London Borough of Lewisham: Year 2 Q2 update

The Childhood Obesity Trailblazer Programme is funded by the Department and Health and Social Care and administered by the Local Government Association. Public Health England also providing expert support and advice. Lewisham plans to test its powers to restrict high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS advertising and utilise donated outdoor advertising space for health promoting advertisements.


Progress

  • Work continued on the on the co-production of the first campaign by the Young Mayor’s team. Several prototypes have been developed and the final concept agreed by the steering group. The young people worked alongside a graphic designer to create the Sugar Smart poster.
  • Continued monthly meetings of the partnership steering group
  • Lewisham’s Health and Wellbeing Board (HWBB) has made addressing Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) health inequalities one of its main priorities for the next three years. Three specific areas of BAME health inequality have been selected to focus on: mental health, cancer and obesity. The Trailblazer work has been included in the action plan and this will help secure continued engagement and commitment from community partners
  • A programme of insight work is being delivered by community organisations in Lewisham on physical activity, nutrition and obesity to understand BAME communities’ own views on these inequalities. The first report has been completed and the findings will help inform future campaigns
  • Joint collaboration established between Lewisham and Birmingham public health to perform investigation into Black African and Black Caribbean Health Inequalities. This was initially facilitated through the Trailblazer work and obesity is one area to be reviewed as part of the collaboration
  • Expression of interest for community co-production completed and circulated to community groups

Challenges

  • National impact of COVID-19 on the Out of home (OOH) advertising estate has affected the progress of the project. COVID-19 restrictions have resulted in periods of reduced OOH audience size and  posting activity. Advertising has resumed but there is uncertainty around future restrictions
  • The Trailblazer programme has had to share advertising space with COVID-19 related messages for the public which will impact on the overall viewing figures
  • Changing from in-person workshops to virtual methods to develop co-production advertising material

Learnings

The importance of engaging the right stakeholders at the right time:

  • Particularly true of engagement for co-production, ensuring they are part of the project inception, planning and delivery
  • The cross-sector nature of the partnerships is important as it enables a wide range of valuable perspectives and insights to be gained.

Cross-sector collaboration and sharing in achievements:

  • Being able to see the outputs and products of months of discussions is really important
  • Although this programme has so many different stakeholders – leading to a complex set of relationships – relationships have still been maintained, even during the pandemic and the challenges it has brought with it
  • The benefits for people participating in the process. This has been a very important educational project for the young people who have helped with co-production as they have had the opportunity to meet many different people with different views
  • Communities were at the heart of the co-production, the young people involved were given a lot of free reign, allowing them to shape the final products in the ways they wanted to.

Next steps

  • Agreement on evaluation measures to be conducted, including potential stocktake survey in January and plan interim evaluation. Timings will be dependent on restrictions in place.
  • Local delivery support partner to start work and:
    • Develop a framework and tools/resources for co-production of advertising material
    • Support development of digital/virtual method for the co-production process  
    • Develop a framework/tools for testing prototypes
    • Train community partners to undertake feedback from stakeholders including understanding of intended and unintended consequences of advertising material
  • Lewisham Council’s Communication team to review communications plan for the Trailblazer and timings of when campaign materials can be displayed across the whole council estate
  • Monthly steering group meeting set for next quarter
  • Develop process to engage other media owners into the Lewisham voluntary restrictions.