Unlocking Cornwall’s strengths and needs…

We are now well into our user research sprints, capturing some great insights about community strengths and needs in Neath and Nelson. We look forward to continuing to share more of these with you soon.

We have also been having some exciting conversations with some of our Regional teams exploring further communities to work with. I am delighted to be able to say that following these discussions, we will be taking on another locality to investigate a new community approach with — Camborne, Pool and Redruth, Cornwall!

Why Cornwall?

Why a location in Cornwall over anywhere else in the UK, some might be asking? Well for starters it was a fantastic opportunity to work in collaboration with some of our operational teams, already considering and seeing the value of engaging their community which was invaluable for us and this work.

Having worked in operations myself for the Mobility Aids Service before joining the Innovation Hub, I know how valuable User Researchers and Service Designers are in improving our front line services for our users and teams.

As Helen explains the local teams are also extremely happy for us to be able to work alongside them in engaging with and understanding the strengths and needs existing in the communities we worked together to identify.

“Cornwall was an area where we were keen to do things differently. In recent years our presence in the county had dropped significantly and we were concerned that our approach was not fit for purpose for the evolving needs of local communities.

We were also concerned that Cornwall was an area that had many overlapping vulnerabilities with a large rural population, significant health inequalities, flood risks and large numbers of people employed in industries that were being hard hit by the impact of Covid-19.

My original intention was to bring together representatives from all service lines for a workshop to pool insight, reflect on how we were currently delivering services and where the opportunities could be to do things differently. I envisaged that various outcomes would come from this workshop. In preparation, I reached out to colleagues from the Innovation Hub to see if they could provide any support to help us on this journey.

This was when I first learnt about the exciting plans that were in the pipeline for the new Community Approach. The proposals sounded like exactly what we needed in Cornwall — dedicated time and expertise to work with the local community to really understand what they needed to grow and develop resilience, offering support if needed.

“I am really excited that the new Community Approach project will include work with people in Camborne. We have huge appetite do things differently in this area and really want to improve our understanding of what the communities themselves feel is needed. I believe that this approach has the potential to change the way we work more generally, developing our offer in light of the expert voice of the communities we are part of”

Location

Freya Neason from our Insights team worked with Helen to shortlist 4 locations, which were discussed with local teams and ourselves.

We agreed that the best location for us was going to be Camborne. Residents in Cornwall are some of the most likely to be affected by flooding in the UK, and the communities in Camborne, Pool and Redruth are the most likely in the county to encounter these disasters. There are also high levels of health inequalities prevalent in these communities that disproportionately affect some local residents more than other areas of the UK, meaning these communities face issues relating to 2 out of 3 of our causal areas from the 2030 strategy.

Simon Reeves recently shot some of his documentary in Camborne, ‘Cornwall with Simon Reeves,’ highlighting the high levels of deprivation and health inequalities that exist here. This documentary highlights some of the extreme problems and challenges that exist within the local communities and that people are facing on a daily basis in light of recent events.

Charlotte, Monika and I are all thrilled to have another locality to work in, team to work alongside, and having another member join our team as a local Innovation Officer in Camborne, Pool and Redruth.

Local Innovation Officer

As with our other two locations, we are hiring a local member of staff to support our work. We have British Red Cross colleagues from our Independent Living teams, Mobility Aids Service and Emergency response teams in the area that we and our new Innovation Officer will be working with when appointed.

Do keep an eye out, and we’ll communicate out soon with confirmation of the appointment of our Innovation Officer based in Camborne to work with us and the community with our research there. I’ll leave you with a quote from our local Community Connector, Charlotte Treloar about this work and the potential it has.

‘The residents in the area all want the same thing, a community which cares and to have better services for Camborne, Pool and Redruth.’

Hopefully our work can start to unravel and demonstrate how this might be possible, and what part the British Red Cross may have to play in this!