With many community organisations now established to continue resident-led action beyond the life of Big Local, Building Connections Beacons is a strategic investment that supports the connections between them. The programme will run in The Black Country, Liverpool City Region and London.
How were the organisations and locations chosen?
Three geographical clusters have been chosen based on two factors:
- they are home to several former Big Local areas with well-established legacy organisations
- these organisations are in close proximity to each other, across locally recognised geographies.
The programme will see them work together on a locally relevant priority and help them share evidence of the impact of the Big Local programme and the resident-led activities which have developed in their communities.
The Black Country
The Black Country Beacon consortium is working to strengthen skills for engaging with young people and to promote the value of resident-led approaches. This will enable them to make the most of upcoming opportunities related to the government’s national youth strategy, to support young people with skills and employment. The group will also work with staff and volunteers from Black Country Big Local legacy bodies to strengthen their collective capacity and support ongoing development.
Liverpool City Region
The Liverpool Beacon consortium is working to promote the value of community-led approaches to health and wellbeing, with the ambition of influencing public services and policymakers to adopt, embed and invest in these approaches across the Liverpool City Region. The consortium will work on two aims:
- Growing community-led evidence by coordinating work of existing community employees and volunteers, and recruiting residents to build confidence, skills and capabilities to participate meaningfully in community-led evaluation activity of health initiatives.
- Building a collaborative, influential and sustainable Big Local legacy consortium by bringing together the five Big Local areas to share learning, best practice, and resources, and to maximise the value of their collective experience, assets and leadership.
London
The London Beacon project will focus on making the case for community-led approaches to addressing health inequality and improving health outcomes, based on experience and learning from the Big Local programme. To do this the consortium has identified four broad aims:
- To make a compelling and evidenced case for the social value of resident-led and community-based approaches to building health, connection and wellbeing;
- To address health inequalities within the statutory health sector by demonstrating the need for and benefits of community-based, trauma-informed and culturally appropriate approaches to health, connection and wellbeing;
- To convene conversations with policy makers and the statutory health sector with the intention of sharing knowledge, influencing and ultimately taking part in the design of health service provision;
- To enable the six areas making up the London Beacons consortium to build on and continue their work in the area of community-based health, connection and wellbeing through the development of robust relationships, networks and support systems within the voluntary and community sector and health ecosystem.
If you’d like to find out more, you can email programmes@localtrust.org.uk