Transcript www.involveyorkshirehumber.org.uk

Strengthening the voice of the local
voluntary and community sector
Jake Abbas Prof. Mark Gamsu -
Interim Director, Northern & Yorkshire Knowledge &
Intelligence Team (NYKIT), Public Health England
Local Democracy and Health Ltd
@markgamsu
What I will cover
•
The Challenge
•
The Project
•
What we Did
•
Key findings
•
Discussion
• Thoughts on approach
• Other examples of work in this area
Produced by Northern and Yorkshire Knowledge and Intelligence Team
2
The Challenge
•
Importance of Voluntary sector contribution to health
and wellbeing
But generally poorly represented in local needs
assessment processes
•
•
•
•
•
•
Reliance on routine statutory data sources
Contractors
Range and diversity of VCS providers
Capability, capacity, skills
Solution - Develop a methodology to bring VCS
experience to decision makers
Strengthening the voice of the voluntary and community sector in local needs assessments
3
Principles
•
Need little resource
•
Led by VCS
•
Capture the experience
•
Focus on insights that VCS can bring
(rather than making the case for VCS
organisations specifically)
Strengthening the voice of the voluntary and community sector in local needs assessments
4
The Project
Wakefield - Pressured Parents
Sheffield - Food Banks
Strengthening the voice of the voluntary and community sector in local needs assessments
5
What we Did
Strengthening the voice of the voluntary and community sector in local needs assessments
6
What we Did – ‘Hack Days’
• Hard data
• how many people used the service?
• what issues did they present?
• what services were offered?
• who referred?
• Stories
• what were the lives of the people who used the service like?
• what context did they live in?
• what were their personal experiences and stories?
• Pathways
• how had people found their way to the service and why?
• what happened to them when they received a service?
• where did they go?
Strengthening the voice of the voluntary and community sector in local needs assessments
7
Findings: Wakefield - Pressured Parents
• Inequalities dimension
• Alienation and exclusion
• VCS contribution is important and insufficiently
understood - lack of strategic relationships
• Importance of informal and informal support services
• Statutory Sector too often ‘wrong first time’
• Data collection insufficiently coherent
• Potential to increase volunteering support
Strengthening the voice of the voluntary and community sector in local needs assessments
8
Recommendations: Wakefield
Pressured Parents
• Stronger focus on services addressing social
determinants of health and social isolation needed.
• Refresh of disabled childrens data set could be helpful
• Build capability of VCS to capture, analyse and share
information
• Review whether statutory services are working in a
sufficiently joined up way
Strengthening the voice of the voluntary and community sector in local needs assessments
9
Findings: Sheffield - Foodbanks
• Food bank use is growing
• Main driver is poverty
• People are in crisis - users lack the skills, social
connections, knowledge to access the support they are
entitled to
• Food banks connect with isolated people
• Food banks lack resources to engage in strategic
planning
• Much advice given is adhoc
Strengthening the voice of the voluntary and community sector in local needs assessments
10
Recommendations: Sheffield
Foodbanks
• Need for better co-ordination
• Food banks are a rich source of information about some
people who are very marginalised
• Services such as welfare rights could be better targeted at
food banks
Strengthening the voice of the voluntary and community sector in local needs assessments
11
What they said
The process worked well in Sheffield because it
was identified, led and conducted by people
external to the Council or Clinical
Commissioning Group. It helped that relevant
JSNA people were involved. I agree that the
topic should come from the VCS”
Public Health Intelligence Lead
Strengthening the voice of the voluntary and community sector in local needs assessments
12
What they said
“The Rapid Review has been used as evidence to support the
development of an early years lottery bid.”
“The details from the case studies in this review and its professional
design help in particular in getting it noticed.”
The learning has not just been about understanding the issue but also
much of the learning has been about the approach to take and in
really listening to the VCS leading the work and not taking over.”
Public Health Consultant
“The JSNA has given this type of qualitative process credibility which
is often dismissed as anecdotal.”
VCS Chief Executive
Strengthening the voice of the voluntary and community sector in local needs assessments
13
What they said
“The third sector led partnership approach gave
the review real independence which enabled
(critically) a voice to come from grass roots
community groups to strategic decision makers
rather than vica versa”
VCS Manager
Strengthening the voice of the voluntary and community sector in local needs assessments
14
What they said
“The Rapid Review approach helps to address two critical areas
regarding VCS input into the JSNA (and other strategic planning
processes). The first is the tendency by planners and strategists to
see service delivery purely in statutory terms. I regularly sit around
tables where I am the lone voice reminding partners that many
‘public services’ are delivered by the VCS – but they are off the
radar as they are not delivered or commissioned via statutory
agencies and therefore somehow don’t register as part of the
ecosystem of service delivery. It is difficult to reconcile the structure
and approach of the VCS (hundreds of small, independent
organisations with no overall lead) with that of statutory agencies
(single, large entities managed by a CX and senior team), and this
difficulty means it is easier to concentrate on larger, visible services
that have contractual links to councils, CCGs etc.
Strengthening the voice of the voluntary and community sector in local needs assessments
15
What they said
The second point is the data that VCS organisations gather. This
ranges from stories about clients, recounted with passion and
verve, to quantitative data sets gathered for funders and
commissioners. However, we are regularly reminded that the
sector is very poor at gathering data and evidence (usually by wellfunded think tanks in London), and much hand-wringing ensues.
The Rapid Review approach offers a simple way of synthesising all
sorts of information from time & resource-poor VCS organisations
into a pithy document that addresses very specific issues, which
can then be fed into broader strategic documents and planning
processes.”
VCS Chief Executive
Strengthening the voice of the voluntary and community sector in local needs assessments
16
Key Learning Points
• Topic selection
• Co-production
• Independence
• Sectoral leadership
• Accountability
• Skills
• Below the radar
Strengthening the voice of the voluntary and community sector in local needs assessments
17
Conclusions
• We need to agree a refreshed view of what a JSNA
process is.
• We need a more inclusive view of “evidence”
Where to get the rapid reviews - www.localdemocracyandhealth.com
Contact - Professor Mark Gamsu - [email protected]
Strengthening the voice of the voluntary and community sector in local needs assessments
18