Sam Taylor-Leighton

Lynn Coulsting (Vanna Linda) initially became involved with GTDT to support her MSc research. With the staff and volunteers, she field tested the Little Nudge system, delivering a number of workshops and activities to understand the impact and benefits of Little Nudge in the workplace.

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Since completing this piece of work Lynn has gone on to explore the benefits of GTDT delivering hands on work around the health and well-being agenda, and to support our work in supporting health and well-being provision in the local area. Her first piece of work was to help staff understand the health benefits of the services they already provided to local residents. We very quickly realised the benefits of having a health professional in the team and Lynn became a director of Granby Toxteth Development Trust Ltd and Grantox Charitable Trust Ltd (charity) in 2017.

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GTDT is a not-for-profit, community anchor based in Toxteth, Liverpool. We support local residents through many activities including learning, employability and enterprise; environmental projects including growing, gardening and developing the places which matter to local people; work with recently arrived individuals and communities, and youth programmes. We receive diverse funding from ERDF, Lottery, Liverpool City Council and MHCLG as well as many other sources of financial support.

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Having an occupational therapist and health professional on the board is valuable in many ways including Lynn’s knowledge of health contracts, her in depth knowledge and understanding of health and well-being and its impact on local residents.

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Lynn has facilitated a number of health and well-being workshops with staff and volunteers helping GTDT to identify the best ways to deliver health and well-being activities, the most appropriate groups and organisations to work with and how to assess the impact of the interventions and the outcomes achieved.

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As part of GTDT’s development we are exploring the benefits of social prescriptions and incorporating health and well-being activities into all of our work. Lynn’s expertise has been invaluable in supporting this work and developing activities and skills within the staff team.

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As a health professional, Lynn’s position as a director, is helpful when dealing with staff and volunteer concerns around physical, mental and emotional health. We have benefited from her experience and knowledge on occasions where a member of staff has a health issue and we have been able to discuss this, informally, with Lynn. We know that should we need to engage Lynn in her professional capacity, she would provide excellent advice and support. This would lead to an improved outcome for GTDT and individual staff members.

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Lynn has facilitated 4 workshops exploring health and well-being for staff, volunteers and local residents and enabled GTDT to explore additional and different funding as well as getting involved in new activities and offering health and well-being activities with increased confidence.

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Lynn’s insight into health and well-being has been very useful on a number of occasions for the GTD board. Lynn has led discussions on various sources of funding, pros and cons, and development work required to put GTDT into a position to bid for these funds.