Cumbria

Supporting older people to have good lives at home by helping other local people set up their own community enterprises to offer personalised care and help at home.

We are working with the North Cumbria Integrated Care System, including Cumbria County Council and other local partners, to support all the amazing action groups, communities’ teams and other connectors in the area.

Our focus is on supporting existing and new community enterprises who offer personalised care and help at home. As part of the project, we have developed a directory to showcase community enterprises in the local area.

We have completed a full diagnostic exercise and our local Catalyst, Becky, leads this work across Allerdale (particularly Wigton, Silloth, Aspatria, Solway Coast and Northern Fells).

In 2022, we extended the project into the South Lakes region and have employed a second local Catalyst, Jade, to take this piece of work forward across Kendal, Windermere and Ambleside.

We know from our work with older people in Cumbria that most people would like to stay in their own home as they grow older. The service offered by Community Catalysts will help us to meet the local demand for care by supporting people who want to work in their own communities to set up their own social care enterprise.   We are delighted to be working with Community Catalysts on this programme that will enable us to support more of our older people to live independently at home.

Julie Baillie, Senior Manager for Commissioning, Cumbria County Council