RCC 16 – Reducing falls in sheltered accommodation – A falls reduction pack and a series of engagement events to engage people in making their homes safer.
Proposer: Sylvia Leary
Funding allocated: £9,950
The Proposal
We wanted to promote awareness of our services and provide advice and guidance information to those people at risk of falling. We decided to do this by developing innovative, comprehensive marketing strategy. We wanted to produce full information packs to residents living in sheltered housing schemes in North East Lincolnshire.
We wanted to do this as effectively as possible to ensure maximum impact, therefore we planned to visit all the sheltered housing schemes to hold coffee mornings and talks to give out the packs.
What we spent the money on!
Item
2,500 Glossy brochures and double sided printed leaflets
4799
Refreshments / coffee mornings
1235
Launch event with video commercial shown
3794
Total – £9950
What we achieved!
The project has been running for 18 months . We have applied to the lottery for Hope Street for a £65,000 fund to develop the project. We have successfully bid for 2 x£ 10,000 bids to do a feasibility study to work in the high rise areas.
We have produced a glossy brochure containing vital and comprehensive advice and guidance about preventing falls. Colourfully presented, easy to read with clear pictures and diagrams, the information contained is positive and inspiring. Material included in the pack : safety check lists for high areas, a falls diary; exercise recommendations and instructions, strategies that can help and reading about how to feel reassured and more confident; a brochure detailing activities to benefit people who at risk available around North East Lincolnshire. We have started to deliver the brochures through the coffee mornings and these will continue throughout the year.
Our marketing campaign involved production of a video commercial which was shown for a full week in Freshney Place Shopping Centre. This enabled us to reach a much wider audience. launch event
There are 1339 individual flats and in addition there are 1970 people in residential homes. This is more people than we have packs for, but they are only being given to
people who need them, rather than being given out to people who are at no risk of falling.
2500 packs that we had printed, at a cost of £4799.60. Because the printing costs came out at less than we anticipated, we agreed with Linda that £3794 could be spent on a falls prevention commercial that was shown in Freshney Place Shopping Centre for a week, reaching a wide audience. The benefits of reaching as wide an audience as possible is critical to us supporting independence of many people who are vulnerable to falls.
Update 2016
A total of 627 packs have gone out to people. 310 to sheltered accommodation, 53 to residential homes, 171 to groups such as the Women’s Institute to distribute. Others have been given out to people on stands. We are seeing a reduction in falls as a result.
Sustainability
Following on from the £9950 we received from Change Champions, our service has recently been successful in obtaining a new contract from the Commissioners. At the beginning of this month, we employed a Collaborative Assistant , who will continue to go out into the sheltered housing schemes , residential homes and the wider community after this project has finished and distribute the falls prevention packs. There is also money in the contract to do a further print run of the packs and to train new instructors to provide Tai Chi and chair-based exercise classes in each of the wards in North East Lincolnshire. The importance of exercise is highlighted in the packs, so being able to provide more exercise classes and closer to people’s homes is really important, especially with the lack of transport available for vulnerable people.
So the money we received from Change Champions has been a springboard to bigger things and the new contract should ensure that the falls packs have a long-term future, with us able to reach many more people.
It hasn’t all been plain sailing and we have received challenges from the sheltered housing schemes. Two of the scheme officers have moved and access is more difficult.