Health chiefs offer support to Polish community

PUBLIC health chiefs at Warrington are working with the town’s Polish community to raise awareness of services which can offer help to them.  
The work stems from a targeted health needs assessment, commissioned by the council’s public
health team last year, which aimed to provide a better understanding of the local Eastern European community’s health and wellbeing needs and to offer recommendations on how these needs could be met.
One of the report’s recommendations was that mental health promotion messages should be translated into key Eastern European languages and made visible in places accessed by people from Eastern European countries.
These recommendations have been put into action with two mental health leaflets written in Polish have been developed and are now being distributed in key areas across Warrington.
One leaflet focuses on the “Five Ways to Wellbeing” which covers easy, everyday actions that can increase wellbeing. It outlines ways in which people can use facilities in Warrington to fit the “Five Ways to Wellbeing” into their daily lives as well as a focus on services that might be particularly relevant to those members of the Polish community that have English as a second language.
The second leaflet explains how to get help if someone is struggling, feeling suicidal, or is unable to cope.
Both leaflets signpost people to further Polish language information about mental health.
Cllr Maureen McLaughlin, the council’s member for public health and wellbeing, said: “Residents’ health and wellbeing are a key priority for us and it’s important that every person in Warrington has the right to access the same services as everybody else.
“I’m pleased to see that the recommendations from the health needs assessment are being made a reality and that the Polish community can access information about mental health and wellbeing services in their first language.”
Anyone who would like copies of the leaflets to distribute in Warrington should contact Sarah Preston,
community enablement officer on 01925 241360 or email [email protected]