Positive Communities 1

Positive Communities was a community initiative comprised of twelve voluntary organisations working at grassroots level to support some of the most vulnerable people in our community, especially those who were the most affected by Covid-19 and whose lives had been negatively impacted by poor mental health, domestic abuse, family breakdown, unemployment and a general sense of anxiety about the future and their role in it.

The project aimed to provide a holistic programme of wrap-around support to help participants move from a negative situation as evidenced in June 2021 when the project was designed (e.g. anxiety, disenfranchisement, economic uncertainty) to one that would be more positive, and which offered them a clear plan for their immediate future, with new skills, improved self-confidence and access to an improved level of support to help them achieve it. The project set out to offer support to 800 people and to achieve 889 outcomes (i.e. improvements across a range of indicators for all those involved). By the end of the project, it had supported 858 participants achieving a total of 809 core outcomes in total with 577 participants achieving a core outcome, and 503 a non-core outcome.

Positive Communities was designed to provide a graduated series of support services for those in most need. Central to its delivery model was a ‘ladder of involvement’ which established a clear route way for participants to join and be supported throughout the programme by agencies in the newly formed Positive Communities’ partnership. Inter-agency referrals were to be encouraged, as well external agency referrals in order to maximise the level of support (including specialist help) available to participants.