Wellbeing event gives pupils a lesson on the importance of healthy lifestyle

The next generation have been taught about improving their health and wellbeing thanks to an event held at their school.

Penderi Local Cluster Collaborative (LCC) held the event at Cadle Primary School, in Swansea, to help support pupils and their parents to lead even healthier lifestyles.

Pictured: Cadle Primary School staff Katie Taylor and Helen Davies with Penderi LCC business development and implementation manager Anna Tippett and Penderi LCC lead Dr Sowndarya Shivaraj.

It was the cluster’s first event held at a primary school, with an emphasis on teaching children and young people the importance of their health and wellbeing.

The cluster has already hosted multiple free wellbeing events, which have included various workshops and cookery demonstrations for the public, as well as support and advice from community groups and organisations.

The aim has been to support and motivate people to improve their health and wellbeing by raising awareness of the different resources and organisations available to them.

Dr Sowndarya Shivaraj, a GP at Fforestfach Medical Centre and Penderi LCC lead, said: “The aim of our free community events is to bring together a range of health, social care, and third sector stakeholders to share information and knowledge with the local community in a welcoming and friendly environment.

“This time, we partnered with a local school to organise the event.

“The purpose was to provide an opportunity for busy working parents and younger individuals to attend this event in a familiar school environment.

“Our goal was to support and motivate them to enhance the health and wellbeing of their children and family.”

A number of health board teams attended the event to offer information about a variety of services, such as the immunisation service, school nursing service and the Help Me Quit service.

Community organisations such as the Swansea City AFC Foundation, Barnardo’s and the Local Area Co-ordination team were also on hand to provide advice and information to parents.

Pictured: Staff from the immunisation service.

Georgina Assadi (pictured right), project and service development manager for Swansea Bay’s immunisation service, said: “We are a new immunisation service, and we promote vaccinations in the community to remind people that it’s a priority.

“We are a dedicated team for advice and information and aim to reduce vaccination inequity.

“We were previously based in the mass vaccination centre but are now working with local communities to convey the correct messages around vaccinations.”

Staff from the health board’s school nursing service attended the event to raise awareness of the service to parents and children.

Victoria Kiernan, Deputy Head of Nursing Children and Young People and the professional lead nurse for school nursing and looked after children, said: “The team talked to families about the public health service we deliver to school aged children.

“This includes handwashing, nutrition and hydration, immunisation and puberty.

“The team were able to talk to families about how they can contact their school nurse and signposted to the health board website for more information.”

Pictured: A pupil interacting with Swansea Council’s health protection officers.

Cal Prangle, a health protection officer at Swansea Council, said: “We have spoken to parents and children to highlight that we are approaching a period where food poisoning is a risk with barbecues and picnics.

“We aim to promote the general things people can do to reduce their risk such as washing their hands.”

The event was the first of its kind to be held at Cadle Primary School, with more hopefully planned for the future.

Katie Taylor, wellbeing officer at the school, said: “We sent a questionnaire out to parents, and they said they wanted an event for the community.

“It has turned out to be a real success and the feedback from parents has been really positive.

“We would like to build on it and do another event.”

Helen Davies, the school’s family liaison officer, added: “I think it’s important for the people to know about what is in their community.

“It can help to take some of the pressure off GPs as people are gaining knowledge about services and support they may not have known about.”

Penderi LCC will be hosting more wellbeing events in the community over the coming months.

Dr Shivaraj added: “We are passionate about working with the local community and we believe our events provide opportunities to understand and address parents and children’s needs for supporting their health and wellbeing.”