Bex Blakey SeeCHANGE
I am driven by helping people to make a difference in their lives to understand their needs and supporting them to make the changes they wish to see in their lives.
I love seeing people progress and achieve their personal goals.
I have lived in Scarborough most of my life, moving away briefly with my dad’s job, and then as an adult I moved to Birmingham, and then Cyprus for 4 years. The good old pull of the sea and my family brought me back and I have brought my son up here for the last 13 years.
My career has largely been within the charity and VCSE sector, working for both British Heart Foundation and Age UK. I now work with SeeCHANGE, a National Lottery funded project to help make a difference within our community as Community Engagement Officer. SeeCHANGE’s main focus is to address health inequalities and improve wellbeing within Scarborough. My role with SeeCHANGE has allowed me to connect with organisations on a deeper level and I like to have a more thorough understanding what is happening in Scarborough that will support my work.
So far The National Lottery funding has enabled SeeCHANGE to fund small not for profit groups to start new initiatives to support Scarborough’s ever growing community.
More recently, my role has developed into a Trust funded NHS Research and Development Engagement Officer working closely on a new initiative, Scarborough Coastal Health and Care Research Collaborative (SHARC). SHARCs aims align closely with SeeCHANGE and my passion for making Scarborough a happier and healthier town.
Additional development opportunities have provided me with an NHS Health Equities Fellowship project around Living with Long term pain.
Finally, working closely with SHARC and the initiatives Research Project Lead has supported me to be part of the development of the Research Engagement Network through the Yorkshire & Humber ICB, identifying and training champions to conduct research events within their communities. The cross sector collaboration has presented research opportunities for academics, NHS, ICB and representatives from Scarborough to work together to better address the health and care needs of our coastal populations through high quality collaborative research with community involvement.