There is increasing interest from decision makers in wellbeing and its benefits for us as individuals, for our communities, and for society. Over the past four years, the Carnegie UK Trust has supported an extensive programme which aims to embed a wellbeing approach within community planning in Northern Ireland.
Community planning is a new approach led by local authorities in Northern Ireland based on collaboration with local communities. Community planning prioritises the social, economic and wellbeing of local communities, and its introduction provided a timely opportunity and practical framework to support local decision makers.
Twelve indicators for shared leadership
Carnegie supported three Community Planning Partnerships with a range of activities, and engaged CES to work with them on shared leadership. Sharing leadership was recognised as fundamental to meaningful and effective collaborative working, but needed a shared understanding and ways of measuring progress. The CES team worked with the project partners to develop a series of twelve indicators to help assess progress. Partnerships taking ownership of the work, having resources and implementation plans are some of the indicators. The visibility of real benefits for other stakeholders and the public was also recognised as evidence of success.
Co-designing a Shared Leadership programme
The indicators were used to co-design a Shared Leadership programme for the three partnerships. The programme drew on participants real life experience, involved contributions from external thought leaders, and was delivered within an environment which encouraged peer learning, networking and reflection to support participants. The programme was delivered remotely as a result of the pandemic.
A report which includes recommendations for community planning was launched by the Carnegie UK Trust in early September. The report includes further information about the Shared Leadership indicators and learning from the Programme. Read the report here.
