Huge thanks to everyone who joined our crowdfunding campaign to bring the Christmas Tree back to Stockwell this year!
We were successful! The campaign was given a further boost by Lambeth council pledging to match your support.
Please come and join us for our Lighting Up Ceremony on Thursday 5th December at 4pm – all welcome!
We’re so excited to be at the St Martin’s Day celebration event with Lambeth Portuguese Wellbeing Partnership, Lambeth Council and others this Saturday 9 November 2-6pm in Stockwell Community Centre, Studley Rd. Please come along to meet some great people and community groups. You can also take part in free activities including storytelling, health checks, hand massaging, arts and crafts, music, dancing. Plus roast chestnuts of course!
This year we will be giving donations to St. Martins-in-the-Fields, a charity for homeless people. To support this please bring towels and socks (new), men’s boots, trainers and toiletries.
Here’s an update from one of our partners, Compassion in Dying, on a project we’re doing with them funded by the Lottery:
Advance care planning support on offer for local Portuguese-speakers
As St Martin’s Day celebrations approach on 9 November 2019, Compassion in Dying is encouraging Portuguese-speakers in Lambeth to use the opportunity to think about what’s important to them and to plan for their future healthcare and treatment, so that what matters to each person is known about when health decisions need to be made.
This follows the conclusion of a Lottery-funded project that supported Lambeth’s Portuguese-speaking communities with advance care planning – a process that enables people to think about and record how they would like to be treated and cared for in future, in case a time comes when they are no longer able to make or communicate their own decisions.
Through the project, which was run by Compassion in Dying, the Stockwell Partnership and other local partners, bilingual materials were developed, including an Advance Statement – a document which allows people to document what is most important to them in relation to their future care and treatment. This can include where they’d like to be cared for, their spiritual or religious beliefs, and everyday preferences like diet and music.
Verena Hewat, Outreach and Training Lead at Compassion in Dying said:
“St Martin’s Day is a wonderful celebration of Portuguese culture where families, friends and neighbours come together. It’s an ideal time to think about what is most important to you and how this might affect the care and treatment you do or don’t want to receive in future.
“Through our project last year many participants told us how making an Advance Statement allowed them to convey how important faith, food and culture was to them. Advance care planning enabled them to record their wish to remain involved in these aspects of their life in the future and say who they would like to be involved in decisions about their care.”
Compassion in Dying’s findings from the project are detailed in their new report which is published this week, ‘Faith, Food and Family: Exploring advance care planning with Portuguese-speaking communities’.
Verena added:
“No one plans to become unwell, but putting plans in place now means you can rest assured that if you do become unable to say what you want, those around you will know your wishes. If any local Portuguese-speakers would like help to plan ahead, specialist support is available. Bilingual information on advance care planning will be on offer at the Lambeth Portuguese Wellbeing Partnership’s St Martin’s Day event on Saturday 9th November in the Stockwell Community Centre.”
Further one-to-one support can be accessed through the Stockwell Partnership, which has Portuguese-speaking staff. They can be contacted at 020 7793 7730 or info@stockwell.org.uk.
Advance care planning support on offer for local Portuguese-speakers
As St Martin’s Day celebrations approach on 9 November 2019, Compassion in Dying is encouraging Portuguese-speakers in Lambeth to use the opportunity to think about what’s important to them and to plan for their future healthcare and treatment, so that what matters to each person is known about when health decisions need to be made.
This follows the conclusion of a Lottery-funded project that supported Lambeth’s Portuguese-speaking communities with advance care planning – a process that enables people to think about and record how they would like to be treated and cared for in future, in case a time comes when they are no longer able to make or communicate their own decisions.
Through the project, which was run by Compassion in Dying, Stockwell Partnership and other local partners, bilingual materials were developed, including an Advance Statement – a document which allows people to document what is most important to them in relation to their future care and treatment. This can include where they’d like to be cared for, their spiritual or religious beliefs, and everyday preferences like diet and music.
Verena Hewat, Outreach and Training Lead at Compassion in Dying said:
“St Martin’s Day is a wonderful celebration of Portuguese culture where families, friends and neighbours come together. It’s an ideal time to think about what is most important to you and how this might affect the care and treatment you do or don’t want to receive in future.
“Through our project last year many participants told us how making an Advance Statement allowed them to convey how important faith, food and culture was to them. Advance care planning enabled them to record their wish to remain involved in these aspects of their life in the future and say who they would like to be involved in decisions about their care.”
Compassion in Dying’s findings from the project are detailed in their new report which is published this week, ‘Faith, Food and Family: Exploring advance care planning with Portuguese-speaking communities’.
Verena added:
“No one plans to become unwell, but putting plans in place now means you can rest assured that if you do become unable to say what you want, those around you will know your wishes. If any local Portuguese-speakers would like help to plan ahead, specialist support is available. Bilingual information on advance care planning will be on offer at the Lambeth Portuguese Wellbeing Partnership’s St Martin’s Day event on Saturday 9th November in the Stockwell Community Centre.”
Further one-to-one support can be accessed through Stockwell Partnership, which has Portuguese-speaking staff. They can be contacted at 020 7793 7730 or admin@stockwell.org.uk.
Following the success of the project with Portuguese-speaking communities, the National Lottery Community Fund has awarded funding to the Lambeth Advance Care Planning Consortium, led by Compassion in Dying and Healthwatch Lambeth. The project supports anyone living in Lambeth to plan for their future treatment and care, including communities known to have poorer health experiences, such as carers, people with multiple long-term health conditions, people with learning disabilities, those living with dementia and Lambeth’s Portuguese-speaking communities. The Consortium’s work will include awareness-raising events across Lambeth and one-to-one support to enable local people to document their wishes, ensuring that what matters to each person is known about when health decisions need to be made.
For several years, Stockwell lacked a Christmas tree. Last year, Cllr Caldicott did a fundraiser to bring it back. This year, we are working with the community groups involved in ‘Thriving Stockwell’ to bring it back again, as a focus for celebrating the fantastic community spirit in our neighbourhood. We want to start using the new Memorial Gardens area as a space for community events.
We are seeking to raise £2,500. We have a quote for a 19 foot tree delivered on site of £2256. Lambeth council will put up the lights and fund the electricity. We will use £21 for a Temporary Events Notice and the remaining £223 to fund mince pies and light refreshments at a lighting up party, which will include activities for children and singing.
Please follow this link to make a pledge – and forward to as many friends and family as you can.
Stockwell Forum members showed a real passion and creative energy last night to forge new relationships and connections, with the aim of supporting our neighbourhood to thrive.
The event had a special focus on how we can work better together in our neighbourhood. There was a wide range of representation, including the new Stockwell Primary Care Network, a coordinator and Parent Rep from the LEAP Stockwell Early Years Forum, the Lambeth Portuguese Wellbeing Partnership, and the Stockwell Health and Wellbeing Forum. There were also representatives from our local arts anchor organisation Art4Space, the Guys & St Thomas’ Charity, local pharmacies and GP practices, and a local private sector developer. Cllrs Lucy Caldicot and Mohamed Jaser made great contributions, alongside a council officer from the Lambeth Forum Network – as well as several residents from local estates and PPG networks.
After an introduction on the increasing drive towards neighbourhood and preventative working by the chair, Steve Griffin from Stockwell Partnership, everyone introduced themselves and talked about the many fantastic events, projects and activities they are already doing in Stockwell. The session facilitator Will Nicholson then formed break-out groups to discuss whether people wanted to see more collaborative working in the neighbourhood.
There was a great deal of experience in the room, with a good understanding of the challenges involved in bringing people together who currently live and work in ‘silos’. However, the appetite for creatively addressing these challenges was strong, and there was a clear sense that people did want to work together under a shared set of values and objectives to create a Thriving Stockwell.
The second session facilitated by Will involved discussion of how we might do this. Dr Vik Sharma from Grantham Practice made the point that there is a significant opportunity at the moment for us to shape the neighbourhood working and preventative approach currently being tested by NHS England. Forum members agreed that we were in an excellent position to demonstrate the value of this in Stockwell!
Many thanks to the event’s partners, including Lambeth NHS CCG, the Stockwell GP cluster, PPGs, the Lambeth Portuguese Wellbeing Partnership, LEAP Lambeth, Art4Space and Lambeth council – and particularly to Morley College for hosting us at the Stockwell Centre. For more information contact Steve Griffin at Stockwell Partnership (steve@stockwell.org.uk).
Next steps? We will be meeting on 1st August at 3pm (venue tbc) to develop a short vision statement that we can all use to spread the word and to generate opportunities for funding.