SOL or The Household Model, 2018 - 2022

Health not in a clinic, but around a kitchen table.

We got a call and someone on the other side said, ‘can you help us create this Household model?’

In South London the Portuguese-speaking community is overlooked and underserved. Medicine has failed to shift the patterns of intergenerational ill health. An amazing group of community leaders decided to take things into their own hands and reached out to me and my colleague Hannah McDowall for help.

No white coats. No waiting rooms. Just families, neighbours, flatmates — talking. Listening. Becoming each other’s cheerleaders, confidantes, first responders. Over 3 years working together we made family board games, told traditional stories round the fire and met over cheese, wine and pastel de nata, calling forth community wisdom and connections.

They called it the Household Model. A new kind of health infrastructure: domestic, flexible, relationally complex and deeply radical.

Here, wellness isn’t prescribed, it’s made together. A dad stops smoking, not because a leaflet says so, but because his daughter tells him she’s scared. A grandmother shares soup and blood pressure tips. A WhatsApp group becomes a lifeline. A fridge magnet becomes a manifesto.

It’s imagination as medicine. Incubated in living rooms and stairwells. In stories, shared meals, missed calls returned. And it works — because it was made by the people it’s for.

After our project, S O L was given funding by NHS England to grow the work and reach many more households.

With thanks to the incredible team: Felicia Luvumba, Maria Joao, Gustavo Meixner, Maria van Zeller, Nadia Antonio, Vikesh Sharma, Will Nicholson, Fernanda Correia, Paula Reybitz, Wai Ha Lam, Ana Rei, Ellen Cegatto, Jerusa Vasconcelos, Dúnia Tate, Hannah Mcdowall, Dave Salisbury.