W12 Together

The neighbourhood

W12 covers Wormholt and White City, an area within the W12 postcode of West London with a population of roughly 15,000 people. It is an urban area that is well connected to neighbouring areas by public transport.

The neighbourhood includes four GP practices, and a health and wellbeing centre hosted within one of these GP practices. Much of the work of W12 operates from a local community centre, which is a key asset for this work and W12 has benefitted from the use of local infrastructure such as green space for sports events and existing social capital such as strong and well-established VCSE groups.

The area is mostly terraced housing with a large housing estate. More than half of the area W12 works within is in the most deprived 20 per cent of the country.

Health and wellbeing issues in the neighbourhood include relatively high levels of crime and antisocial behaviour and the largest percentage of residents reporting having a long-term health condition in the borough.

The context

W12 aims to build local wellbeing, social capital, and ensure local statutory services hear and adapt to the needs of residents.

The area has many independent culture or faith-based groups that work with W12 on neighbourhood priorities. W12 aims to unite these groups and work together across a diverse community on issues that impact on the neighbourhood, ensuring statutory and non-statutory services deliver for residents.

W12 is focused on giving the neighbourhood a united voice to work with statutory services. They often advocate for the community on issues such as use of primary care infrastructure, the impacts and response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis.

W12 was established to respond to build unity at a neighbourhood level, poor relationships with or access to statutory services, relatively high levels of crime and a lack of opportunities for young people to connect and build skills.

Many residents within W12’s area feel underserved by statutory services and don’t believe that these services are 'for them'. Resetting this relationship, and realising the benefits of statutory services for residents, is an important challenge that W12 are addressing.

The three priorities of W12 are agreed by the W12 board in response to neighbourhood needs:

• Youth: W12 will advocate for a safe place for children, work with residents and experts in supporting parents, support youth empowerment, build better links between parents, schools and the police.
• Health and wellbeing: W12 will work to find community-based solutions to improve access to health, build on culturally specific health promotion, link with Park View local health coalition, create a local database of health and wellbeing services to support social prescribing.
• Bringing people together: W12 will work to establish a W12 Festival, explore models for community-led housing, develop centralised communication channels, plan and present cross-cultural social events.

The model

Better Together was formed through a long period of community co-design, meetings, and workshops. The board members of W12 are residents of the W12 area themselves and bring connections with local VCSE organisations and community leaders.

In the initial phases of W12, the organisation spent several months in 'listening mode', building an understanding of the neighbourhood and making the connections it needed to become a trusted organisation in the neighbourhood.

W12 uses a community centre as the locus of many activities. W12 also runs events that use community assets such as greenspace for football tournaments and various activities funded through W12 grants.

The model is supported by a board of resident volunteers and is integrated with multiple statutory and non-statutory partners. W12 attend many community groups that are focussed on specific demographics and have worked closely with GP surgeries, the local authority, Imperial College London and are developing relationships between young people, parents and the police. W12 meet with NHS and local authority partners every six weeks.

W12 acts as a 'connector' of many community groups and services whilst also providing a conduit for neighbourhood-level action.

W12 is funded through a Big Local grant and distributes £500 to £5000 grants to community members for initiatives that can demonstrate community benefits, W12 accepts applications and monitors the use of this funding.

What makes this effective and resilient

W12 is run by a board formed of local resident volunteers. Representatives of the board regularly meet with NHS and Local Authority partners every aix weeks. This relationship with statutory services allows W12 and statutory services to learn from one another and regularly identify areas for collaboration.

The board has open  meetings so anyone can see how W12 is being managed, this maintains trust and supports openness to all.

W12’s resilience is underpinned by the board structure and clear aims. Big Local funding has allowed the organisation to be flexible in how it serves the neighbourhood, manages available resources and responds to community challenges as and when they arise.

W12 employs a full-time community engagement manager who has been key to the success of the project. The effectiveness of this role has been in consistent and structured development of relationships across the neighbourhood.

W12 aim to become a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) in future and has a clear plan for its future sustainability.

W12 organises events, holiday clubs and football tournaments to foster community connectedness and build social capital for all residents. This community building embeds W12 in the neighbourhood, which is vital to W12’s success. W12 is a place that residents come to for help and advice in times of need or crisis.

W12 has worked with local link workers and social prescribers to direct resources and make them aware of initiatives in the neighbourhood they can refer to. This relationship has also expanded to liaising with social prescribers to help resolve local service capacity issues and respond when health services are under pressure.

W12 has partnered with Citizens Advice to provide specialist money advice and services to residents which responds directly to needs identified within the neighbourhood. Through this partnership, W12 have connected those unlikely to use this service with valuable budgeting and planning advice.

•W12 has worked with a local GP Surgery to define the use of its facilities. This led to the establishment of a health and wellbeing centre that was co-designed with the community.

•W12 has been offered funding through NHS partners to employ 2 health workers for a fixed term of 1 year and this is a potential extension to their current work to be scaled in future and a deepening of relationships with the statutory sector. This funding is indicative of the confidence that is building between W12 and statutory services.

What makes this challenging

Working with diverse communities means diverse and sometimes conflicting views and challenges in reaching consensus.

Being considered a community outsider and the multiple ways in which communities are defined locally (for example being 'from the estate') can be a barrier to building trust and relationships.

Availability of staff and volunteers to drive the work remains a challenge.

What is good for some residents in the W12 geography may not be good for all residents – standardisation of support sometimes does not make sense for all neighbourhood residents.

Power dynamics between residents and statutory services still need to be redressed to support effective engagement, particularly where residents have historic negative experiences of statutory services.

Impact and outcomes

Working with Imperial College London, W12 has established and trained a group of community researchers.

• This initiative provides a range of benefits including upskilling the community, allowing W12 to directly investigate issues impacting the neighbourhood to support planning of its own activities, and improving evaluation of W12 activity.
• The research group is newly formed but aims to research several issues including the accessibility of primary care in the local area.

All W12 grant supported projects have a mid- and end-point report to monitor the impact of the projects.