Grampian Health & Diversity Network is a project implemented by Grampian Regional Equality Council (GREC) and funded by NHS Grampian Endowment Fund. During the first phase of the project, implemented from March to July 2021, its goal was to empower community members from ethnic minorities to become health champions for their communities by: 1) Increasing awareness on information around COVID-19, the vaccine rollout, and other key health messages and 2) Increasing participation in designing and improving health services.
An innovative way of engaging with communities was planned to achieve this goal and ensure that ethnic minority communities have a strong voice to help improve access and provision of health and social care services in Grampian. Grampian Health & Diversity Network looked to develop a network of health champions from diverse ethnic minority communities. We planned to build up the network with a special focus on communities that are hard to reach and had been potentially most negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. With this model of community engagement, community connectors (sessional workers) from these specific communities acted as the focal point to motivate people to join the network of health champions, providing key health messages and gathering appropriate feedback. The project focused on working with the Polish, African, Muslim and other diverse ethnic minority communities in Grampian.
Please click here to read the main findings from the first phase of the project.