As part of The National Lottery funded Healthy Communities Together Programme in Plymouth we discovered that this emergent way of working was incredibly exciting and challenging as we saw a number of key themes emerge. We've collected our journal entries together by theme so you can explore them in more detail.
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We trained individuals in Plymouth to hold conversations with friends and families asking the question, "What makes you feel like you belong (or not) in Plymouth?"
We fragmented the recorded conversations into over 800 fragments using a mixture of human analysis, group conversation processing involving 105 participants and trained AI. You can use our conversation search tool to see what local people spoke about based on what you are interested in. Conversations — Search
The self-employed contract model at Belong in Plymouth created a distinctive structure where most contributors worked approximately one day per week. This approach brought numerous benefits that ulti...
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Because young people need to be heard. We are not just the leaders of tomorrow—we are the voices of today. This section is written by Gabby Lloyd, a member of the Young People's group.
We trained individuals in Plymouth to hold conversations with friends and families asking the question, "What makes you feel like you belong (or not) in Plymouth?"
Health is Wealth is an ongoing project to bring healthcare and conversations about health directly into Stonehouse, a neighbourhood of Plymouth experiencing marginalisation and health inequalities.
A six weekly network meeting supported by partners from Research and Development at University Hospitals Plymouth and others with an open invite and growing members' list from the VCSE, Health and Statutory sectors.
Our neighbourhoods can be the building blocks of change. They are places we can connect and engage across multiple communities, services, businesses and citizens. We did a deep dive into Barne Barton and St Budeaux led by an engagement process that brought together over 25 local people that resulted in the community designed and implementing initiatives themselves.
Because young people need to be heard. We are not just the leaders of tomorrow—we are the voices of today. This section is written by Gabby Lloyd, a member of the Young People's group.
We held numerous face to face workshops to learn more from the fragments of conversations, helping to strengthen an online network with the opportunity to build relationships with people in the room.
Our experiences, carefully told, are powerful. We have to listen to each other's stories to open our eyes to new ways of working. Our goal was to bring people together to share ideas, resources, and experiences to help build a stronger, more connected community. Together we can recognise where the strong relationships are that support and build resilience and highlight the gaps that show us what else is needed. The sheer scale and complexity of isolation and its effects on health mean we cannot carry on working with soundbite answers as solutions. We know we need to explore and search for answers together.
Although the programme has ended, the aspiration for Plymouth to be a city where no one feels forgotten remains. Plymouth Octopus is continuing its important role as a VCSE infrastructure organisation to champion grassroots community action in Plymouth and as a System Convenor to help weave the city together to create ways of working that reduce health and other inequities.