Category

• Promising Local Practice

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Poverty impact

• Prevention
• Mitigation
• Reduction
• Awareness

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Poverty driver

• Provide benefit in-kind (material)
• Provide benefit in-kind (experience)
• Increase income from benefits
• Increase employment income

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Keywords

• Wellbeing-enhancing
• Capability-enhancing
• Empowerment
• Flourishing
• Partnerships

Aim

Community Around the School (CATS) is an integral part of the Family Wellbeing Partnership (FWP) approach. The FWP vision is to:
• Realign the values, cultures, and behaviours of the people who design and deliver services within the demographics so that poverty and inequality are tackled head on, and provide an immediate and lifelong impact.
The approaches goals are to:
• Develop the conditions to enhance wellbeing and capabilities.
• Create a community where everyone has the opportunity to flourish.
• Deliver a radical shift towards preventative and relational model of public services.
• Ensure the voice and agency of Clackmannanshire people and communities is at the heart of decision making.

Summary

Established in 2022, Community Around the School (CATS) - Clackmannanshire Family Wellbeing Partnership (FWP) supports people in Clackmannanshire by uniting partners to tackle inequality and improve health and wellbeing. It offers mentoring, workshops, work experience, family activities, and leadership programmes focused on values and community needs.

What difference does it make?

The Community Around the School approach was recently evaluated as part of the Evaluation of Clackmannanshire’s Family Wellbeing Partnership (FWP) by Horizons Research, commissioned by the Scottish Government.
The reports can be found here:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/evaluation-family-wellbeing-partnership-clackmannanshire/

https://www.gov.scot/publications/evaluation-family-wellbeing-partnership-clackmannanshire-summary-report/

Key take-aways

• Community Around the School is part of Clackmannanshire Family Wellbeing Partnership and some work was done with the Centre for Public Impact (CPI) to share "what it takes". • Shift power dynamics: Intentionally set out to create greater equity between public services, citizens, the third sector and communities.
• Engage political leaders: Actively involve political leaders, whose support is critical in creating conditions for a new way of working to be allowed to develop and grow. • Work on shared values: Invest time and resources in bringing people from across the third sector, public services, and communities together to get to know one another, develop shared values, and bring together their respective jigsaw pieces of the system.
• Prioritise learning: Create a structured approach to learning and make that learning available in real-time within the system to enable immediate adaptation and improvement.
• Balance planning and spontaneity: Be intentional while remaining flexible to respond to opportunities as they arise.
• Embrace distributed leadership: Allow distributed leadership, where people share power and trust each other, and action doesn’t rely on hierarchical positions. Please see: https://centreforpublicimpact.org/resource-hub/what-does-it-take-to-build-a-new-system-of-public-service/

 

Organisations

Multiple organisations are involved including: Clackmannanshire Council, the Scottish Government, the Hunter Foundation, Columba 1400, NHS Scotland Academy, Alloa & Stirling University Project, Alloa Community Empowerment, Parachute, Clax P & C (Parents & Carers) (ASN).

Location

Clackmannanshire secondary schools.

Contact