October Integration Update

Creating cross service referrals is an integration priority focus area with a view to strengthening pathways for residents into employment and skills support.

To facilitate this, we held a network meeting event with key collaborators to raise awareness of our respective services’ core offer, eligibility criteria, and referral processes, and had a roundtable discussion exploring how we could improve cross-referrals between employment support and skills providers.

Key collaborators included a representative for Croydon Integrated Networks plus (ICN+), Curriculum Leads for Merton and Sutton Colleges, Partnership Manager for Merton and Sutton Jobcentre Plus, Team Lead for Working Well Trust, and the Project Lead for SLP’s Integration Hub, with a focus on the ‘No Wrong Door’ approach.

Proposed actions include creating participant persona profiles based on the average intended beneficiaries which we can then use to see where we could increase reach and engagement via targeted, co-located activities and events, and build links with local community providers and network groups.

We have identified a clear set of next steps for this network going forward. The overarching aim is to promote and facilitate timely access to the local offer as part of the role stakeholders must play to improve health outcomes, specifically where they are surrounding the social, economic, and environmental factors that shape people’s lives. These factors are collectively described as the ‘wider determinants of health.’

Therefore, ‘Good Work’ is viewed by policy makers as being central to reducing health inequalities, positioning skills and employment support as a key enabler in levelling up.