Bethnal Green based social innovation hub The Young Foundation has released a new report surveying unmet need in Britain.  It identifies the ten most commonly unmet psychological needs which it argues were largely ignored during the 20th century,  amongst these are self-esteem, autonomy, relatedness and meaning or self-actualisation.   That psychological need underpins wellbeing is a key message of the study and an essential rationale behind The Good Gym:  By helping to meet the psychological needs of isolated older people (a group that the study confirms as amongst the most vulnerable to unmet needs) we aim to bolster the ability for members to satisfy their own material needs.  I hope the study, which contains a carefully balanced mixture of relevant quantitative information and sensitively written case-studies reminiscent of Michael Young’s work,  acts as a starting point for an approach to government and third sector services that addresses psychological need as an integral part of provision.

The BBC’s front page this morning said that according to the report on social care for the elderly by the Care Quality Commission, the general standard of care is rising.  However the report also says that one in four care homes in Britain are “adequate at best” and eight councils were named as needing to improve their care.

Of course there’s much improvement needed in care for older people but the news does appear to be generally positive – especially locally; Tower Hamlets was judged as “performing excellently”.

According to the report, excellent councils tend to encourage innovative models of service provision, and invest resources in partners to stimulate innovation.  So a big thanks to St Hilda’s East, Bromley By Bow Centre and Toynbee Hall for working with us to provide a new service, CQC likes what you’re doing.

But we musn’t sit about on our laurels. Expert opinion is that top grades are being reached by allowing fewer people into care homes. This flags up a serious problem given the changing demographic of our population. According to the Telegraph, The Department of Health forecasts that by 2028, a quarter of all British adults will be over 65 and the number of people over 85 will have doubled.  Combined with the usual problems of limited funding, this growing strain will increasingly demand fresh solutions.

A recent NESTA report subtitled “How transforming healthcare to involve the public can save money and save lives” said social enterprise is key in finding new ways to tackle the discrepancy between sheer volume of care needed and funding available. The Good Gym is part of a wider movement aiming to reduce the divides in our communities and build systems that allow and encourage people to help each other. in the process it aims to alleviate some of the mounting pressure on our existing social care structures.

The Good Gym have been visiting St Hilda’s Community Centre over the last two weeks.  St Hilda’s works to meet the diverse needs of the area of Tower Hamlets and offers a fantastic range of services for young and old alike.

The Good Gym team have visited two of the centre’s lunch clubs and discussed the plans for the Good Gym with a range of service users and we look forward to working more closely with the centre over the next few months.

On the 23rd of July, St Hilda’s will be celebrating its 120th anniversary - the Good Gym will be joining in a sponsored walk around the boundary estate - if you’re around on that date please come along and help make up the 120km total!

Phillip Raymond at Bromley-By-Bow

We visited the Bromley-By-Bow centre yesterday and left incredibly inspired.  The centre combines a multi-faith chruch, a garden, a nursery and a health centre with a long list of social enterprises all in the same locality.  Its the essence of partnership and integration that is so exciting about how the centre works, because its so closely integrated with so many aspects of the community; gardening, pottery, play areas, cafes- the place has very little problems with crime and its easy for services to refer to each other and provide real holistic care. Ruth Roberts took us on a fascinating tour of the centre and Ivo and I left feeling very excited.