The Healthy Society Programme (HSP) has selected five scale-up projects for a special acceleration grant, giving successful health initiatives the opportunity to be rolled out more widely across the province of South Holland. One of these projects is StartKracht, led by clinical psychologist Anika Bexkens.
The Healthy Society Programme - a collaboration between Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities, Medical Delta and Province of South Holland - has awarded funding to five project consortia. These consortia bring together strong partnerships between knowledge institutions (universities and universities of applied sciences) and societal partners such as municipalities, healthcare organisations and businesses. The five selected scale-up projects focus on improving health within people's own living and working environments. They range from neighbourhood group discussions on health, healthier workplace lunches and remote video care, to early support for young people in child and adolescent mental health services and blood pressure improvement through a proven approach.
More people benefiting from health initiatives
Too often, effective health initiatives remain limited to a single neighbourhood or one hospital. The aim of this acceleration funding is to change that. By scaling up proven methods, technologies (such as Virtual Reality) or social approaches, more residents can benefit from innovations without every organisation having to reinvent the wheel. The selected consortia will use the funding to adapt their interventions for a broader or different target group and/or to implement them in new regions.
Importance of scaling up
Scaling up is essential to relieve growing pressure on healthcare services and reduce health inequalities. When a project proves effective in practice, scaling up ensures that its impact can grow from local to regional (and ultimately national) level. 'We want to make proven successful innovations available to as many people as possible, more quickly,' says Marieke Adriaanse, strategic representative of the Healthy Society Programme. 'Sharing successful innovations accelerates the transition to a healthier society.'
Making use of waiting times in Youth GGZ
Following careful consideration, the Healthy Society Programme selected five projects to receive funding. Over the next two years, these projects will work on scaling up proven health interventions across South Holland. One of these is Scaling up StartKracht: using waiting times in child and adolescent mental health services as an opportunity for recovery, involving Anika Bexkens.
Resilience and self-management
In collaboration with GGZ Delfland and Leiden University, StartKracht will be used for young people waiting for support from child and adolescent mental health services. Instead of waiting passively, they are offered an early conversation to help them start working on their situation themselves. As a result, the waiting period is transformed from a passive and potentially risky phase into an active, recovery-focused stage, strengthening their sense of control, resilience and self-management, while enabling a smoother transition into assessment and treatment.
