Campaspe Library Services has created the podcast as part of a research project undertaken by the Campaspe Library’s community outreach coordinator Nerida Dye.
Mrs Dye said that social prescribing aims to identify ways to encourage and enable individuals to take up opportunities to socialise and get involved in things that interest them.
“The program is for people who need assistance with their mental health, have social needs which affect their wellbeing or feel lonely or isolated,” she said.
“We work with these individuals to provide home or community-based services which support social, mental and emotional wellbeing.”
Mrs Dye’s research, funded under the State Library Victoria’s Barrett Reid Scholarship program, focused on gathering local perspectives, working with allied health personnel across Campaspe, and consulting residents supported through Campaspe Library Service’s social and recreational support programs.
Campaspe Shire Council Mayor Rob Amos said the podcast was a wonderful culmination of Mrs Dye’s work and further demonstrated how libraries are important social hubs, not just places to borrow books.
“The work that our library team do out in our community by bringing the library services to residents who cannot attend in person is highly valued, as you will hear from testimonies in the podcast,” he said.
“This podcast is also a great initiative to demonstrate a different communication channel that Council has utilised to tell our residents about projects.”
The social prescribing project and other Campaspe library health and wellbeing initiatives are also featured in the April/May edition of RM Williams Outback Magazine in an article titled ‘Bush Libraries: a new chapter’.
For more information and to listen to the podcast, visit the About Us section of the library website: www.campaspe.vic.gov.au/library
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