And the last big speak of this group, I come from a slightly different position.
And they come actually as built environment expert concerned about how we design housing, how we design hospitals, areas,
etc. and how that impacts on health generally, but also in specific areas that are suffering from quite a lot of deprivation.
Alan earlier talked about, at least here in Oxford, where I have been working, but also parts of London.
I'm finding some different outcomes in terms of how we, as planners, designers,
architects, etc. can assist other professionals in developing particular strategies.
So which one do I go here? Just yeah.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. OK. So I would like to focus on my experience of the long longitudinal evaluation
in that part of London area called Islington very close to the city of London,
so very central. And talk about the process of engagement, which was a holistic process, engaging all different professionals,
including primary care providers, also schools and various other institutions,
in order to develop a holistic approach and to see how certain symptoms that
were recorded in terms of mental health and wellbeing could or not be remedied.
So I will talk about this case study and then at the end, provide some information about it.
I mean, some of the research that we have carried out in built in Monmouth area that showed the relationship with mental health and health.
Generally, if we live in really very poor neighbourhoods or very poor housing and it is an architectural determinism,
it is really that quite often there are physical and physiological impacts of living in them,
housing or housing that hasn't got proper ventilation or proper cooling or heating.
So we were trying to establish to what extent this area of London in Islington changed over time.
So my research started in 2012 and has been ongoing until now and will continue for another three years.
And we were trying to establish to what extent large area regeneration of multidisciplinary approach that covered all different experts from housing,
transport, air quality, expert health providers, education, etc. If we work together, what can we find out in terms of the benefits?
So the area is very characteristic of quite a lot of social housing in terms of the deprivation index.
It is poorer than most parts of London, although it has also reach areas and are also very densely populated,
very much rebuilt after the Second World War when it was bombed,
and that quite a lot of modernist architecture that by 24 20,
2004 reached a stage where people couldn't live in many of the houses because they had them suffering of condensation and other deprivation factors.
So the project was launched in 2004, and it was funded by the special fund prepared by the Housing Ministry.
And they said the providers,
which went under the umbrella of New Deal for Communities and the project was a holistic improvement of the area in terms of open spaces,
housing and various other factors, together with the indications that health and particularly mental health will be improved as part of it.
And the key aspect was that residents had to be involved.
So some of the previous talks about voluntary groups and various other projects that the
colleagues talked about was very much also that residents had to be part of the project.
So just to give a sense of size, it has about 10000 people.
I'm talking only about one part of Islington, which is called the South Islington, or AC.
One and 94 percent of residents lived in social housing.
Very little open space, heavily built up and quite a lot of deprivation and signs of very poor health.
So in 2004, 11 percent of people who lived on this date suffered from mental health problems and other symptoms.
And we shall see how over time that has improved.
So this is the quality of the man.
And as it was at the beginning of the project, this area on the top left was very much occupied by homeless people, a lot of drug abuse,
alcohol abuse, etc. But if you look at the quality of the rest of the place, nowhere for children to be seen to be playing lack of greenery.
And that caused quite a lot of environmental problems, and they were also linked to high incidence of crime.
So in terms of recorded mental health issues, high levels of stress, anxiety, panic attacks, depression.
Social isolation, loneliness, insomnia and also children suffered from attention deficit and also quite a lot of the symptoms of mental problems,
other health issues have compounded that and they are linked to obesity,
high levels of hypertension, etc., but also alcohol dependency and other problems.
Now that cause that lot of people were out of work for quite a considerable period of time and that caused even bigger problems in the community.
So what happened with the project was that they had to integrate all different departments,
and it was a segmented into different areas of improvement.
Starting with schools and residents, so particularly children who are suffering from mental health problems were targeted in a positive sense,
the work with the team in order to produce their ideas about how they would feel safe in the environment,
etc. So it was then combined with the residents.
So because a lot of volunteers and also a lot of experts who are joining the team in terms of developing the work,
but what was also critical is that local authority professionals, planners, architects and others.
We are also combining both resources, but also expertise in order to take the area holistically.
So dealing with social services, the built environment, natural environment and other key aspects.
Now, the key aspect was how do you put the project together? It's such a large scale.
So the project was segmented into small area attention and therefore each particular pop and state was
targeted in order to develop community response and also to work with local health providers and others.
And that residents were also trained to do surveys and audits and to provide their own input into the area action plan.
Now, what's particularly interesting about this scheme is that it wasn't just a space for space, a target.
If we look at the overall area, it actually produced the network of connected streets, open spaces, services,
etc. So they too didn't just have one pocket of development and the rest is empty so that you could
walk in five to 10 minutes walking capacity in order to reach the school or to reach the shopping,
etc. So the whole area with the participation of residents was put together into the plan.
So it included 19 streets, eight parks and also seven housing estates.
It was a large project and housing was truly critical in that the the quality of
housing and the internal conditions there as important as external condition.
So it was again combined with various other services. So this is what it looks now.
And so this picture that we saw earlier are now completely different in terms of the outcomes.
So we very cold in the improvement of mental health over the time.
And the current figures show that from 11 percent, the quality of mental health has dropped down to 6.4,
again suffering from mental health, which is still higher than the figures for London.
But it is going in the right direction. And what we find here is the particularly useful.
The work with teenagers,
the children and parents and the whole sector is very much integrated in terms of these multi theme and multidisciplinary working.
And not only that,
the establishing that the whole area improvement is contributing to the retraining of people who suffer from long term mental illness problems.
So they were put back to work through the training. Some became engaged in the local market activities,
and quite a lot of the reports that we are getting is that the economic vitality is also helping in terms of the improvement of mental health.
Now, the St Luke's Community Centre is very critical in this area because they have taken a holistic approach, bringing in health experts, education,
working with food experts, etc. again providing community services with quite a lot of volunteers,
particularly people who were part of the project from day one.
And they are also running summer schools for deprived children who come from very poor families and also are trying to
help with schools in terms of learning how to live more healthily and how to deal with specific problems play areas.
Equally important, we discovered because children are experiencing less stress.
Parents accompanying children and therefore the whole area is creating a much more positive ambience and milea in terms of daily life.
So. A looks and is also running a very interesting scheme for elderly.
So there is a lot of social activation, and again, stress levels have dropped down to much lower levels as children are learning how to cook
and to use different article artefacts and also are learning about different skills.
So gardening has become very much part of the whole social rehabilitation programme.
And various other mental health and wellbeing initiatives are now being put forward,
particularly through looks and looks community centre and looking at the longer term implications in terms of
this holistic approach to healthy living and dealing with the issues in terms of the earlier problems recorded.
But it isn't only about both specifically projects we're doing.
It is also how community as a whole is beginning to take charge and responsibility for some of the initiatives.
So social gatherings are very important to include elderly people who are not going out because they're afraid of crime and other issues.
So the ambience and working with artists has helped very much in terms of this social integration, integration and focus group.
Discussion with participants who suffered at the beginning of the project is that they feel much more engaged.
They are able to control that anxiety.
They are also more proactive in terms of contacting rights, services, etc. So the whole social structure has help in the area.
We also carried out a surveys with different traders and residents, et cetera,
so this was the self-reporting one of the documents they regularly produce.
They are how they feel, how they are improving their health, et cetera,
and how the whole area is changing over time as a result of these multidisciplinary approach.
Equally,
the inter-generational working between elderly residents and younger people again governing has played a critical role and that by the benefits are
that there is a much stronger sense of community that people are now not reluctant to go and seek advice if they need in terms of health improvement.
And also stress levels have decreased.
As I stated earlier, and there is a much more positive aspiration in terms of longer-term activities that can be developed.
I'm not going to talk about each individual aspect in detail.
You can look at it later on, but we have produced an audit in terms of almost like the systems analysis in
terms of how different interventions have helped to improve certain disadvantages.
And therefore it's not only one thing that helped in reducing the stress and mental health problems.
It's multiple initiatives that all contributed together.
So basically, what I can offer to all of us here today is that under the current planning system in the in England, health is an important aspect.
So all built environment professionals need to be knowledgeable about health issues.
How are planning and design can impact and therefore multiple disciplinary teams?
Reducing these healthy plans and audits are very important to produce locally.
So many local neighbourhoods are not producing their own health audits and plans, including Oxford and Oxygen.
And I think through the planning mechanism and connected to health systems and provision,
I think we all can learn a lot from each other and how we can work more holistically in terms of
addressing particular issues that are important in terms of delivering health and wellbeing.
So I think just in concluding remarks that such projects are also helping
generally in terms of getting health and wellbeing on the agenda to be discussed,
not to be hidden, and therefore it is very important in terms of community engagement and other activities.
Thank you.