"A stepping stone to a healthier, happier you"

The Plymouth Healthy Futures Service is a health promotion programme funded by the Wolseley Trust, The office for the Director of Public Health Department and the Plymouth City Council. 

The Healthy Futures Service provides advice and support to people to access community activities and services to improve health and wellbeing.

What we can do for you

• If you need help with something non-medical, a referral can be made to the Healthy Futures Service. 
• You will have an assessment with a Link Worker, they will listen you and try to identify what type of upport may need. 
• Your Link Worker will work alongside you to create a plan to help you address your problems. 
• Your Link Worker may then signpost you on to other local orgainsations or activities if required, that can help you further.   

History

In 2012 - the Wolseley Trust was asked to develop this programme as a pilot to include Social Prescribing, which involves working with doctors’ surgeries to offer extra support to people who need assistance with issues that may affect their health but don’t require medical intervention.

Our support workers help people address a wide range of issues including debt, housing, welfare benefits, employment and training.

Up until December 2017, The Healthy Futures’ Social Prescribing had helped over 500 people since the programme started.

For more information please visit the Plymouth Healthy Futures Website by clicking here.

Please note: The Plymouth Healthy Futures Website in currently being merged with the Wolseley Trust Website. We apologise for any confusion this may cause.

In 2018 - we were fortunate in obtaining some funding from the Plymouth City Council which has allowed us to expand our Social Prescribing Service in to 12 more GP Surgeries across Plymouth as well as the 6 we already covered.  This means we are now able to support many more people across Plymouth and assist our participating GP Surgeries with their patients who may need non-medical support. 

We would also like to introduce you to our three new Link Workers, Linda, Sarah, and Sarah (left to right) who will be covering these new surgeries. 

 For more information on the service, please download our Healthy Futures leaflet here.  

Wolseley Trust Counselling Service

Our Counselling Service is coordinated by the Healthy Futures Team and is open to referrals from people who live in the Wolseley Trust's area of benefit. (Please visit our 'Get Involved' section and see our Cathcment Area.)  It is also available to these 4 surgeries who are within our catchment area - St. Neots, St. Levan, Stoke and Trelawny.

Our service is delivered by Volunteer Student Counsellors who are currently undertaking a clinical placement as part of the final stages of training for a Level 4 diploma in Therapeutic Counselling.  Our Counsellors are student members of the BCAP (British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy) and work in accordance with the BCAP ethical framework. 

Our service is for adults aged 18yrs+ referred by their GP.  Counselling is a talking therapy and an opportunity to explore any worries or issues you may have within a safe confidential space with someone who is trained to listen.

For more information on our Counselling Service - Please click here to see our Counselling leaflet.

Please note: there is currently a waiting list for this service due to high demand - to find out the length of the waiting list, please contact the Healthy Futures office on 01752 203673.

Data Protection/GDPR Notice

Both the Heathy Futures Service and the Wolseley Trust Counselling service complies with GDPR and the data protection act.  If you would like to see our Privacy Notice, please download this here.

HEALTH & WELLBEING

At the Wolseley Trust, we continue to attach great importance to our role in promoting health and wellbeing in our local community. We are indeed fortunate to have some excellent facilities to offer, such as the Jan Cutting Healthy Living Centre, but we are also lucky to be able to work in partnership with many other organisations to enable the provision of activities and services that support local people.

Plymouth Healthy Futures

Plymouth Healthy Futures is a key element of the support that we offer to help people to address issues in their lives that may be affecting both their physical and their mental health. Although most people access the service following a referral by their GP, we also take referrals from other health professionals and other agencies such as the Police and housing officers. During the last twelve months we have seen an increase in the number of local people self-referring to the service which has now supported over 500 people.

If you would like to download our latest newsletter please click here

Our support workers, who are all trained to deliver Mental Health First Aid, assist users of the service to address a wide range of issues in areas such as debt, housing, welfare benefits, employment and training. Many of our service users also experience anxiety and depression for which we are able to provide initial support and, where appropriate, to signpost them to specialist services.

This year our team have been trained to become Wellbeing Champions. This means that, as well as helping people to address particular issues, the Healthy Futures team is able to undertake a wider health promotion role by offering users of the service information in key areas such as smoking cessation, managing alcohol consumption, healthy eating and getting enough exercise.

In recent years we have provide six month placements for second year social work students to work with the Healthy Futures team. This year we have been very pleased to have Nicola Bingham with us. Nicola joined the team in October 2016 and soon became established as an excellent support worker. We were sorry to see her leave at the end of April and wish her every success as she moves on to take the third year of her degree course.

Nicola said " It has been an absolute pleasure to work at Wolseley Trust where I have helped to support vulnerable people who have been referred in to the Healthy Futures Programme. Working with the Healthy Futures team, I have learnt valuable skills from some very experienced and knowledgeable people who are working hard to promote social justice within the local community by working one to one with service users and organising events to bring the community together. "
Nicki Bingham

Health & Wellbeing Volunteer

“I have recently finished a 3-month volunteering placement at The Wolseley Trust within the Plymouth Healthy Futures team. I can say without doubt I have never worked with a more driven, open-minded and friendly team. During my placement, I worked closely with Nicola Bingham (Social work placement student), Joanne Bower (Healthy Futures Administrator), Veryan Barneby (Health and Wellbeing Projects Manager) and the wider team to develop and implement new and improved health promotion strategies.” This included:

• Re-designing the Healthy Futures current assessment process and questionnaire.
• Suggesting recommendations of how other health promotion strategies could be incorporated, and build upon the already great work The Wolseley Trust does.
• Assisting with the development of outcome monitoring of health promotion and service user health and wellbeing.
“This was a great opportunity to develop my skills, and work with a forward-thinking team, who were open to new ideas and ways of doing things differently. I consistently felt supported and able to express my ideas in an encouraging environment. It was of great value working with Nicola whose ideas were shaped by her social work background, whereas mine were coming from a more traditional health promotion background. We were able to have many in-depth and thought provoking discussions and debates, which was great for both of our learning. Joanne was exceptional at implementing the outcome monitoring strategy and helped to translate ideas into practical data collection algorithms, seamlessly. The implementations wouldn’t have been possible without her skills and enthusiasm. Finally, without the progressive and ambitious attitude of Veryan I would not have been able to participate in this placement. I am very grateful to have had this opportunity. I would say to anyone who would like to further their skill set, and make a difference within the context of Health and Wellbeing Improvement and Health Promotion, The Wolseley Trust is a fantastic place to do so.” Rebecca Harris, Volunteer