Community Champions

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Information on our Kensington and Chelsea Community Champions projects.

The Community Champions programme

Community Champions are neighbourhood-based volunteers who work in the community to promote health and well-being. They are led by professionally trained project leads in community settings.

Video: Bi-borough Community Champions Presents Building Healthier Communities Together

Transcript of this video

(00:06) when we work all together actually we becomes more stronger. So it's an absolute honor to stand before a room full of change makers. Welcome everyone to this 13th annual community champions and maternity champions conference. I think the champions bring a sense of reality and practicality to everyday health and wellbeing.

(00:36) I think they reach communities that we may struggle to from the bigger organizations such as local authority or the NHS. I have shared information about flu vaccination, mental health, and healthy eating. And I have seen how this information makes a real difference. With more time on my hands, I decided to give back to my community.

(00:56) Community champions and the maternity champions have been instrumental in helping our communities access NHS dentist. I work very closely with our local GP practices. Um and they have very close links with the community champions. They report back about the real change that they see in people's lives.

(01:15) Healthy communities depend on people knowing each other making connections, feeling confident, and community champions do that. The work you do every day, promoting health, uh connecting our communities, tackling inequalities, building trust is not just remarkable, it's lifaving. People like community champions come in, they share those bits of information from trusted sources in ways that people are able to relate to.

(01:49) Creating partnership is very important part of the maternity and community champions project. And an opportunity like this for many people to meet and network is is very useful. By collaborating with local organizations, residents, health care providers such as Besper Family Hub, the NHS and grassroots community groups.

(02:11) We can create a network of support that empowers individuals and families. I am working with a lot of people NHS council. um then they have a lot of activities for the adult people. I think when you're able to pull so many people doing great things together, that's the real power. Community connectors, our community champions are incredibly helpful and essential in how we build partnerships across health and care going forward and become the bedrock of neighborhood health as we see it in the future.

(02:45) I want to send out my enormous thanks uh for everything that you guys do. The evolution of the community champions over the last 13 years has been really impressive to see. They are now vital partners in a network uh that is delivering real public health improvements across Westminster and beyond.

(03:04) This year, Kensington and Chelsea got outstanding for our CQC, our care quality commission inspection, which means we are one of the best in the entire country for the adult social care and health we provide in RBKC. And that is down to you as well. The community and maternity champions work really closely with our partners throughout uh Kensington Chelsea and that could be things like the NHS, NHS Trust, GP services, but also through other services pointing people in the right direction.

(03:32) So people like citizens advice can help out with that but also council services too. Working towards the qualification has made me feel more independent, confident and allowed me to learn, grow and turn my passion into a career. Enabled women and men to come through education and training and develop skills and take those skills through into the workforce.

(03:55) And I'm so proud that we are now employing people who started off as community champions in the councils and also in the wider NHS and care system. So what we want from residents, what we want from you, we want you to be informed and engaged. We want you to use your voice. There's a lot of power within the community and I think a lot of residents don't realize their power.

(04:17) The agendas that the community champions programs tries to deliver is the agenda of local people and communities and the impact of that goes beyond what the public health what the partners what the health and care organisations commission because what communities really deliver are far beyond any impact that we assume within our system.

(04:40) more people should know of what you do so that more people can feel the inspiration uh and the warmth that you bring to people's lives. More people working together, collaborating, working in partnership has to be the way forward for all of us. Our community health and well-being worker apprenticeship scheme has received national recognition.

 

The Champions:

  • run health campaigns
  • run community fun days
  • run weekly activity groups
  • link residents with local services in order to create a social movement for health from the ground up, led by local action

What our champions do

Video: Kensington and Chelsea Community and Maternity Champions 2021-22

Transcript of this video

(00:01) Today's really my first day and what I'm going to enjoy about it is one the exercise which is good for me but also to be with people talking it's also good for me having recovering from COVID it was good for me the mind the body

(01:04) the main issue locally is is mental well-being Grenfell tower fire five years ago recently obviously we had coveted pandemic on the top of that the usual day-to-day stresses we work on breath work we work on movement yoga we work on meditation to calm the mind it's really nice to see the community back together after the pandemic she's so happy i like the fact that everybody's together i run the maternity champions project which is part of the larger community champions project and we support families from pregnancy until the first

(01:52) year of the baby's life we have local volunteers who we train we give them all the tools and then they go out and support families mothers fathers during the pandemic we had a lot of input in supporting the food bank through towards the end of lockdown and pandemic we've really supported people with long covered parents or the mothers or you know they have certain issues for example breastfeeding it could be mental health it could be healthy so we're there then to put into the right direction one of the most popular

(02:26) activities which we support here is the community lunches the meet and eat this is a community lunch on a Wednesday afternoon we bring the chef in he makes a healthy lunch it's a great opportunity for people of community to come sit and interact and meet new faces it's amazing to share with different people and try new food also you know in this economy at the moment it's really helpful with the budgeting especially when you look at Kensington and Chelsea there's a big difference between the privileged and the more deprived areas and very often

(03:00) those places are right next to each other we're trying to close that gap so that everybody gets the support that they deserve at Samuel Lewis Estate where we're having the jubilee party today it's a great day out for young old and people who've lived here for many years my grandparents grew up here my mum grew up here now i grew up here my daughter grows up here and it's just been such a family orientated estate and we love it my kids they have extra activities here i have been to the yoga classes which were

(03:36) really fun my role today is um giving out information about what Chelsea community champions provide a lot of people were isolated during the pandemic so what they want is more of this kind of event more of community coming together i feel volunteer in a good time and keep you grounded and in bedtime they can help you to ease your own pain  we work really well with the community champions there's here to support us and various things we've they run various classes this is the bodyguards it's a free dance and fitness class it's a

(04:18) family a friendly event and everyone is welcome i think it's really important that we should exercise it will help strengthen our bones good for our minds i distress myself totally to mix up to socialise to network and to be happy i feel very empowered inside we create this group for uh the if include everybody they can exercise at the same time decrease the isolation it's a part of our relaxing our physical support during COVID we took a lot of our activities online inform people about the vaccination and stop vaccination

(05:10) hesitancy within the community one of the first things that came back face to face was our baby group because we felt that the infants and young kids were really suffering from not being with other people their own age mums benefit from this session by socialising for other mums and other babies they also can come to us for help and support we can sign post them in the right directions how do we keep ourselves hydrated we don't want to buy those drinks from the supermarket because they contain a lot of sugar i became a maternity champion

(05:46) because i want to help young mums today we talked about how to keep them hydrated it gives me a safe space to be able to relate to other mums that you're not alone in this journey it's really helpful for me for my baby a lot of the things that we share with them is not from our own personal expertise it's from providing them with information to other healthcare professionals and services within their local area i really think in this community by what I've been seeing all these three years it's a lot of people who live alone

(06:29) and who who benefit a lot by coming here i participate in zumba because it is something that forces me out from home it's always good to have a zoo but once a week why should we lose our weight we welcome our community here every Monday and Friday today for example Monday we offer free breakfast and zumba as well and we have art therapy as well and the workshop that we're doing today is actually a wonderful connection between the youth of earl's court who created works of art for our group and they're going to be now coloured in

(07:13) over the next month by our group and then they're going to be on show as part of an exhibition at Chelsea Westminster Hospital one of the main issues moving forward especially as like we're living with COVID is you know to help and support people with information and it's just about reconnecting again because we were so disconnected for so long so I've been going to the baby massage the theatre and the local community events and i found them really useful to be able to connect with other local mums this is for people to get to know each other to

(07:45) get to know maybe even other other culture we need more activities so because of that i joined this community champions and today i cooked for about 70 people as you can see i absolutely love community and it's a really nice the community challenge is a really great way to get involved with the community one of the most important things is listening to what the residents want to do and supporting them in doing it we had a brilliant idea by Dirinde who lives on the Sutton Estate and one of them was to run an outdoor

(08:16) cinema and we we made it happen during lockdown what's been really wonderful to hear today is stories from our volunteers about how volunteering has meant they've gone into further education or they've gone into employment as a result of that volunteering so the personal growth through the volunteering and coming together and sharing those stories I think is as important as the impact people are having on on communities and the differences they're making to our communities.

 

Community Champions Programme Managers

Chelsea

Samuel Lewis, Sutton Dwellings and Wilshire Close estates, hosted by SMART London

  • Address: 15 Gertrude Street, The Basement, SW10 0JN
  • Email: Marsha: [email protected]
  • Phone: 07407 194694
Dalgarno

Five Dalgarno 'wedge' estates, hosted by Dalgarno Trust

  • Address: 1 Webb Close, Dalgarno Way, W10 5QB
  • Email: Faye: [email protected]
  • Phone: 07511 9150944
Earl's Court

SW5 and SW10, hosted by SMART London

  • Address: 15 Gertrude Street, The Basement, SW10 0JN
  • Email: Leny: [email protected]
  • Phone: 07734 2303222
Golborne

Wornington Green and Swinbrook estates, hosted by Venture Community Association

  • Address: 103 Wornington Road, W10 5YB
  • Email: Lewis: [email protected]
  • Phone: 07495 3513123
Kensington and Chelsea Maternity Champions

Borough Manager, hosted by Venture Community Association

Notting Dale

Lancaster West, Silchester East and West and Bramley House estates, hosted by the Volunteer Centre Kensington and Chelsea

World’s End and Cremorne

World’s End and Cremorne estates, hosted by Chelsea Theatre.

  • Address: 7 World’s End Place, King’s Road, SW10 0DR
  • Email: Zander: [email protected] 
  • Phone: 07404 456653

Last updated: 13 April 2026