Andrew Knight

Andrew trained in art and design and specialised in participatory communication for community development.  From 1985 to 1993 he worked in Pakistan, establishing integrated health promotion and women's literacy programmes for the Adult Basic Education Society, UNICEF  and The Punjab Government.  He works for London Borough of Hillingdon as Health Promotion Strategy Manager and is the Health Literacy module tutor at Thames Valley University. His work in Hillingdon focuses on achieving community engagement, cohesion and wellbeing outcomes through development of programmes that link health promotion with library services, the arts and extended schools.  His consultancy work includes communication reviews for Government service engagement with minorities, development of cross-cultural communication guidelines for the National Information Forum and planning visual narrative approaches to HIV prevention in Tanzania.

Literacy, health and community engagement

In 2000 NHS Hillingdon and the London Borough of Hillingdon established a partnership promote health and tackle inequalities. An important outcome of programme has been local recognition of the inherent value of Libraries as centres for wellbeing promotion and community engagement.  Andrew will present learning outcomes from partnership work between libraries and health promotion in Hillingdon and describe the arts and informal learning approach they use to promote engagement, health literacy, cohesion, library outreach and community development.  He will also draw on experience from international development and the evidence base relating to culture and literacy to suggest ways in which public library services can play a central role in sustainable community development in the UK.