Singapore's Community of Practice tours NSW

ASPIRE helped host members of Singapore's Community of Practice in Social Prescribing. A mix of practitioners, healthcare and social care professionals, and arts practitioners toured Sydney and surrounds to see how social prescribing and Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) work in practice here.

It was a full itinerary with the delegation visiting University of Sydney academics for talks on nature-based prescribing; Sydney North Health Network on meso-level health structures, Neighbourhood Health Hubs and community-led change; Nepean Blue Mountains PHN on the connector programs; Primary and Community Care Services on embedding social prescribing in mental health programs; the State Library of NSW on how a major cultural institution builds community-facing programs into its offerings; the Art Gallery of NSW to experience a Culture Dose session firsthand; The Hub @ Lexo on community-led ABCD; the Botanic Gardens on Community Greening; Farm it Forward in Katoomba on community-led food and connection programs; and Eleanor Duncan Aboriginal Services, to understand the strength of Aboriginal Community-Controlled approaches to social and emotional wellbeing — places where people can receive care, strengthen culture and connection, participate in community and build wellbeing.

We also spent time with Cormac Russell, a leading voice on ABCD whose thinking underpins much of the ground-up approach the delegation was there to see.

The group left with fresh ideas and new relationships to bring back to their own context. Geography aside, Australia and Singapore are working on strikingly similar problems. Ageing populations, increasing complexity of care, health inequities, social isolation, and growing pressure on health and social care systems. Their trip and the site visits were a useful reminder that we’ve already got a lot of health-generating infrastructure and programs in Australia, and the key is making sure their known, adequately funded and the connections to them are strong.