Rachel Silcock (Community Empowerment and Opportunity Lead) introduced the ‘Community Empowerment’ update report to the Board, and highlighted the following points:

a)     ‘Community Empowerment’ was a process of enabling communities to increase the control they held over their lives and ability to make their voices heard in shaping the services they use and places they lived;

b)    The Community Empowerment programme aimed to help communities tackle issues causing inequalities, reduce dependencies, and build long-term resilience;

c)     It was important to listen to individuals and communities who had practical experience of using services to assess how these services were performing and examine what other measures could be taken to enhance their effectiveness. This was a key component of community empowerment, and helped tackle inequalities;

d)    Plymouth City Council (PCC) were committed to working towards a fairer, greener and healthier city, which had recently been reinforced through the new Corporate Plan;

e)     The Covid-19 pandemic had demonstrated that communities were effective at collaboration and mutual support in times of need, and could help transform the city. Throughout the pandemic in Plymouth, over 800+ volunteers and 70+ neighbourhood groups had been established, such as the: ‘Good neighbour schemes’, Christmas ‘Meals in a box’, ‘Caring for Plymouth, and Resurgam;

f)      There were 5 key themes across the Community Empowerment Programme.

                                               i.     ‘Engagement’ – This focussed on how the Local Authority engaged and listened to the individuals and the community, building on ‘good practise’ already identified. The CEP utilised appreciative enquiries and community events to engage with the community and build listening skills;

                                              ii.     ‘Leadership and Cultural Change’ – This focussed on how the Local Authority could develop leadership and share good practise and progress with others to increase networks of support across the city. Utilising ‘asset based community development’, the programme aimed to identify and promote existing assets and resources within communities such as skills, enthusiasm, knowledge and services;

                                             iii.     Creating the Conditions to Empower People’ – This focussed on providing support to, and promoting the utilisation of voluntary and community sector social enterprises across the city, seeking to establish the conditions for the sector to flourish and allow communities to co-design services best suited to them. 6 ‘Wellbeing Hubs’ had already been implemented across the city, and there were ambitions to develop 3 more in the coming years;

                                             iv.     ‘Volunteering’ - This focussed on harnessing and developing the power of volunteering, which had been demonstrated throughout the pandemic. It was a key ambition to increase the diversity and number of volunteers within communities across the city;

                                              v.     ‘Enabling Community Resilience’ – This focussed on addressing the underlying factors causing individuals difficulties, to build long term community resilience. This included addressing factors such as: digital exclusion, financial poverty, food and energy poverty, and the climate crisis. There were Community Empowerment and PCC teams working across the city to address these barriers.

g)     The Community Builders Programme had recruited last November, and had been operational for approximately 6 months. As such, this report featured the first 3 months of activity, and data would become more valuable as the programme developed over time;

h)    Funding for the Community Builders Programme had been attained from the NHS- ‘fair shares programme’, designed to compensate for underinvestment in Plymouth across the years. This was being utilised to increase the number of wellbeing hubs, increase social prescribing, and resource community builders across the city to promote wellbeing. This supported the implementation of the ‘Community Mental Health Framework’, focused on connecting citizens and building communities, developing more voluntary sector wellbeing and support, and building resilience;

i)      There were a number of programmes and initiatives running in parallel across the city to develop community resilience and allow individuals influence within their communities to develop the services best suited to them. This had been shown to help improve health and wellbeing, and helped tackle issues such as social isolation, loneliness and inequality;

j)      The Resilience programme aimed to transition away from traditional models of support which did not give individuals control over their lives such as ‘food banks’, to a longer term and more sustainable model, utilising communities and individuals as part of the solution. This had seen the development of food co-operatives, and numerous educational initiatives such as the ‘Food is Fun’, ‘Growing Food on a Budget’, and ‘Income Maximisation’ programmes, and aimed to enable communities to share good practise and develop mutual aid, support groups;

k)     There were 13 members of the Community Builders team, working within 15 communities across the city. These communities had been selected based on geography, identity, and deprivation;

l)      During the first 3 months of the Community Builders programme, the team had prioritized getting to know the communities, locating and building relationships with community connectors, attending and supporting community events, starting Appreciative inquires and collecting stories, building partnership connections, and conducting training;

m)   PCC were working with the University of Plymouth to develop a qualitative data monitoring process to evaluate the achievements of the Community Builders project;

n)    Community Builders had been asset-mapping communities to detail existing resources and assets within the City. These were available on the PCC website, and were updated regularly;

In response to questions from the Board, it was reported that-

o)    The Community Empowerment Programme was founded on ‘asset based’ community development, seeking to provide support, direction, funding and coordination to enable communities and individuals to support each other, thus building long term resilience and enabling people to take control of their own lives;

p)    Research had shown that communities and individuals who felt like they had a sense of control over their lives, often had better health and wellbeing outcomes. This community empowerment approach therefore provided people the best chance to have improved health and wellbeing outcomes, despite existing poverty and inequality challenges;

q)    The Community Builders had received trauma informed training, and this would be a key approach throughout the team’s work;

The Committee thanked Rachel Silcock for the report and agreed to-

1.     Note the report;

2.     To receive a further update report regarding the Community Empowerment Programme, when future months data was available.