The Supporting London Boroughs Engagement Project is funded by the Greater London Authority (GLA) and is being led by London Councils, in collaboration with our London Community Engagement Network. The project aims to:
- Ensure that Londoners’ voices are heard by the decision makers.
- Share community-led insights, especially from communities that have been disproportionately affected by the cost-of-living crisis and Covid.
- Enable participating boroughs to work with residents on innovative community engagement projects and share learning with all London boroughs.
Neighbourly Lab is working with London Councils and the 13 participating boroughs as our Learning Partner, to ensure that the learning and good practice from these projects is shared across all the London boroughs, the GLA and London Councils. Neighbourly Lab is delivering a series of active learning sessions and will produce materials to better enable the sharing of practice, including a comprehensive report and an Impact Gallery.
The projects by borough are:
- LB Barnet: Investigating the language support needs of deaf residents – working with our residents to gain a better understanding of what the deaf and hard of hearing experience is within Barnet.
- LB Bexley: Diverse engagement in growing connectedness - working systemically with young people and families who have direct (and indirect) experiences of trauma, violence or have witnessed violence.
- LB Brent: Utilising digital engagement channels to listen and learn from new people - go to where residents are already, and measure the impact of social media engagement.
- LB Hackney: Improving equality of access to job opportunities across Hackney - We're working with Black and Global majority residents aged 18 to 30, who are unemployed and looking for work. We're working with them to understand why they feel less confident about finding employment, in order to address those barriers.
- LB Haringey: Haringey Community Researchers – The project is to establish and train a network of community researchers from a range of seldom heard communities to co-produce a community research project in the context of the cost of living crisis.
- LB Hounslow: Pathways to Opportunities: Empowering Hounslow's Hearing-Impaired Communities – to carry out a deep dive into the experiences of the deaf communities to discover their desired service improvements. Focusing on up-skilling and employment opportunities.
- LB Islington is offering residents on two estates the opportunity to decide how £15,000 will be spent. Residents will be supported to propose projects and activities that could benefit their community. Then, residents will decide together which projects receive funding.
- RB Kingston: Creating a Disability Network for Kingston - supported by a specific officer, will enable the council to listen, learn and consult with people with disabilities. Providing a collective stronger voice to achieve positive outcomes.
- LB Lewisham: Nothing about us without us: co-producing our Sanctuary Strategy – to engage a group of diverse sanctuary seekers to review our Borough of Sanctuary Strategy and priorities; and work with divisions in the council on redesigning some key services and processes.
- LB Redbridge: Healthy Redbridge – reviewing and delivering on the Accessible Information Standards, improving healthcare access to for our Deaf residents by developing and implementing new, tailored ways to engage and communicate with our deaf communities. Then use these skills to work with multiple service user groups who have been particularly affected by Covid-19 and the cost of living, such as visually impaired residents and adults with learning disabilities.
- LB Sutton: New methods of engagement with children and young people in Sutton: increasing diversity and inclusion - to build and test new ways of engaging with children and young people (CYP) from diverse backgrounds e.g. growing a cohort of Young Commissioners and establishing a Sutton Youth Board.
- LB Wandsworth: Marginalised groups targeted participation project - targeted engagement work with groups currently not benefiting from participating opportunities including young carers, parents/carers who have experienced our child protection/care/court proceedings, looked after children, young people with SEND.
- City of Westminster: Living connections – to create human libraries as a creative and unique way for us to hear from our communities and learn from each other. To focus on issues of particular concern to the community e.g. housing, community safety and fairness and provide the opportunity to improve and adapt council services.