Our Operations Officer, Jamie, visited Himley Road Methodist Church in Gornal Wood, Dudley, last week, to attend Home Instead Dudley and Sandwell’s Community Information event.

In this blog, Jamie takes you through the event and writes about hints and tips for holding these types of community events, for the use of West Midlands Care Association members.

About the event 

Home Instead have been doing these types of events for the last 7 years and use their extensive network of partner organisations to cover all aspects of care at home that a service user may need.

The purpose of this event was to bring together useful resources and partner organisations in the local area, to enable the local community to learn about what services are available for them to continue to be cared for at home.

Partners consisted of the following organisations:

- West Midlands Police

- The Alzheimer's Society

- Dementia UK

- Sedgley Eyecare

- Hope House Community Centre

- Living Well, Feeling Safe- Dudley MBC

- Home Library Service

- Dance to Health

- Dudley Carers Hub

- Scams

- West Midlands Fire Service

- Dudley Telecare Service

- Dixons Green Pharmacy

- Admiral Nurses

- Just Straight Talk

Some of the Exhibition stands on the day (Just Straight Talk/Home Instead Charities/Alzheimers Society & Dementia UK/Hope Church Community Cafe, pictured above.

How to make these events a success?

Susan Love, Director of Community Engagement at Home Instead worked with Marie Share, Care and Operations Director, at Home Instead Dudley and Sandwell, to organise this event and it was Marie who shared with me the importance of care providers networking with their local community. 

Whether this be with residents or organisations, Marie said, “Constant communication and engagement with the local community throughout the year, is what makes these events a success when we hold them”.

Marie continued to state that ‘the relationships built with these partners means we support them in getting their services out there to the local community and they support us with where to refer our service users to the right services for their needs’. 

This two-way relationship includes local organisations visiting Home Instead to do workshops with their staff around topics such as Dementia support and dance classes with service users to reduce falls. 

Additionally, Marie believes that to make these events a success, you must have staff present with a ‘passion and enthusiasm for the job’ and use their personality to attract service users to your organisation, who may be at the event looking at other services. 

Through lengthy promotion, amongst other things, Marie claims any organisation can put on a day like this. 

Methods of marketing that Home Instead used included:

-       Flyers

- Advertising on Black Country radio

- GP surgerys

- Russells Hall Hospital

- Community Organisations

- Local MP sharing through social media

- Home Instead social media 

- Church

- Libraries

- Community cafes

Marie is of the opinion that you should ensure your exhibitors are ‘trusted’ organisations, who you have worked in partnership with enough, to ensure that their service will be useful to the community and that you aren’t providing a platform for services that aren’t of a good standard. 

Furthermore, according to Susan Love, Director of Community Engagement at Home Instead, ‘if you can get political support behind your event, such as the Mayor of Dudley and local Conservative Councillor, Marco Longhi, to attend, that will always give your event more kudos’.

Susan Love, Director of Community Engagement, Home Instead with the Mayor of Dudley, Andrea Goddard & Marie Share, Care & Operations Director with Local Conservative MP, Marco Longhi pictured above.

How can I make my event different?

Susan also arranged for the exhibitor, Dance to Health, to deliver a dancing workshop for all the visitors to participate in. This consisted of the sessions they do with service users and was focused on small movements, either standing or sitting, to enable service users to do a full body workout, that isn’t too physically demanding, but is more focused on increasing flexibility, decreasing muscle stiffness, and reducing vulnerability to falls. 

This activity was well received by the visitors at the event and the whole room participated and plenty of happy faces and socialising took place. 

This demonstrated that, not only would this offer be helpful for service-users’ physical strength, but it would also be helpful for socialising and cognitive skills. 

This event was unexpected by visitors on the day, but it seemed to really break up the day and allow for relationships to develop between visitors and exhibitors, in a relaxed and informal environment. 

Pictured above, Dance to Health delivering their community dance session that they deliver with service users.

Next steps for WMCA members

Marie suggested that care providers must- 

- identify a central venue with good access routes for walking and public transport

- work on building relationships with local organisations and the community

- gain as much local knowledge regarding helpful services as possible and build a trusted network of organisations 

- Ensure the right investment into promotion takes place – making the most of the variety of platforms available.

- Increase engagement with the event through contacting your local MP and/or Mayor to attend. 

- Have the right team on the day of the event who will show your organisation in ‘good light’, through passion and enthusiasm for care. 

- Follow up with evaluation forms to investigate the impact of the event on the local community and exhibitors. 

By Jamie Bloomfield, Operations Officer