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Wellbeing project in running for top award

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The Cultural Hubs programme at St Helens Library Service – which provides a programme of creative arts across St Helens 13 libraries to support local wellbeing and tackle mental and physical health issues – has been shortlisted for this year’s Libraries Change Lives award from CILIP, the Chartered Institute of Library & Information Professionals.

Through the Cultural Hubs project, St Helens libraries are helping the Council deliver its objectives of improving the skills and learning of local people, engaging with the needs of local young people, supporting neighbourhood development and community cohesion and promoting an environment that supports the health and wellbeing agenda. The programme includes performances and transformative arts projects in the library spaces and the library service has struck several partnerships to help actively drive major transformation in local wellbeing and engagement in the arts.

The long-running best practice award highlights transformative initiatives developed by library staff and delivered via the library service that make a dramatic difference to life in their communities, driving better social, health and economic wellbeing and supporting councils in delivering their agendas.

The winner will be announced on Thursday 24 September at CILIP’s AGM and awards in London.

John Vincent, Chair of the CILIP Libraries Change Lives Award judging panel said: “These are the stories we need to be sharing about public libraries. The initiatives shortlisted are examples of the innovative services you will find in good library services up and down the country where the professional expertise of library staff actively drives improvement and wellbeing in communities. It’s easy to forget how many people in the UK are disadvantaged or worse off. Supporting equal opportunities and social justice for everyone and tackling disadvantage, this is what public libraries are really about.”

The other shortlisted projects:

North Ayrshire’s ‘Appiness’ project co-ordinates a programme of educational apps and digital learning for very young children and their parents or carers, enabling the safe and informed use of technologies to kickstart their child’s learning, in areas including literacy, numeracy, art, music, science and technology. Parents also take part, learning about safety controls and how to evaluate age-appropriate content. The programme was built to offer the earliest possible intervention against considerable problems around poverty, personal attainment, health and employment experienced in the region. Fuelling increased personal and educational attainment from preschool age, local schools also benefit as these young digital leaders come to school already engaged in learning and demonstrating valuable transferable skills across the curriculum.

Portsmouth City Council Libraries are shortlisted for their work to provide a comprehensive programme of resources for visually impaired members of the community, to help them increase their independence and wellbeing; and have formed a strong links into the community to ensure the needs of visually impaired adults are taken into account in the planning and delivery of local services. Services include a helpline, a dedicated information offering, translation services into alternative formats, a Braille service and assistive technologies, and group events including a book club and regular events. Thousands have engaged with the service in the past year as visually impaired citizens suffer disproportionally due to reductions in equalities roles within authorities and support services arising from national austerity. The library is working to extend inclusion and accessibility for the visually impaired within the region via partnerships with the region’s schools, community groups and other agencies.

St. Helens Library Services’ ‘Cultural Hubs’ are helping the Council deliver its objectives of improving the skills and learning of local people, engaging with the needs of local young people, supporting neighbourhood development and community cohesion and promoting an environment that supports the health and wellbeing agenda, through creative use of the arts across St. Helen’s libraries. The borough is one of the most deprived in the UK however the library service has struck several partnerships that are actively driving a major transformation improving mental and physical health and tackling social care problems in the town via performances and transformative arts projects in the library spaces. Users of the service are typically those accessing adult social care and health services or at risk of needing these services.

Previous winners of the CILIP Libraries Change Lives Award include Bookstart, the Government-backed scheme that was first piloted by Birmingham Libraries and now reaches 3 million babies and their parents across the UK; and The City of Edinburgh’s HMP Edinburgh Library Partnership, a service which has transformed library engagement among the prison population, tackling social inclusion and providing support opportunities for education and employment for a better transition from prison to community life.

The CILIP Libraries Change Lives Award is judged by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals’ Community, Diversity and Equality Group.

You can watch a short film of the three shortlisted services on Youtube at:

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHhvD6bA34QiBoqnYFQERQwWu82RamBOX

For more information, visit www.cilip.org.uk/lcla

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