Camden Community Centres’ Consortium – C4
Background: Ageing Better in Camden Project:
An exciting new Lottery funded project to enable working together to tackle isolation and loneliness among older people. Through participation in the programme older people will be reconnected to local networks and their involvement will strengthen their communities and improve their wellbeing.
Ageing Better in Camden is a partnership of older people and agencies in Camden working closely together to tackle the social isolation and loneliness that many older people in the Borough experience. It is the result of a successful bidding process to the Big Lottery and extensive consultation and involvement within Camden to create a programme.
There are three key themes:
- This first theme of working from within communities most affected will apply and test out asset-based community development approaches to tackling social isolation.
- The second theme sees the most isolated and lonely older people contacted and supported to build friendships and community links.
- As part of its third theme of agencies working together to tackle social isolation and loneliness, the partnership will see many opportunities for older people, communities and delivery agencies to come together to produce and refine activities, and to share how well they are impacting on social isolation as the programme grows and develops.
Community Connectors draws on all three themes and is the biggest strand of work in the Ageing Better in Camden portfolio. It aims to identify all older people who are lonely or at risk of being lonely or social isolated in Camden over the 6 years. The task is to take referrals from agencies and directly from older people and the public about any older person in the borough who is lonely or at risk of being lonely or socially isolated; and then to support each and every person to connect or reconnect with others, depending on their wishes, desires and needs.
We envisage success for the project coming at different places in the ladder of engagement, with some older people attending a social group, or activity, or having a befriender visit them, at one end of the ladder; to older people, first identified by the project becoming volunteer community connectors themselves, members of local advisory boards or volunteers in other parts of the Ageing Better in Camden network, contributing to the strategy and planning of the programme.
The project uses a ‘Bobby on the Beat’ approach, drawing on elements of the highly impactful Local Area Co-ordination approach to community engagement.
Five Area Coordinators (ACs)—will work across each of the five Camden Housing Districts (Gospel Oak, Kentish Town, Hampstead, Camden Town, Holborn), becoming a familiar and trusted presence in these neighbourhoods. They will have access to the facilities and expertise of our community partners, who have been trusted by local people for generations. They will primarily work out in the community, building relationships which will allow them to identify individuals and their needs, as well as assets—in-kind support and volunteers—which will contribute to locality hubs and offer opportunities.
A Project Manager (PM) will oversee strategic work and project administration, ensuring that ACs can focus on relationships on the ground. The PM will link with statutory and Camden-wide programmes, attend events, lead on development, line manage staff, and be responsible for partnership and evaluation documentation, creating uniform paperwork across the project including assessment protocols and databases.
Through regular interaction with tenant and resident associations, housing associations, GPs, Care Navigators, pharmacies, carers’ centres, undertakers, community centres, corner shops, pubs, cafes, social clubs, faith centres and the Fire Brigade, ACs will proactively ensure that people across the community know where and how to connect someone at risk of isolation into the project. Formal referrals will be taken, and it will also be easy to simply discuss concerns. ACs will connect people with the right support, working alongside services such as Care Navigation, befriending or adult social care.
To ensure universal access, ACs will link with other Ageing Better strands to reach marginalised groups, and will use the insight and connections of our community partners, spending time in hard-to-reach communities and encouraging word of mouth referrals.
We will engage with the wider community to build teams of volunteer Community Connectors willing to share their time, interests and skills. These people will come from across the community, including businesses and residents, and individuals who have themselves been identified as being at risk, due to factors such as recent retirement or bereavement. ACs will assure access to appropriate training, venues and information and help volunteers build one to one supportive relationships.
ACs will build on our partners’ existing relationships with businesses, cultural organisations and residents to generate in-kind support across their areas. Taking an asset-based approach, they will maintain ‘live’ knowledge of local opportunities, mapping resources on a rolling basis including activities such as art clubs and dance classes, corporate opportunities, Corporate Social Responsibility budgets, and facilities such as meeting spaces.
Information will be uploaded to a mapping database and shared reciprocally with local asset-based community development strands, RecommendMe, and LB Camden’s Asset Mapping Project. This will include community partners’ activities, such as befriending, lunch clubs, trips, signposting, carers’ support and expertise, and intergenerational activities.
Meetings will take place wherever people feel safe and comfortable, including homes, churches, mosques, cafes, community centres and parks and gardens. Once a relationship and an understanding of an individual’s situation and hopes are established, the AC will match them with mapped assets. This may mean connecting them to another individual with a shared interest, or facilitating a connection to activities they might enjoy. Volunteers will support the process of engagement and, if a person has very limited financial means, the area specific budget may help provide access costs.
C4 itself is a consortium made up of 15 Camden Community Associations all of which have been operating community centres in Camden for decades:
1 Abbey Community Centre
2 Bengali Workers Association (BWA)
3 Castlehaven Community Centre
4 Dragon Hall (Covent Garden)
5 Holborn Community Association (HCA)
6 Hopscotch (Asian Women’s Centre)
7 Kentish Town Community Centre
8 King’s Cross Brunswick Neighbourhood Association (KCBNA)
9 Kingsgate Community Association
10 Maiden Lane Community Centre
11 Queen’s Crescent Community Association (QCCA)
12 Somerstown Community Association
13 Sidings Community Centre
14 St. Pancras Community Association (SPCA)
15 Swiss Cottage Community Association
C4 is responsible for the running of the project for all purposes, with the CEO of Holborn CA (a Director of the Company) acting as line manager for the project manager and the chair of the working group which directly oversees the project. The working group is made up of the local leads for each district:
Holborn & King’s Cross (HCA & KCBNA)
Camden Town (SPCA & Hopscotch)
Kilburn & Primrose Hill / Hampstead (Abbey CC & Swiss Cottage CA)
Kentish Town (Castlehaven CC & Maiden Lane CC)
Gospel Oak (QCCA)
That said - the project has been developed in partnership with a number of other local organisations, all of which we have a track record of cooperation and who have contributed to the shape of the project. In particular Camden Chinese Community Centre, the Fire Service, Groundwork, North London Cares, OurCamden and the Third Age Project will be involved, with Silverline providing materials and training on their services and signposting to Age UK Camden. Over and above this list, we have a lengthy list of established partnerships with everything from London Borough of Camden down to local cultural organisations, businesses and charities in each areas and partnership working will be key to making the difference we want for Camden.
Targets for the project are:
Project Outcomes / 2015/16 / 2016/171. Older citizens at risk from or experiencing social isolation will be involved in their communities and provide stronger support to each other / 550* new older people will be more involved
250 newly involved volunteer contributors
550* new older people will provide/receive increased support
20 older people will become engaged as volunteers, connectors or leaders within the Camden Community
(*550 new older people more involved and providing/receiving increased support can be the same people or different) / 600 new older people will be more involved
250 volunteer contributors
600 new older people will provide/receive increased support
20 older people will become engaged as volunteers connectors or leaders within the Camden Community
2.Older people will experience less social isolation as a result of participation in intergenerational programme activities / 230 older people confirmed through evaluation to be less isolated
3 Services which address the social isolation of older people in Camden are more relevant and better co-ordinated, with increased numbers of older people engaged in their design and delivery / 3 organisations will provide evidence of improved involvement and co-ordination / 3 organisations will provide evidence of improved involvement and co-ordination
3 services and activity confirmed by older people to have involved them in co-design through Ageing Better in Camden
Camden Community Centres’ Consortium – C4, Registered company number 0951239
Registered Office: 19 Winchester Road, London, NW3 3NR