Local Area Coordination in England and Wales
September 2022
Updates on Local Area Coordination, the work of the Network and
the areas implementing Local Area Coordination.
In this month’s edition we’ll be covering:
- Hello and Welcome
- Publications
- Swansea Local Area Coordination Workshop
- Vacancies
- Events
A note from from Nick Sinclair,
Director of the Local Area Coordination Network
Hello and welcome to September’s edition of our Newsletter. I hope you’re well and thanks for taking a moment of your time to peruse.
We’ve had loads of activity this month across the Network. This has included supporting Nottinghamshire in the community recruitment of their FIRST EVER Local Area Coordinator which is exciting ground to break there. I’ve also had the privilege of spending a day in a workshop with the York City Council Local Area Coordination team this month. Each member shared a story of the “subtle” (and in some instances not so subtle) “shifts” that they’d witnessed in the York system as a result of working in the Local Area Coordination way. I heard of many examples of systems changing to be more human, focussed on people, place and local assets and building on people’s strengths in the context of the whole picture of their lives. It reminded me of the great value of Local Area Coordinators having a “foot in both worlds” and being a bridge between services / systems and community and the transformative potential this position offers. I heard that by collating and sharing stories of impact, the team had been able help drive forward some impressive changes to local housing procedures for example. I really hope we can share more on this as we begin to document these York stories in a compendium.
This week Tom, our relatively new Local Area Coordination Network Manager, and I also facilitated a workshop exploring core Local Area Coordination concepts with the Swansea team. You can read more about this later in the newsletter.
The time in Nottinghamshire, York and Swansea this month gave me pause to reflect on just how wonderful it is to be back together in our places and meeting together in real life. The next stage for us is to restart our regional gatherings again and bring Local Area Coordinators and managers back together from across our Network. We’ll do this in November/ December and really looking forward to feeling that buzz of Local Area Coordinators from different areas connecting together again.
Enjoy the Newsletter.
Nick Sinclair