Engaging faith communities in public health through 'Healthy Faith Settings' toolkits – Birmingham City Council

Birmingham City Council is the largest local authority in Europe and is home to multiple faiths. As a place, Birmingham has often faced negative connotations and stereotypes, disregarded as the UK’s ‘second city’. Through hosting the Commonwealth Games 2022, the council wanted to change this narrative and have adopted “Be Bold, Be Birmingham” as a way to promote a positive mindset, and celebration, of their local area. Within this, the council has set out a vision to create a ‘Bolder Healthier Birmingham’, where every citizen can make choices that empower them to be happy and healthy. 

Birmingham is a diverse city, but faith and religious groups have often been excluded from effective engagement because the traditional methods of reaching them are not tailored to their needs. Failing to recognise the difference between religions and their practices means that information is too general to be helpful, while intersectionality is often ignored or misunderstood. Local government engagement can often be limited to digital surveys and tick box consultation. This can exacerbate health inequalities where outcomes become poor and non-specific. 

Birmingham City Council recognised that a different approach was needed. Inspired by the council’s overarching ambition, they reflected on the personal nature of both faith and health and asked themselves a series of questions:

• what does it mean to be Muslim (for instance)?
• how does being a Muslim impact on health?
• how can religious settings, scripture and practice improve health?

This process helped the council understand the differences within and between groups and reflect on residents’ perceptions of their identity. The council could then identify factors which drove health inequalities and co-produce health advice and information which tailored to individual needs.

Armed with this understanding, the council developed a series of community health profiles for the six predominant faith communities in Birmingham: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Sikhism. Working with the respective faith leaders, they co-produced a series of faith setting toolkits which highlighted and explained key public health messages in a way which made sense to the different communities. Faith leaders could then use these toolkits to build health improvement into their own work.

The toolkits’ topics were aligned to specific challenges for each community and are divided into a set of health outcomes relevant to each group. Topics included healthy eating, mental health, conception and pregnancy, and preventing abuse and violence. Each topic contained information aligned to the faith group’s practices and provided an overview of local services and support. In addition, a reflective section for faith settings was provided to review their own practices and learning needs and develop their understanding of signposting, supporting and offering interventions.

Faith leaders have adopted the toolkits and are using the text and advice contained in them to provide health information to their communities. 

The ultimate aim is for faith leaders to mainstream the provision of health information, but this is an ongoing, iterative process. The toolkits are prototypes, so will be re-designed to be more creative and interactive. Another cycle of engagement will follow to improve the content’s relevancy and further develop the council’s understanding of the groups’ profiles and needs. Individual accounts and examples will also be amplified through arts and culture initiatives. 

Birmingham Council views the Healthy Faith Settings Toolkits as a pivotal mechanism in their public health work, to address gaps in their local knowledge and to break down the health inequalities that are disproportionately associated with faith and religion. Continued partnership with faith organisations will further enhance dissemination and ensure a regular feedback loop, while acting as an informal wrap-around to faith groups.

The project comes alongside other engagement initiatives adopted by Birmingham’s public health team, including a successful Community Champions programme which saw 890 people volunteering by the end of COVID-19. 10 per cent of those are continuing to develop skills, and close collaboration with faith leaders through the pandemic. Fundamental to this work however has been a significant mindset shift championed by the director of public health to focus on active listening, engagement and collaboration with communities with a desire to go beyond the short hand of equalities. The public health team has grown from 30 to 120 professionals, who adopt an inquisitive approach to first understand and then act on public health inequalities. This sits alongside a corporate refreshed approach to public involvement building on the learning from COVID-19.

• Having a whole council mindset which supports community empowerment provides the necessary senior buy-in and strategic connections which enables individual projects to succeed. Birmingham’s whole council commitment to ‘Be Bold, Be Birmingham’ has created the space for officers to trial new approaches, enabling innovation to flourish.
   
• Understanding issues at a granular level is vital to ensuring engagement is relevant and therefore meaningful. This is particularly true when communities have been excluded from traditional engagement methods. Developing a deep understanding of local communities, their experiences and their priorities will enable policy or programme objectives to be tailored to people. While it may initially bring more questions, the knowledge will also ultimately bring more viable solutions.
   
• Engagement methods which recognise and celebrate individuals’ identities will be more effective than those which take a general approach. Councils have convening powers and are well placed to act as champions of their communities. Bringing people together, working closely with the community and listening to their experiences, and then tailoring council activities to those voices can provide the more successful outcomes.

Links to relevant documents:

• Healthy Faith Settings Toolkits | Birmingham City Council
• Community health profiles | Birmingham City Council