Supporting Communities
/Supporting Communities is a programme to help build the skills, confidence and knowledge of community organisations across Scotland.
Through Supporting Communities work we’ve partnered up with community organisations from across the country to help build skills, develop ideas and address the issues important to them and their communities.
A key focus of Supporting Communities is disadvantage: how some community organisations face more barriers to achieving their aims than others. These could be groups that are based in areas with higher levels of poverty, or remote rural areas, or groups that represent communities who are more likely to experience discrimination. We work with groups to identify barriers and come up with solutions.
Supporting Communities is funded through as part of the Scottish Government’s Strengthening Communities programme.
Our work for 2023/24
We’re working with a number of groups across the country to explore how placed based approaches work in different settings, and how place links to community involvement in local planning processes, where we’re supporting groups to take forward their plans together with local partners.
A place based approach is about understanding the issues, interconnections and relationships in a place and coordinating action to improve the quality of life for that community.
Community-led action plans are a way for community groups to identify and prioritise the issues and needs in their communities - and set them out for other organisation and bodies to take in account.
Read the latest: Supporting Communities Learning Exchange report
In December we brought together groups and agencies involved in the Supporting Communities Programme together to explore their insights around the development of the local ‘planscape’ including community-led action planning and the development of Local Place Plans (LPPs) in particular. Here's our key takeaways:
We need more straight forward language to support people's understanding
We need to ensure the less-heard voices are included through proper engagement
We need to address power and influence and the scope of any particular plan and what it could achieve
We need ways for communities to manage, access and share useful data
We need to focus on the funding and support required to put plans into action
Read the full report here.
Who we’re working with
What are we learning?
A key aim of our programme is to learn about what works and what gets in the way of community-led approaches to regenerating our communities. We’ll be publishing detailed learning as we go, but the emerging themes from the programme include:
Understanding Place – it is important that communities themselves are able to take a lead in defining their ‘place’, and what it is that connects people across communities of geography, identity and interest. The role of community anchor organisations/networks in developing community-led action plans and generating their own evidence and data is a key element of this.
Place and Inequality – our participating organisations all emphasise the importance of good quality community engagement in ensuring that those groups that face additional barriers are supported to participate on an equal basis. There is also a need to recognise the reach and depth of community engagement which is undertaken by local community organisations.
Place-based relationships – strong and positive relationships (within communities, and between communities and public bodies) are key in establishing community priorities and identifying shared goals.
Capacity and infrastructure – there is a clear need to have local capacity and infrastructure to support the development of community-led action planning and place-based approaches. Community anchor organisations, local networks and strong collaboratives are key components of this local infrastructure.
The impact of community-led working – programme participants have emphasised the importance of demonstrating the impact of community-led approaches. There is also a need to develop on-going learning about what works, and what gets in the way of, community-led regeneration.
Previous activity
May 2022 Learning Event
The session was designed to be informal to allow participants to hear about what was happening in other areas, and to learn of the ways groups were still engaging.
There was opportunity for discussion and questions for both presenting groups, with 12 participants from Glasgow, Wester Ross, Aberdeen and Moray, representing 6 of the communities supported.
Download the event report here.
March 2021 Learning Event
On 18th March 2021 we held an online shared learning event for our programme participants. The focus of the event was twofold:
Exploring the experience and impact of Covid-19 on the groups and the communities where they operate
Discussing and sharing experiences of how the groups have responded to the pandemic
Download the event report here.
Colmonnell
Despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic we have still been able to work with some groups to help them with their community action plans or place-based working.
An example of this is our work with Colmonnell Community Association to develop and produce a community action plan.
Kyle and Lochalsh
We have been working with Kyle and Lochalsh Community Trust to develop a wider approach to place-based working through the community-led Kyle and Lochalsh Collaborative.
Place-based exchange
We have actively contributed to a collaborative forum on place-based activity, the Place-Based Exchange, which includes partners from Corra, Inspiring Scotland, SURF and the National Lottery Communities Fund. A recent output from this collaboration is this report on ‘Working Better Together in Place’ which combines the learning from the partners’ place-based programmes over the past 2 or 3 years.
You can see information about previous years’ programmes here.
