Alison Leitch
Alison is the lead for SSPN along with being the assistant service manager for the Edinburgh Community Link Worker Network which she has been with since 2017. The network is a partnership between EVOC and the Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership and is part of the Scottish Government national CLW programme which focuses on health inequalities. They currently have 24 CLWs who are employed by 10 third sectors organisations, and cover 45 practices across the city. Alison is also part of the working group of the Scottish Community Link Worker Network hosted by Voluntary Health Scotland.
Julze Alejandre
Julze is a doctoral researcher and a Scottish Government Hydro Nation scholar at Glasgow Caledonian University. He is currently developing Scotland’s first Blue-Green Prescribing Programme for Primary Mental Healthcare using blue social prescribing and eco-directed prescribing of antidepressants. With background in health promotion and policy, Julze also worked as a senior parliamentary intern for Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle at the House of Lords at the UK Parliament House of Lords, focusing on One Health and Planetary Health policies. Julze has huge interest in implementation research and behaviour change strategies for public health.
Dr Peter Cairns
Peter is a GP in Wester Hailes Edinburgh, and has a long history of co-developing joint-working between Primary Care and Community partners. He is a Clinical Advisor to the Edinburgh HSCP Community Link Worker Network and also has interests around the improved use of Data and Digital solutions in Primary Care and Community Settings. Out with his professional life. he loves music (playing and listening) and the Outdoors.
Liv Cockburn
Liv is a Senior Primary Care Link Practitioner for the Aberdeen Links Programme. She is employed by Samh but work for Aberdeen Health & Social Care Partnership. They were set up in July 2018 and the team is made up of 4 Seniors and 19 Link Practitioner’s based in GP practices across the city. The aim of the service is to support people to connect with their local community and overcome life’s challenges reducing their dependency on primary care health services.
Helen Eborall
Helen is a Senior Lecturer in Critical Public Health at the Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh. She teaches on the MBChB (Medicine) degree and Master in Public Health, and leads qualitative research projects. As part of the ‘Health in Communities’ teaching on the Year 1 MBChB, Helen runs a community practical, through which students learn about social determinants of health through meetings with healthcare and community professionals, including Community Link Workers.
Roseann Logan
Roseann has worked with the ALLIANCE since 2014 within the Links Worker Programme. Roseann provides management, support and leadership to the Community Links Practitioners across Glasgow and West Dunbartonshire.
Roseann also offers support to community resources, aiming to increase their capacity to support people in their local community, particularly those who may seek access to services through their GP practice. This involves working closely with different stakeholders to ascertain development needs and aspirations and to co-create meaningful and effective solutions that maximise their contribution in a community-orientated approach to primary care.
Special Interests: Mental Health, Tackling Health Inequalities, Community Capacity Building, Co-production
Hannah McIlveen
Hannah is the Health Partnerships Manager at Scottish Ballet working within the Dance Health team specifically focusing on social prescribing and the sustainability of the programs. The project is in partnership with Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE) and is focused on exploring formal pathways for Scottish Ballet’s neurological dance health programs into mainstream health and social care settings.
Scottish Ballet is a National Centre for Dance Health and has been delivering innovative work within this field since 2013, benefitting over 400,000 participants through a combination of classes, health resources, engagement programmes, online resources and research studies. Hannah has 25 years of experience working in Healthcare, in addition to her work within Scottish Ballet, she is a senior nurse in NHS Lanarkshire.
Sally Thomson
Sally is the Director Grampian Hospitals Art Trust (GHAT). She has worked in the arts for 35 years. Her career began as a freelancer delivering community programmes and creating work as a craft artist. In 1995 her roles within arts, community and wellbeing started as the coordinator of Somerset Partnerships Arts Education Agency. This led onto work in the North East of Scotland as an Aberdeenshire Council Arts Development and Public Arts Officer alongside a role as Arts Coordinator with Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital. For the last 12 years she has led GHAT and championed arts and creativity as a fundamental part of wellbeing. Sally is also a working group member of Art Heritage Culture and Wellbeing Scotland.