Community Wellbeing Workers Service (CWWS)

Description

In response to growing demand on Adults’ Health and Care services, it has been identified that additional capacity is required to support individuals who would benefit from preventative or lower-level interventions. In many cases, the Older Person’s social worker resource is not best placed, or their skills and time are not optimally utilised, to provide this type of support. The Community Wellbeing Worker service aims to help manage the volume of referrals received by the Older Adults Community Teams by delivering early interventions that prevent, reduce, or delay the need for formal care. By addressing lower-level needs at the earliest opportunity, the service seeks to avoid escalation and promote independence. The Community Wellbeing Worker service has been developed to address this need and respond to the challenge of increasing demand. Building on the success of a previous contract that supported eight Community Teams across the county, this new service model expands both the geographical coverage and the number of Older Adults Community Teams able to refer. The aim is to provide greater consistency of support for Older Adults Community Teams operating across the county. This new model groups together several neighbouring or aligned Older Adults Community Teams. This structure will offer a more cohesive service and enables a larger financial package for potential providers, supporting sustainability and improved outcomes. Offering short-term, person-centred support that complements the work of the referring Older Adults Community Teams has proven a successful model and demonstrated success not only in supporting the resident referred, it has also demonstrated positive outcomes in managing the increasing demand of referrals being received into Adults’ Health and Care. One of Hampshire County Council’s strategic priorities is to enable residents to stay well, maintain their independence, and manage their physical and mental health better, as is referred to in Section 5 of this specification. Building upon the learning from previous Community Wellbeing Worker projects, which demonstrated much of the support being offered related to health and wellbeing support and interventions, this service specification has embedded a greater focus in relation to the strategies and intended outcomes of Public Health. Although the service is primarily designed to support residents with lower-level needs, learning from previous Community Wellbeing Worker projects has shown that the service can also successfully assist individuals facing more complex challenges. This includes cases where an Older Adults Team Social Worker is already allocated. In such instances, Community Wellbeing Workers have helped achieve specific outcomes such as accessing benefits, improving home safety, and engaging with community resources.