Social Wellbeing

Social Wellbeing requires connections between people and safe healthy interactions, physical and mental health, child development and parenting, healthy lifestyle choices. It is also concerned with demographic changes and their impact on communities and individuals. Participation in community activities and volunteering also form a key element of social wellbeing which comes through strongly in the engagement work we have carried out to inform this assessment.

Building on work at the national level our assessment recognises that giving children the best start in life, protecting them and preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) as much as possible is a key to wellbeing. Adverse Childhood Experiences in particular can damage a child’s chances for living a good life. A tough start can affect physical and mental health, resilience and well-being. This in turn affects educational achievement, employability, risks of getting into the criminal justice system, use of health and social care services and risk of early parenthood and continuing the intergenerational cycle of disadvantage.

Conwy and Denbighshire have areas with high levels of multiple deprivation. People living within these areas have poorer outcomes than other groups in employment, income, health, housing, community safety, access and the environment. Poverty, and particular income poverty are not confined to these areas and incidence of household income poverty and child poverty exist scattered throughout the area. Health inequalities, associated with poverty and deprivation have been clearly demonstrated in further public health research.

We see high levels obesity, alcohol consumption and smoking that are common throughout the Western World. There is some evidence of concentrations of particular poor lifestyle choices among certain geographical communities and among people from particular backgrounds or with particular characteristics although further work is required to develop a firmer understanding. The key assets for tackling these issues are those facilities and outdoor activities that promote active lifestyles and the public health interventions and services focused on smoking cessation, drugs and alcohol.

Domestic abuse also represents a key challenge to wellbeing with implications for personal safety, child development, community cohesion and implications for demand on Police, Health and Social Care resources.

Both Conwy and Denbighshire have large populations over the age of 65 and therefore already experience the challenges of supporting people with age related problems such as, chronic physical and sensory diseases, dementia and falls. We have also highlighted the issue of social isolation which can be particularly damaging for older people. Our evidence also highlights the comparatively small numbers of young people residing in the two local authority areas with out-migration of local young people exacerbating this issue.

Mirroring the relatively large proportion of the population with support needs is the large proportion of the population who care for others. Unpaid carers made up 11.8% of the population in Conwy and 12.4% of the population in Denbighshire at the time of the last census.

Our engagement work found that people place a great deal of value on community groups and volunteering activities and particularly the role community events in supporting social wellbeing. Such organisations and events were often of an small scale and specific to individual Community Areas.

We expect the demographic trends we have highlighted to continue into the future. Population projections suggesting substantial and continued growth in the number of older people and the percentage of older people in the population of each county. Increasing numbers of older people is likely to lead to an increasing number of people experiencing age related problems such as, chronic physical and sensory diseases, dementia and falls. All of which have potential negative impact on peoples overall wellbeing.

Nevertheless, many of our communities have large numbers of retired people who are fit and healthy. Retired people find they have the time to apply their skills and knowledge in different ways than during their years in mainstream paid employment. Many volunteers, carers and part-time workers are drawn from this demographic. The expected increase in both the number and proportion of people over the age of 65 is likely to increase capacity in these areas of activity.

The balance of the community is likely to continue to be affected by out-migration of young people leading to increasing dependency ratios, a reduction in the proportion of the population who are of working age and increase in the proportion who are of retirement age.

The number of carers in Conwy and Denbighshire is increasing with an 11% rise seen between the censuses of 2001 and 2011 in Conwy and a 9% rise in Denbighshire. Recent work as part of the population assessment for North Wales has suggested that an increasing need for social care is likely to lead to greater numbers of people providing unpaid care and providing care for longer. An exercise to map support services for carers is recommended in the assessment.

Increasing demand for health and social care services coupled with recruitment problems in these sectors has been identified as a key risk to wellbeing in the area.

Our engagement work found an emerging vision of an active citizen. Here the role of people themselves, in determining their own future and their own wellbeing, is emphasised. Aspiration has continually been mentioned as has participation. Wellbeing is seen as something that people activity engage in. The new active citizen is seen as one who has the aspiration and the means to participate in:

A strong sense of community is valued and it is expected that people from all age groups will volunteer and participate in democratic processes, community participation in planning activities and the management of some community assets and / or the delivery of some services to their fellow community members. This desire for increased participation in volunteering and community management of facilities and provision of services is supported in legislation including the Social Services and Wellbeing Act 2014, Planning (Wales) Act 2015 , Environment (Wales) Act 2016 and Wellbeing of Future Generations Act 2015.