Briefing: Developing a community asset based approach

This paper summarises a piece of work focused on understanding the value of community capacity building as an alternative, or supplement to, traditional adult social care support. It is based on the learning from work with three councils undertaken by NDTi and funded by Partners in Care and Health, to understand the preconditions, risks and opportunities that exist for councils seeking to adopt a community capacity-based approach.

There is a growing recognition that some people could remain independent for longer with the right support and information available to them at the right time. Some people have inappropriately accessed adult social care prematurely and there is the potential, if community-based assets were fully realised, for people to remain independent for longer. This approach is not to expect an already stretched voluntary, community, social enterprise (VCFSE) sector to take on more responsibility or to do more for less; rather it is about working differently with those organisations, coordinating and supporting, working in a more joined-up, preventative way within communities and removing waste and inefficiency, ultimately improving the experience for local people.

This briefing will describe the methodology and the ‘readiness framework’ used that encompasses the key areas that need to be within the scope of a change programme of this nature. It will include some ‘foundations for change’ that are also vital precursors to ensuring the change achieves its potential impact and becomes embedded and sustained over time. It will then provide a series of questions that are pertinent and can be used as a self-assessment prior to embarking on such change, or to review an existing transformation already underway.

Three councils were invited to be involved in the exercise which involved a series of conversations with multiple stakeholders including senior leaders, and cross-council directorates all of which have a role in supporting people and communities.

Partner agencies and community organisations were also involved, including those representing the voice of people with lived experience. A light touch desktop review of local strategies and performance reports was also carried out. All those councils involved had an existing ambition to further develop their work to establish community-led approaches and strengths-based cultures, to join up existing work or to scale up existing pilots and examples of good practice.

Discussions were confidential and aimed to understand the current situation, barriers and risks to change and opportunities, learning and successes. The themes from these conversations were drawn together for each council into a local report which provided an objective, multi-faceted summary of their current position with recommendations for next steps in pursuing, or preparing for, change of this nature.

Six themes

Information was organised around six themes, all of which need to be in place for there to be effective transformational change. During the exercise, conversations sought to ascertain the extent to which these preparatory success criteria existed, or were in development. If any gaps existed the interest was in whether there was an awareness and any remedial action planned.

 

• Keeping people informed of any change initiative, its progress, future areas of focus and how people can get involved is essential, not just within the council but across partners and with the wider community. This communication needs to be planned at the outset and happen throughout, in various ways, with language that is inclusive, understood by all and that can articulate the vision in a simple, engaging way.
• Ensuring and articulating alignment with other change initiatives happening will help people understand how this change complements and connects with those. Similarly, having clarity on the purpose of why this change is needed now and what it seeks to achieve needs to be a compelling narrative, part of the vision and easily communicated.
• Whilst change of this nature often sits within adult social care, it is important that it is seen as ‘everyone’s business’ and that there is a recognition that other council directorates have a responsibility for wellbeing, for supporting citizens to live healthy, active fulfilled lives (in relation to such things as housing, public transport, clean air, community development, adult learning and education, the state of the pavements, safe areas and benches to sit on, and so on). Cross-directorate support and involvement is therefore an important part of having a holistic, long term approach and maximising the impact of the work.
• Similarly, a whole system approach that ensures a joined-up approach across various departments will avoid duplication. Aiming to reduce and streamline bureaucratic processes will be a welcome advantage and generate quick wins. It is valuable to consider this early on and to review it throughout the change initiative. Ideally this needs to be cross-organisational as well as internal and bring together partners to work holistically, something which will likely involve some redesign of process and recording and there has to a willingness to embrace change of this nature.
• Collaboration is the essence of community led, preventative approaches and, if relationships, trust and a shared vision are not already existing, there does need to be the desire to genuinely create these, to not ‘do to’ community partners and other organisations but to genuinely co-design change within each community, bringing all those partners together, something which will likely involve adapting and refining plans and timescales. Internal ‘project management’ needs to be flexible and ‘light touch’. If the change is to be owned and driven across the sector it cannot be constrained by a perceived or actual need on the part of the council for control.
• Linked to leadership but needing attention in its own right, it is important to remember that, to become embedded and sustained, a change of this nature is cultural. As such, it will likely take some years for the behavioural and attitudinal change to become the norm. Recognition of this, of what is needed to achieve that change, and the indicators of that change, is an essential factor in achieving the desired successes.
• Change of this nature will require capacity in relation to time and does need to be properly resourced. Recognition of this is an important part of the preparation needed. As well as the coordination, organisation and bringing partners together and facilitating workshops and discussions there will need to be practical, administrative support along with business intelligence and data analysis and reporting, communications, and so on. Prioritising time for staff and managers to be fully involved engage in discussions, to share views, concerns and ideas also needs to be a consideration to ensure their participation.

The response to each of the following 18 questions needs to be supported by local evidence which, if not currently in existence, needs to be sought in order to get the most out of the exercise.