The Fife Community Link Worker team recently celebrated their two-year anniversary and also welcomed the news of permanent funding for the service which is supported by Action 15 funding.
Action 15 of the Mental Health Strategy 2017-27 outlined Scottish Government’s commitment to funding 800 additional mental health workers in key settings throughout Scotland. In Fife, funding was allocated to the Health & Social Care Partnership Community Link Worker (CLW) programme. The role of the community link worker is to support people referred from Primary Care with non-clinical concerns.
Link Life Fife (LLF) has 8 community link workers, 7 of which are used to cover each locality in Fife and there is also a CLW specialising in supporting the homeless. The LLF service receives referrals from GPs, mental health primary care nurse teams, allied health professionals, health visitors and advanced nurse practitioners.
The top 5 concerns or support that people who access the service would like are:
- Social isolation
- Financial and welfare support
- Mental health support groups
- Knowledge of local activities
- Access to food banks/local pantries
LLF’s CLWs support people by applying the ‘Good Conversations’ model, listening to what is important to the person and linking them to support, groups and resources within their locality, empowering the person to build up their resilience and enablement.
Since the inception of the service in September 2021, LLF has received over 2000 referrals with an engagement rate of 71%. The Service’s referral pathway has been developed and now facilitates direct electronic referrals via NHS Fife’s SCI Gateway system, allowing easier and quicker referral pathway for Primary Care Clinicians.
Local people find this service incredibly valuable which you can see from the two quotes at the top of the page. Congratulations to the Fife team on their great work.
