Knowledge exchange for community wellbeing

12 March 2019

UCLan’s Centre for Volunteering and Community Leadership to collaborate with Health Alliance Northern Ireland

The University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) has joined forces with a Northern Ireland health group to develop a knowledge exchange partnership.

UCLan’s Centre for Volunteering and Community Leadership will collaborate with Health Alliance Northern Ireland to engage communities in wellbeing projects.

Professor Ali Melling MBE, Director of the Centre for Volunteering and Community Leadership, said: “We are looking forward to building strong links between the Centre for Volunteering and Community Leadership community wellbeing partnerships in Westlakes and Blackburn and the Health Alliance Northern Ireland network.

“We want to facilitate dialogue workshops between our community groups to develop a co-created knowledge exchange, challenging inequalities in community wellbeing.”

Recently, Ali gave the key note address at the 7th Networks Involving Communities in Health Improvement (NICHI) conference. NICHI is part of Health Alliance Northern Ireland and it aims to support the involvement of communities in improving health and social wellbeing and reducing health inequalities.

She spoke about health inequalities in the context of social justice and the importance of engaging communities in shaping policy and practice. Ali also discussed how policy makers and communities should come together in the co-creation of knowledge around health, wellbeing and inequality.

UCLan’s team, led by Ali, will work with conference organisers and NICHI Area Project Officers Veronica McKinley, Ann Marie McStoker, and Pam Davis to take the collaboration forward.