{"id":480,"date":"2020-04-21T10:52:45","date_gmt":"2020-04-21T09:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.communitycatalysts.co.uk\/lacnetwork\/turning-on-a-sixpence-a-blog-by-nick-sinclair\/"},"modified":"2024-08-20T11:00:52","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T10:00:52","slug":"turning-on-a-sixpence-a-blog-by-nick-sinclair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.communitycatalysts.co.uk\/lacnetwork\/turning-on-a-sixpence-a-blog-by-nick-sinclair\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning on a sixpence – a blog by Nick Sinclair","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, Local Area Coordinators from across our Network gathered online, having found a precious hour to connect with each other to share learning and raise each other\u2019s spirits.\u00a0 They have been doing this every week since the lockdown brought our normal activity to an abrupt halt like it did for everyone and everything else. \u00a0Hearing them talk, I remarked how Local Area Coordinators had really \u201cturned on a sixpence\u201d in the situation.\u00a0 The term really resonated with one of the Coordinators, Penny, who brought the metaphor to life by sharing her experience of learning to drive in a London taxi cab which apparently have a very small turning angle with an ability to change direction, quickly and with powerful effect.<\/p>\n

Local Area Coordinators really have had to turn on a sixpence.\u00a0 Unable to work alongside people and communities as they normally would, they have instead been supporting local government-led efforts to respond.\u00a0 Most areas, particularly the more established ones, have built on the strengths of Local Area Coordinators ensuring they are focussed on tasks that play to their existing relationships, skills and connections.\u00a0 Coordinators have been encouraged to carry on working, albeit in many cases remotely, with the people they were alongside before the lockdown.\u00a0 This has proved really important as these are people who are often on the fringes of their community for whatever reason.\u00a0 In addition, many Coordinators now have temporary new tasks within health and social care.\u00a0 Most of them are running some type of virtual community hubs, making welfare calls and taking introductions from colleagues running call centres, etc. \u00a0\u00a0Where possible, some of them are still out and about working in the community alongside food and medicine distribution efforts, for example.<\/p>\n

Importantly though, all of them are finding ways to support the communities they serve to continue the good work they have started themselves.\u00a0 This has ensured those community-led responses are not lost in the mix of increasingly \u201chigher level\u201d planning but rather they have become the cornerstone of those plans.\u00a0 This appears to have been aided by the fact that Coordinators have a foot both within the communities they serve and within their local service land.\u00a0 It seems that Local Area Coordination has been able to help bring these worlds together in crisis times, just as it does in normal times.<\/p>\n

With all this change, I have been really encouraged to hear the stories recently shared by Coordinators.\u00a0 They remain consistent with the principles of the Local Area Coordination approach, one that fosters local assets and favours people helping people over external service intervention.\u00a0 Here are a handful of examples:<\/p>\n