Consulting with the Filipino Community in collaboration with Sport4Health

Over the past two years, collaborating with local groups has become an essential part of our work through our Small Grants Programme. It enables us to connect with people from a range of minority ethnic backgrounds and minority groups.

By strengthening local partnerships, we can provide a powerful voice for patients and local communities. Working closely with organisations that have already built up trust with their communities of interest makes it much easier for us to gain genuine insights into their challenges and concerns in relation to accessing health and care services.

Our recent collaboration is with Sport4Health, a charity that provides free sport and social activities for children and adults from various communities to improve their mental and physical wellbeing, particularly those from minority communities. We have been supporting them to plan and carry out a consultation process with the local Filipino community to find out what health and social services they use and how they access them.

Executive Director, Edmund Kung shares how the consultation process is going so far…

Who is taking part in the research?

We have been consulting with 30 people from the Filipino Community. 25 identified themselves as female, 4 identified as male, and 1 identified as transgender.

How are you using your grant?

The grant has been used to pay for staff to undertake the consultation, create questionnaires, and design and formulate a final report.

What work has been done so far and what is being carried out in 2022?

We have completed the consultation exercise and are currently in the process of creating a final report that can be circulated more widely.

What are people saying so far?

We have identified that many female participants are unable to take time off of work during the week as they were under pressure to earn as much money as possible to support their families back in the Philippines, with Sunday being the best day to seek health and care support.

Other findings:

  • 90% of our focus group are registered with a local GP
  • 70% prefer to make appointments by phone rather than online as they could speak to someone to decide what type of appointment as well as confirm it there and then.
  • Most went along to or used health services or other services such as optometry or dental when there was a problem, citing that they could not afford to take the time off work for more general health checks etc. It was more important for them to earn/work as much as possible to support their respective families back in the Philippines.

Read about the range of activities Sport4Health provides for the health and social benefit of all the community.

Downloads

Keep in touch If you would like to receive further information, please sign up to our mailing list.