Our health and wellbeing achievements highlighted

Council has noted the
Municipal Public Health and Wellbeing Plan 2018-2022 first annual report, which
has outlined our achievements towards improving the health and wellbeing
of Greater Geelong residents.

The four goals of the plan
are to:

  1. support social connection to improve mental health
  2. increase participation
    in physical activity
  3. improve access to safe and healthy local environments, services
    and food and
  4. increase community safety and prevent violence and injury.

The annual report highlights
a number of accomplishments during the first year of implementation, including:

  • the adoption of the
    Ba-gurrk Gender Equity Framework, which addresses gender equity as a governance,
    community and organisational issue
  • a total of 26,600
    young people attended 960 youth programs aimed at improving social and
    community connections
  • the Delivered
    Meals Program provided 48,000 meals to elderly or vulnerable members of the
    community and
  • the Leisure
    Services ‘LiveWell program’ serviced over 1200 members aged over 55 years each
    week through group-based strength training sessions.

The plan’s second year of
implementation will focus on understanding and capturing the impact of our work and demonstrating our organisation’s level of influence on
community health and wellbeing.

This will inform our approach to the next version of the plan, for which planning will begin in late
2020.

Councillor Kylie Grzybek – Deputy Mayor and Chair – Community Health and Safety portfolio

The
City takes the health and safety of the community seriously. Every Greater
Geelong resident has the right to feel safe and have easy access to services.

I’m
pleased the initiatives from the plan have increased awareness, access and
promotion of healthy options and lifestyles. As a parent, I’m proud to see the
availability of sugary drinks is being reduced at City-owned venues.

The
plan is a good start in trying to change ingrained habits in our community and
these successful projects will form a road map for the second year of
implementation.

/Public Release. View in full here.