New Report for Local Trust: ‘Building Community Leadership’

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We’re delighted to share the publication of ‘Building Community Leadership’ the culmination of work with IVAR as evaluation and learning partners to Local Trust’s Community Leadership Academy (CLA).

Learning from the experience of participants and delivery partners over the last three years, the report sheds light on how the CLA supported individuals in communities to take action during the difficult years of Covid-19, and what will be needed in future to take forward this learning and sustain community leadership.

Learn more about our work with IVAR as learning evaluation partners for Local Trust’s CLA on our blog here

Blog for Local Trust: Time to Reflect and Recharge

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In a blog for Local Trust, Director Richard Usher has written about Just Ideas’ role as delivery partner for the Local Trust ‘Reflect Recharge‘ support offer.

This facilitated support package gives Big Local partnerships the space to reflect on their achievements to date as well as inviting deeper thinking about what support is needed in the final phase of Big Local.

Reflect Recharge aims to build momentum and capacity, but crucially acknowledges the huge achievements of resident volunteers in Big Locals across the country:

“The sessions helped crystalise and firm up thinking about the future and the current context we’re in.”
Devonshire West Big Local

“It has been great focusing on what we want [to achieve] and thinking about solutions.”
Blackpool Revoe Big Local

Richard reflects: “There’s been a great response from the Big Locals we’ve worked with so far, who really appreciate having some time to consider bigger picture stuff and working with us responding to their immediate needs. Reflect Recharge gives that all too infrequent space to reflect on achievements in the community but also to look ahead and tackle any challenges in the final years of the Big Local programme.”

Read more in the Local Trust blog and in our 2022 Annual Review.

Film: Just Ideas’ Learning and Evaluation partnership with IVAR – Local Trust’s Community Leadership Academy

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Just Ideas continue to work regularly with Local Trust Big Local communities. There are 150 English neighbourhoods that receive capacity building support and funding through the Big Local programme.

The @LocalTrust Community Leadership Academy (CLA) was formed in 2019 to help recognise and develop leadership skills which the nominated partnership members then bring back to their Big Local area to support community-led change.

As Learning and Evaluation partners for the CLA, Just Ideas and the Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR) work to evaluate its successes and to identify how best to support the CLA programme in the future.

Collectively we work with Big Local communities to capture their experiences and many inspirational insights are shared.

We are delighted to share this film, made by Windmill Hill Big Local in partnership with IVAR, which highlights the achievements of the Big Local. Partnership members also share the difference the Community Leadership Academy has had on their nominated member and within their community.

You can watch the video here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgu6ILk5Hos

Co-creating an evaluation framework with UCL Centre for Co-production in Health Research

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The UCL Centre for Co-production in Health Research exists to support health professionals, researchers and patients to unlock new ways to address long-standing health issues. Here Just Ideas’ Associate Leila Baker describes a recent blog by Centre co-creator Lizzie Cain summarises what the Centre has learned and gained from Just Ideas’ support.

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Understanding Measuring Change: a new blog by Local Trust

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Local Trust recently published a blog featuring the recent series of events that they commissioned Just Ideas and WSA Community Consultants to develop and deliver.  We worked with participants from Big Local areas to demystify ‘evaluation’ by sharing experience of measuring change, and exploring a theory of change.

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Rethinking Home – our work with Local Trust on engaging transient communities

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The increasing movement and ‘churn’ of people within Big Local areas are major challenges to community development, placing pressures on social cohesion. Just Ideas worked with Local Trust and a range of Big Local areas between January and March 2019 on this research into the experience of, and potential for, Big Local areas to engage with ‘new’ or transient groups or communities in their areas.

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“How do we know we’re making a difference?”

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This was the question that motivated Big Local areas from all over England to come to four training events facilitated by Just Ideas in Birmingham, Bristol and York for Local Trust! Each event brought together Big Local partnerships to share their experience of measuring change in their communities, sorting outputs from outcomes and indicators from evidence.

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