Exeter Community Health and Wellbeing Alliance
Exeter’s Community Health & Wellbeing Alliance co facilitated by Matt Merriam, Devon Mental Health Alliances Community Development Lead for Eastern Devon (Mid/Exeter/East/Okehampton/North Teignbridge) & The Royal Devon University Health Trust will be held on 24th June 2025 at Exeter Library, Rougemont Room. The meeting itself will run 2pm-3:30pm, but please feel free to come early and stay a bit later to connect if you would like to.
Current Agenda:
Welcome - Overview of the afternoon and a look at the first social system map results from our survey.
What is your story? - A chance for everyone present to very briefly share their personal "why" behind being involved in health and wellbeing.
Making the Most of a Network - Dr Cécile Emery from the University of Exeter Business School will share some of her findings around the importance of networks and how to make the most of being in one. Dr Emery is the Senior Lecturer of Leadership at the Business School and we are really grateful for her willingness to share with us!
Updates - Time to hear updates from those in the room about activities, resources, and challenges since the last time we met.
Close - Summary of the afternoon and an update on expressions of interest to chair.
After the meeting a survey will be provided so we can continue to track the relational developments this alliance helps create.
Feel free to pass this on to others providing health and wellbeing support in Exeter so they can join this meeting as well.
Below is a petition around Exeter City Council producing an "Exeter Citizens Plan"
Exeter City Council is finalising the Exeter Plan – a strategy that will "shape the future of Exeter for the next twenty years and will guide how the city evolves to meet the needs of the community."
Inspired by this work, we call on Exeter City Council to facilitate a parallel Exeter Citizens' Plan – a living strategy and guide that champions the many ways citizens can help make our city greener, healthier, wilder, fairer, and more enjoyable.
Co-produced with citizens across Greater Exeter, the plan should set out our aspirations and how we can come together – as individuals, families, groups, streets, neighbourhoods, organisations, and communities – to share knowledge, ideas, energy and resources that unlock opportunities for positive change.
The Exeter Citizens' Plan should help our community make progress on the challenges set out in the Exeter Plan, Exeter Vision 2040 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals by reducing inequalities, loneliness, flooding, hunger, emissions, sewage discharges, and boosting biodiversity, culture, new jobs, local businesses, play, hope and opportunities - by guiding us to act as individuals and as a community.
Here’s some information from our previous session.
On 1st April 2025 Devon Mental Health Alliance, in partnership with Royal Devon University Health trust, facilitated the second ever Exeter Community Health and Wellbeing Alliance meeting. Over 25 people representing dozens of organisations supporting the health and wellbeing of Exeter gathered at Exeter Library to connect, build trust, and explore building this new network.
The meeting started with Matt Merriam, DMHA's Community Mental Health Development Lead for Eastern Devon, and Amy Slater, RDUH's Health Inequalities Programme Support Officer, sharing about what has led to this network being formed and the intention to build trust and collaboration across the sector in Exeter. They were also able to share about the funding committed by One Eastern Devon Partnership Group to facilitate these meetings.
Every person present then had an opportunity to share about the wellbeing work they were doing in the city which was absolutely inspiring!
To close the morning, Matt shared about intention to evidence and track the impact the alliance has on relationships between organisations, as well as health and wellbeing provision across the city. To do this a number of partners have joined Matt and Amy (University of Exeter, Health Innovation South West, and All About the Place) to create social system mapping tools and utilise current social network analysis tools. These tools will enable them to monitor how relationships grow and develop between organisations, target meetings to where particular trust needs building, and create evidence for future relational infrastructure funding bids.
Over 40 organisations across Exeter have now signed up to be a part of this growing community health and wellbeing alliance. The next meeting is being arranged for the end of June, and if you provide health and wellbeing support in Exeter and would like to be there please contact Matt at matt.merriam@colabexeter.org.uk.