Community Builders

This is a proposal that Torbay Council contributes to the Community Building project run by Torbay Community Development Trust (TCDT). This will be funded from the Adult Social Care Precept.

This proposal will enable the continuation of the neighbourhood-based Community Building programme, which is supporting adult social care’s community led support change programme; developing community resilience; improving health and wellbeing and improving engagement with residents and others. Community Building also supports us to tackle inequality and assists in developing a child friendly Torbay.

The existing team of Builders working within 30 neighbourhoods across the three towns of Brixham, Paignton and Torquay have been in place for over 6 years, building trusted relationships in community to stimulate social action led by citizens, to enable connectivity and support isolated people to engage. They use a range of engagement tools and techniques to enable citizens to be contributors rather than receivers of services around what people care about.

Adult Social Care have been implementing a new approach to social care called Community Led Support, which shifts the approach away from care focussed assessments to strengths-based conversations in community settings. This approach has been proven to promote independence and reduce cost by taking a more holistic approach to supporting people to lead the lives they want. They do this by drawing on their own strengths, those of their own family and networks, those of the wider community and voluntary sector as well as addressing any care needs. Community Builders have provided the essential key link into the community sector for this approach.

The National Development Team for Inclusion, in their report ‘Observable Impacts of Community Led Support: A summary of six opportunities of CLS Strength Based & Place Based working in Adult Social Care’ (September 2021) identify key benefits from Community Led Support:

new Request for Support

have control over their daily life when compared to the national average position

• Community Led Support sites show a higher proportion of people who self-report that they

have as much social contacts as they would like when asked as part of the ASCOF national

questionnaire

The report can be found at:

https://www.ndti.org.uk/resources/publication/observable-impacts-of-community-led-support

Using this evidence-based approach to improved experience and reduction of demand and cost; The Adult Social Care ‘front door’ has been re-designed based on Community Led Support – with calls going via the Community Helpline. Testing indicates that 25% of demand can met by the Community and Voluntary Sector, promoting a person’s own strengths and independence.