NHS Trust Partner With U's Community Trust
CAMBRIDGESHIRE Community Services NHS Trust have handed CUCT £10,000 to help deliver their campaigns on obesity and sexual health in young people over the next year.
Speaking with the Cambridge News, CUCT chairman, Graham Daniels, said he was thrilled to be joining forces with the health authority and felt it would make a positive impact in the community. He said: “It’s really quite exciting from Cambridge United’s point of view because this is getting involved at a really proactive level."
“We broached it with the NHS Trust because we’re working hard to extend the reach of Cambridge United into far wider areas of our community than we have before, so it’s common sense to speak to providers of health and education. The NHS did feel that strong role models, particularly for young men, could make a real difference to their campaigns. We just feel we have a responsibility as a football club and if we can help with this across Cambridgeshire, it’s the most brilliant thing for the club to be doing.”
CCS NHS Trust chief executive Matthew Winn felt working with the CUCT would spread their messages to a wider audience.
He said: “What we’re looking at with the Community Trust is making sure we can join up with them wherever it makes sense to do something slightly more innovative. It might be a really useful way to support some children and their families who don’t go to an NHS service and could benefit from a different approach."
“The question was can we join forces and do something impressive to help young people start their lives really healthily because our organisation and the Community Trust are looking at the same things. Doing something up front with young people and their families in small or large ways has been shown to have a benefit and if you can do that with your own staff and the outreach work of the Community Trust, it’s public money well spent in really trying to get across what we want to achieve.”
“It’s about doing some really good work around obesity, healthy lifestyles and sexual health and this collaboration between the NHS and the Trust will really pay dividends as well as putting Cambridge United on the map for how other clubs should be doing their work in this country.”
CCS NHS Trust school nurse national child measurement programme lead Mandy Mayes said: “Footballers have healthy lifestyles and having that partnership with them would be really beneficial for us.”
Mandee Worrall, CCS NHS Trust’s contraception and sexual health services manager, added: “Images of local ‘heroes’ and positive role models supporting our work can be an effective way of engaging with boys and young men."