One person can make a difference: sign up to be a Hackney Public Health Community Champion
Over 160 people across Hackney from all walks of life have signed up to help steer the borough through the coronavirus crisis as Community Champions. Hackney Council is now on the look-out for more people to sign up and help keep their community safe.
The Champions are volunteers who receive training on public health guidance and messaging, meaning they are able to provide trusted, accurate and uptodate information on the latest COVID-19 rules and the vaccine rollout.
The people already involved as Champions are proving invaluable to Hackney’s roadmap out of lockdown. From simply re-sharing a Council tweet on the vaccine, to sending a whatsapp message to a parents group on school testing, these seemingly simple acts are helping to keep cases low.
The Community Champions are each ensuring people have access to trusted health advice; raising awareness of the latest public health messaging, spreading information on how vaccines work and turning people away from potentially deadly fake information.
As we have seen, misinformation around COVID-19 can cost lives. The work undertaken by our Community Champions to spread accurate information and advice is pivotal in our fight against the spread of coronavirus. This scheme shows that just one person can make a difference, which in the case of COVID-19 can also mean saving a life. By becoming a Community Champion you have the chance to get the truth out there to protect your neighbours, your loved ones and to keep Hackney safe.
City and Hackney’s Community Champion programme is showing great success so far, as well as individuals, over 50 different voluntary organisations are also involved. Anyone can sign up to become a Champion and the Council wants to encourage as many people as possible to sign up.
I decided to become a Covid Champion to give me the tools to answer the questions that our older residents have about COVID-19 and the vaccine. I have been able to access great training opportunities to support me to facilitate these conversations and ‘make every contact count’. This has allowed me to delve deeper and understand the root of the concern, and address some of those worries. It’s okay to have concerns, but it’s important to have the right answers to the questions that you have. Now I am able to help with that process and support the work to protect the community.
This extra push for Community Champions follows the government granting £23million to dozens of councils in England to help fight misinformation around coronavirus, of which Hackney and City received £288,654. encourage uptake of the jab among high-risk communities and promote public health messaging. Hackney Council is using the Community Champion scheme to share accurate public health messaging and is hosting training sessions for Champions to ensure information is spread with credibility and impact.
To find out more, and to sign up as a community champion please visit: www.vchackney.org/phcc email phcc@vchackney.org or call 07458 306214.