From our Community Advisory Council’s ongoing work, we know that mental health is a key concern across our catchment. The link between wellbeing and positive social connections as a protective factor for mental ill-health is well known. More recently, ‘place’ has been shown to impact directly on one’s wellbeing.
Wellbeing audit of towns or ‘place’
Where we spend our time has an important effect on our lives and our health and wellbeing. The purpose of conducting a wellbeing audit is to identify key issues community members have about their respective places across the Murray PHN catchment. Improving the quality of places and the opportunities we have access to, can help to address inequalities.
The Place Standard tool provided a framework to assess the quality of a place. It enabled the physical, social and environment quality of a place to be evaluated in a structured way that can help to initiate conversations to identify areas of improvement.
The results are plotted on the below diagrams, with 1 being poor and 7 being excellent.
Community feedback about ’place’
Our Community Advisory Councils highlighted community strengths, including social connection, social capital, taking care of one another and community services. Further discussion helped to expand on these key themes, ranking concerns from most (transport) to least (natural space) important. Community members also told us where people go or what they do to find their 'happy place', with family, environment and water being common themes.
To read the full four pages of feedback click here.
