Working with other explorers locally and across the country, continually learning, developing and collaborating with others, we’re discovering different solutions.
The solutions continually iterate – and what’s required might change, but the question at the heart of everything we do is ‘how do we connect people together, building trust and releasing others to be agents of change within their neighbourhood?’.
Here’s a taste of some of our work:
BD Connect
Community Resources, along with a wide range of other BD Collective members, played a significant role in shaping and involvement with the place response during covid. Funded by Barking & Dagenham Council, BD Connect was established after 85 residents who called the helpline for support said they were lonely.
We provided training for a team of volunteers which included sharing our vision, purpose and operating practises. From the outset, the focus was never the phone call itself, but what it would enable us to demonstrate and achieve if done with compassion – namely care, support, connection, and friendship. We were intentional about building something that encouraged a meaningful connection rather than creating a service provider / service receiver dynamic.
The lockdown period provided the luxury of time required for trust and friendship to develop. The investment of connection over an extended period was key.
As lockdowns eased, volunteers started to do doorstep ‘welfare checks’ when they hadn’t been able to contact someone for a period that was out of the ordinary and caused concern. In those cases, awareness of someone’s involvement with professional teams and services was key. It allowed us to advocate and join up the dots in someone’s care.
For some, post lockdown meant they were able to see friends and family again, there was no longer the need of a BD Connect call. But it was clear that for others loneliness and isolation wasn’t just a short-term symptom of lockdown; it had been a pre-existing, long-term reality which hugely impacted their lives. People felt alone and it affected their mental and physical health. We began to look at what could be next for people and how we could support them in finding meaningful connection and belonging within their local community.
Telephone calls developed into doorstep or garden visits, park walks, coffee shop visits or lunch out together. Volunteers introduced and accompanied people to community activities, enabling them to widen their social circle. Rather than focussing on a polished programme of events, we were careful to ensure that opportunities for people to connect was central to any activities
The learning
Those experiencing isolation or loneliness are often dealing with challenging or complex life circumstances. Having the support of a friend doesn’t always change our circumstances, but it can transform our outlook just knowing we matter to someone.
As well as being close enough to know a someone’s challenges and needs, supportive friends have the privilege of seeing our strengths, qualities, and skills; and encouraging us in those things. We all have our individual lived experiences and something valuable to bring. Today we might be ‘the supported’ and tomorrow ‘the supporters’ , finding connection, purpose, and a sense of belonging which enables us to equip others to do the same.
Love where you live
In 2017 a local resident, and Mum, Lisa, approached Community Resources. Valence Park was her local park, but she felt unable to take her two young children there because the play equipment was broken, and it wasn’t the kind of space that she wanted to take her children – and she was concerned that others felt the same.
Community Resources supported her to work in partnership with London Sport and the Council to improve the play and sports facilities to establish an inclusive, healthy, vibrant, active community within Valence Park.
The learning
Lisa was always very clear – this park belonged to local people, and it was therefore local people who should design it. She staged consultations, and the first group of people she spoke to were the teenagers who had become disillusioned with their surroundings. She asked them what they wanted, and their response was ‘a basketball court’. This became central to the plans, as other locals were also consulted.
To this day the basketball court and play area remain well looked after by the community. There’s no graffiti, and people who use the park take pride in it.
The Corner Coffee House
In 2013 a group of local people gathered together to dream – what if we had a place where local people would want to go for a really nice coffee with their friends – the kind of place WE want to meet up – and where local artisans could display and sell their work?
LifeLine Church owned a shop on a busy local throughfare, and it had recently become vacant – the Corner Coffee House was born. The same group of people who had gathered to dream, rolled their sleeves up and picked up paint-brushes. Other locals caught the vision and joined in.
Over the years it was open, the Corner Coffee House became a beacon of hope for local people. A couple who became regulars have gone on to make enormous contribution to their local community. They attribute it to the day they walked into the Corner:
“We didn’t used to talk to anyone. We just walked up and down Green Lane. Then one day we fancied a coffee. People at the Corner talked to us; it was nice. They made us feel welcome and we kept going back. When Covid hit I became very ill – I have cerebral palsy - and ended up in Queens Hospital. I nearly died. People from the Corner kept in touch with my husband and supported us both. After I’d recovered we got more involved and started to go Castle Point and then church. I wanted to join in too, and now I run a chair exercise class which is really popular. Recently I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. My friends at Castle Point supported me to set up a Healthy Eating club, and we’re testing how best to encourage each other to change our eating habits”
The learning
The focus at the Corner was always on connection – great coffee was simply the vehicle that people wanted at that time. The vehicle might change, but intentionally building an environment where people feel valued, accepted and feel that they belong can happen anywhere.
In the interim period following the closure of the Corner (following the lockdowns), people were welcomed into our connecting_spaces – known as ‘Andrews Corner’ and Castle Point. Post lockdown and with the sharp rise in the cost of living, locals needed something different. A small clothes swap grew, and even though the surroundings were different, local people who popped in, stayed, gained a sense of ownership and became those who also welcomed others.
CommunityConnect
Community Resources cultivated the online platform, CommunityConnect. The platform was born out of observing the way families or individuals with complex needs often ended up falling through the gaps in provision. Support can be hard to find with frontline workers not knowing where to turn. Practitioner knowledge is partial, services not joined up and published information quickly becomes outdated. The programme was developed and established by local people who had experience in frontline delivery, development of digital solutions and Local Authority provision.
CommunityConnect was developed as an antidote. It was designed to provide individuals and practitioners with a single tool that took account of multiple or complex needs and delivered an accurate signposting to appropriate services – both statutory, and community-based organisations.
It reduced costs and increased productivity for local government and other public-facing support providers, enabling frontline workers to access the information they need easily and quickly.
The tool diagnosed the need through a series of questions that explore the problem, rather than asking the user what they want to know – leading to a personalised pathway of available support. The expert system technology determined relevant advice for a user based on answers they provide to a branching, context-aware question framework.
Open Doors
Open Doors was one of the founding initiatives of Community Resources. It started after a local mum met another parent at the school gate who needed support with her English. The mum invited her to her home to start learning. More women joined in, until it became necessary to hire a venue. It soon became clear that while the women were hindered by language, other issues were also prohibiting them from fully participating in their local community, leading them to become socially isolated.
This relational, alongside approach revealed the way that supportive relationships could become powerful unlockers to people feeling able to tackle other significant barriers in their lives. As people experienced genuine care and friendship, they gradually moved from dependence to healthy interdependence, becoming contributors in their community.
Many of the women we worked with had young families, and various health agencies and practitioners started to refer people to us. In particular, renowned Consultant Perinatal Psychotherapist and Strategic & Clinical Lead of NELFT NHS Foundation Trust’s Perinatal Parent Infant Mental Health Service Dr Amanda Jones whose research studied how mothers’ use of maladaptive defensive processes can derail their baby’s development. Dr Jones had been exploring the power of community in addressing social isolation and contacted us.
The learning
Connection – real, mutual friendship with others is as fundamental to improving our health and wellbeing as many public-health initiatives which seek to tackle presented issues such as hypertension, coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity etc.