Programmes Update – West Midlands Team

The West Midlands Team have been working hard over the last month delivering our Community Dialogue Project in Walsall. Our 27 Community Connectors made up of staff and volunteers from a variety of organisations and community groups across the borough have supported us to deliver 14 sessions engaging over 120 people over the last 6 weeks. On Wednesday 11th March, our Community Connectors came together again to plan their next session. We had a wonderful evening planning and exploring resources and there was lots of excitement and enthusiasm in the room.

Little did we know then that things would look so different for us in the weeks that followed. Rightly so, the Community Dialogue sessions as we had planned face to face are on hold – there are many more important things to consider.

We are therefore using our connections and relationships that we have built up in Walsall to response to the current crisis. We want to support our Community Connectors to support their communities and signpost them to the services that they need. In addition to this in the face of uncertainty and fear it is important that we maintain social connection – we are creating simple user guides to help people connect online and starting twice weekly sessions via zoom to enable this social connection.

We are also working with our Education & Learning Team to create online resources for teachers, young people and their carers.