As the Coronavirus Crisis unfolded it became clear that Local Area Coordination as we knew it was going to look very different. Whilst we didn’t know how, we knew we had an opportunity to learn if we moved quickly.

We decided to:

• Establish weekly online Network gatherings to share stories, support each other and capture learning from our members.
• Make a note of information that was shared through social media and blogs etc.
• Document what was being shared through conversations with us, other colleagues and partners.

We summarised this learning in weekly bulletins sent to the Network members along with other observations we’d come across that week.  The bulletins helped Coordinators share new ideas around the Network which in turn helped raise morale.

The result of all of this is the ongoing Timeline we are now able to present below.  It carefully follows the journey of Local Area Coordination during this time but sets it against the backdrop of what we were hearing from the Government, individuals and families and community groups.  We intend to continue documenting updates as new learning emerges over the coming weeks, months and years.

We hope that the Timeline can be used as a reflective tool that informs a better understanding of where we should head next.  It has informed the publication of our new report “Which Way Next” (July 2020), which outlines some of our ideas around this.

The timeline may take a couple of minutes to load. If it doesn’t show below you can look at the PDF version here.