectives are pursued but the central objective is helping young people with weight problems overcome them and lead a healthy life. The second and most important objective is to help those who are not already affected by weight problems to achieve fitness and an attitude of healthy living that will enable them not to get affected by weight problems and obesity in future. This approach is generally successful and has significantly helped the project to realize its objectives. Significant numbers of youth have been drawn to participate in the project and this includes a significant number of those who have been affected by weight problems. Of the latter group, many have been able to achieve fitness and overcome their problems. This approach has also helped a significant number of the project participants with weight problems to gain self esteem and belief that they can achieve a number of things with hard work. For example, some individuals who were previously overweight and ashamed of it have achieved normal weight and can now be able to proficiently participate in sport and other activities. The strategy of the project leaders is to utilize such individuals as good examples to encourage others and educate them on healthy living. As indicated by (Great Britain, 1998, p.6), “policies and programs focus on the evolving developmental needs and tasks of adolescents, and involve youth as partners rather than clients”. This is one of the approaches utilized in the project where the youth have been encouraged to own the project and participate in it as partners pursuing a noble course. This is strategic in fostering a sense of belonging and responsibility among the participants. The approach utilized also faced various difficulties. Firstly, in the initial stages of implementation the project attracted large numbers of youth who needed to be screened and assessed for their ability to fit into different categories of creative activities. This presented a problem which had not been envisaged in planning, because there was a shortage of staff to carry out this kind of assessment by talking to each participant individually and make them feel comfortable. Failure to plan adequately for enrolment led to initial glitches which were solved by drafting volunteers to help in the process. Secondly, by making the project open to all youth was aimed at encouraging both fit individuals and those with weight problems to come together as a community in a relationship that would benefit both. On the contrary, the project initially attracted mainly fit individuals because as research has revealed, most youth with weight issues also suffer from low self esteem (Monks, 1998). This made it necessary for the project team to liaise with parents and other members of the society to encourage youth with weight problems to come out and participate. This scenario illustrates one of the most common problems of project planning, failure to consider all possible scenarios. The lack of adequate planning for such an eventuality meant that the project did not have a contingency plan for attracting the most important target population of the project; however this was solved through pro-active measures to involve parents and other stakeholders. The project leadership must be credited for this flexibility and quick alternative development. 3.3 Monitoring and Evaluation Monitoring and evaluation is one of the most important components of any health project and considerable planning must go into ensuring that it is successful (Douglas, 1996, p. 180), this is particularly important because without monitoring the project outcomes and resources, it is not possible to accurately determine whether the objectives are being achieved (Gilbert, 1978, p. 113). The overall factor to be evaluated in this case is improved health and wellbeing among the targeted youth. This has been achieved through monitoring of aspects such as improvement in health of individuals, monitoring success indicators, monitoring the factors that restrict success, monitoring good practices in the project, sustainability of funding, and lessons learnt. All these aspects are comparatively measured against other projects undertaken by the organization as well as other similar projects by organizations in other parts of the country. The most important indicator of success is positive progress in most of the key aspects of the project. 4.0 Project Outcomes, Benefits and Challenges 4.1 Project Outcomes The outcomes of this project have been measured in two main aspects, in terms of artwork and other socio-economic outputs, and in terms of health and wellbeing outcomes. Like many similar projects by the organization and other similar organizations around the country, art activities have not been linked too rigidly to social or educational messages. The project instead aims to achieve health, social, and educational benefits through indirect means. In this case the success of the project as far as art is concerned has been measured in terms of improvement in skill of participants, development of social networks between the youth, and improvement in their expression and sociability. Since the beginning of the project, over 200 youth have been interacting with each other in art and sports and forming linkages with each other that have enhanced their social lives. Similarly, over 74% of the youth indicate that they have improved their expression and interaction skills as a result. Various pieces of art have been produced by the youth and while these have not accounted for great economic value, several youth with artistic talent have improved their skills through guidance from teachers in the project. Significant individuals have also improved their proficiency in various sports. In terms of health and wellbeing outcomes, the physical health benefits to youth with weight problems are easily observable and measurable but the extent of improvement in participants’ mental health cannot be easily measured. Overall, the project has assisted a total of 26 young people who were suffering from overweight conditions or obesity to get back to the normal range of weight. Most of these have been assisted through participation in rigorous sports activities with peers in the organization. They have also been assisted through training and counselling by dieticians and health officers working with the project. The effect of art on the mental health of the youth has been determined through questionnaires and feedback from them, this has been determined as one of the only effective ways in which psychological health can be measured (Reynolds, 1997, p. 96). Most of the participants have indicated so far that they have developed greater self esteem and confidence through the project. This has particularly benefited the youth who were or are still suffering weight conditions, those interviewed have expressed the confidence that they will get back to normal through the project because they have friends within the group who have overcome obesity or weight problems. 4.2 Extent to which Project encourages Community Participation One of the most important roles of a community development project is that it should be able to foster community togetherness and unity of purpose through active participation (Popay, 2006, p. 4). Health projects have been credited with attracting significant community participation because many people associate them with greater personal benefits than most other projects, this is accentuated by the fact that in the recent past there has been an increase in health concerns in society (Smailes and Steet, 2011, p. 17). This project has been able to attract youth from all the South London neighbourhoods because of two main strategies, the inclusion of sport and art as part of the program, and the use of interactive platforms for health education. This has attracted many young people to participate in the project than was previously envisaged. The need to involve parents in the quest to encourage children with obesity and weight problems to participate has also increased the level of community participation in the project in general. All of the children that participate in the project do it with full knowledge of their parents or guardians. Besides, many health, art, and sports experts from around the community have volunteered as mentors, educators, and trainers in the project. There have also been a significant number of members of the society who have recently volunteered to contribute towards the project financially so as to boost its contribution to the health and well being of the community. 4.3 Benefits and Challenges As indicated by Curtis and Taket (1996, p. 32), community health development projects have both benefits and challenges to individuals as well as the whole group of individuals participating in the projects. Most youth interviewed have indicated that they benefit from the project in the following ways; Being in the project helps them to establish meaningful relationships with other youths and which enable them to develop important networks. The project has helped them develop new skills in aspects such as public speaking and organization. For those youth who are talented in art, the project has enabled them to develop their artistic skills and improve the quality of their work through working with experts. They have been able to develop a sense of community awareness and responsibility though education, interaction, and mentorship provided by the project. Those who were or are suffering weight problems have been able to improve their health through sport and training in health by managing their weight back to normal. Those suffering from low self-confidence and low self esteem due to weight problems have developed confidence and higher esteem by interacting with peers and managing to manage their weight problems This project also faces a number of challenges in its implementation just like any other community development project. Analysis of the project reveals five main challenges that affect its implementation; The first challenge is establishment of a strategic focus for the project: during the establishment of the project, the project team faced challenges in making strategic use of time and resources. Initially, the team could not determine the right list of priorities because of uncertainties about potential participants. The team also faced challenges in building deliberate project connections at first thus making some activities to run as if they were independent of each other e.g. sport and art. Development of a social mobilization strategy was also a challenge at first due to the absence of clear mechanisms for recruitment and orientation of project participants. This has been identified by (Asthana and Halliday, 2006, p. 42) as one of the most common challenges of community organizations. At first, like is so common with many projects, the project team launched and waited to see who would show up and generally let the agenda to emerge naturally with recruitment. This is the main reason why the project first missed the key participants because of low enrolment of targeted youth who were either obese or suffered weight problems. The response to this challenge was great because the project team reacted immediately by changing strategy to target the key participants. Every project faces the challenge of dealing with conflicts and emotional issues among members. In any community project, social issues form part of the developments, this means that people will always have conflicts and emotions will always hinder rational solutions to problems (Rigler, 2000, p.24). Listening and attending to emotional situations is essential in public projects particularly in social environments with cultural differences and different types of inequalities (Doyal, 1997, p. 334). In this project, such incidents have been occurring since the first day of the project due to many factors. Being a metropolitan area with many distinct cultures and people from different background, there are always bound to be disagreements between the youth in South London. So far the project has overcome this by fostering an environment of friendliness and emphasizing agreement among members in solving their problems. 5.0 Project Funding and Sustainability Funding for the project is provided by the Bromley by Bow Centre, which receives funding from various public and private community development funding institutions. The organization then allocates the funds to different projects under its umbrella on the basis of well set-up criteria. The funds originate from charitable trusts, local authorities, and Arts Boards. Although the project has its project team from the Bromley by Bow Centre, the running of the project is carried out in conjunction with people from the local areas of South London. Although this project has long and short-term plans, the realistic situation is that it can only provide finite investment in that area and at one point it has to either wind up or grow into a program run purely by the community itself without further financial support from the Bromley by Bow Centre. Most of the funding for the project comes from the local authority in London, the second greatest source of funding for the project comes from charitable trusts working in London and some of which are national. Finally, a significant amount of grants also comes from the Regional Arts Board in London particularly because this project incorporates art as one of its key pillars. As had already been pointed out, in the past year individuals have also started supporting the project financially by donating through links provided by the project. For most projects, funding provides limitations to the extent that the project can go, however sustainability of projects can be achieved through various different strategies. According to Ledwith (2005, p. 27), projects that have once been planned as short or medium-term have sometimes ended up lasting for longer through proper sustainability strategies particularly when the projects have been deemed too important to the community to be wound up. One of the most common strategies that have been employed in community development health projects is development of strong partnerships with key stakeholders (Asthana and Halliday, 2006, p. 25). The project in South London is seeking to achieve this by seeking new funding sources, training, dissemination of skills, and planning for the long term viability of the project when after Bromley by Bow Centre withdraws from the project. While securing of further/ mainstream funding is important for the project both in the short and long term, training, dissemination of skills, and long-term planning are all aimed at ensuring that the community can sustain the project itself even after withdrawal of the organization. This is one of the best methods recommended for project implementation by most researchers in community development because it empowers the community to be self-reliant (Marlene, 2011). References Allan, D., 2005. Getting Our Act Together in Community Development and Health: A local training handbook. London: Community Development Foundation. Asthana, S., and Halliday, J., 2006.What works in tackling health inequalities? Pathways, Policies and Practice Through the Lifecourse. Studies in Poverty, Inequality and Social Exclusion Series. Bristol: The Policy press. Barr, A., Stenhouse, C., and Henderson, P., 2001.Caring Communities. A Challenge for social inclusion. [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 13 May 2014]. Curtis, S. E., and Taket, A. R., 1996. Health and Societies: Changing Perspectives. London, Arnold. Davis, A., and Jones, L., 1997.Whose neighbourhood? Whose quality of life? Developing a new agenda for childrens health in urban settings. Health Education Quarterly, 56(4). pp. 350-363. Department of Health, 1999. Saving lives Our Healthier Nation: executive summary (Black Report). [pdf] London: TSO. Available online at: [Accessed 13 May 2014]. Department of Health, 2004.Choosing Health: Making Healthy Choices Easier. [pdf] London: TSO. Available online at: [Accessed 13 May 2014]. Douglas, J., 1996. ‘Developing Health Promotion Strategies with Black and Ethnic Minority Communities which Address Social Inequalities.’ In Bywaters, P., and Mcleod, E. (eds.) Working for Equality in Health. London: Routledge, pp. 179-196. Doyal, L., 1997. Gendering Health: Men, Women and Wellbeing. In Sidell, M. et al. (eds.) Debates and Dilemmas in Promoting Health. Basingstoke: Macmillan for the Open University Press, pp. 333-343. Gilbert, T., 1978. Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance. New York: McGraw Hill. Great Britain, 1998. Independent Inquiry into Inequalities in Health Report (Acheson Report). [pdf] London: TSO. Available at: [Accessed 13 May 2014]. Great Britain, 2004. Securing Good Health for the Whole Population: Population Health Trends (Wanless Report). [pdf] London: HMSO. Available online at: [Accessed 13 May 2014]. Hashagen, S., 2000. Developing healthy communities. Glasgow: Scottish Centre for Community Development. Henderson, P., Summer, S., and Raj, T., 2004. Developing healthier communities: An introductory course for people using community development approaches to improve health and tackle health inequalities. [pdf] London: Health Development Agency. Available at: [Accessed 13 May 2014]. Hendry, L., and Kleop, M. (Eds.), 2007. .Adolescence and Health: Understanding Adolescence Series. Chichester: Wiley and Sons. Marlene, A., 2011. Lifestyle Choices: The Choices We Make. [online] Available at: [Accessed 13 May 2014]. Monks, J., 1998. Whose Health is it Anyway? RSA Journal, 5485 (2/4), pp.17-23 Naidoo, J., and Wills, J., 2000. Health Promotion: Foundations for Practice, 2nd ed. London: Bailliere Tindall. Popay, J., 2006. Sharing Power – Requires a Radical Shift. CHEX-POINT: A quarterly update for the Community Health Exchange, 24, p. 4-5. Reynolds, S., 1997. Psychological well-being at Work – is prevention better than cure?’ Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 43(1), pp. 93-102. Rigler, M., 2000. Withymoor Arts. Community Health Action, 53, pp. 23-45 Smailes, S., and Street, C., 2011. The Health Studies Companion (Palgrave Student Companions Series). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Component 2: Reflection on Practice and Module Example: Recruitment of youth with weight and obesity problems to join the project. Point: At the recruiting stage, we realized that most of the youth affected by weigh and obesity problems were not joining up as had been thought. Since this project mainly aimed to help youth affected by weight problems through art, this was serious problem that needed to be addressed immediately to set the project back to the right course. Interpretation: I feel as one of the project team members involved in the project that we did not anticipate the realities of the recruitment process and this reflects poorly on out planning. Even though we had planned a project manly targeting youth affected by weight problems, we had not thoroughly considered methods of attracting this particular group. However, I am also satisfied by the flexibility of our team in rapidly realizing the mistake and setting out to solve it within short notice through the pro-active initiative of inviting parents and family of affected youth to enrol them or encourage them to join. With regard to interest in art, we also failed to anticipate that most youth would probably be attracted to the sport elements of the program. This also represented a failure to do thorough prior research in the community so as to know the feeling and preferences of the youth with regard to their health development (Smithies and Webster, 1998, p. 49). Research would have enabled us know the feeling of youth affected by obesity and weight problems as well as how to balance our art programs. I am overall satisfied with my performance in the project. My role in particular was to enrol new members into different art activities by identifying their preferences, talents, previous knowledge and experience in art and other aspects. One aspect in which I was successful was identifying leaders among the youth and the most talented individuals in art to play leadership roles. I did this by letting the youth choose what they wanted to do and then working with an art expert to evaluate their performance. One area which I feel I could have done better is in striking a gender balance between the youth. Labonte (1999, p. 40) indicates that in community development projects gender balance plays a key role towards social justice and overall success of the project. In this case, at one point I found that we ended up with far more male participants than females in art activities. Consideration: This project has given me a deeper practical understanding of the principles governing community health development projects. According to Ledwith (2005, p. 22), a wider understanding of the needs and opinions of a community is needed. This was demonstrated to me throughout the implementation phase and evaluation. Whenever the youth were involved fully in any aspect, it succeeded smoothly. For example, the initial recruitment was done without much involvement of the community but after shortcomings experienced, the situation was corrected to let the community play a greater role in ensuring that those affected by obesity and weight problems benefited more. References for Reflection Labonte, R., 1999. ‘A model of community development practice.’ In A community development approach to health promotion. Edinburgh: Health Education Board for Scotland/Research Unit in Health and Behaviour Change, University of Edinburgh. pp. 35–44 Ledwith, M., 2005.Community Development. Bristol: BASW/Policy Press. Smithies, J., and Webster, G., 1998.Community Involvement in Health: from passive recipients to active participants. Aldershot: Ashgate. Read More