Supporting communities through the pandemic
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Are you thinking about how you’ll continue supporting communities as we emerge from the pandemic? Or maybe you’re working with groups who are still shielding? Perhaps there are new things you did in the pandemic that you’re thinking of carrying on doing, because they worked? The chances are you answered yes to at least one of those questions.
During the pandemic, so many creative and cultural organisations and individuals transformed their work so that they could support their communities; often communities that were already facing significant challenges. We’ve all heard, or perhaps been at the heart of, inspiring examples of how creativity and culture helped tackle loneliness, ill-health, poverty, discrimination, and digital exclusion, alongside boredom, isolation, and stress.
To achieve this, in the most challenging of circumstances, we saw amazing innovation as our sector quickly adopted new approaches, many of which were totally untested. The value of that learning can’t be understated, and we think it’s vital it’s shared for everyone to make use of, both as we continue to navigate our way through the impact of Covid-19, and in other ways too. Not least engaging more people in creativity and culture - not only because it can be fun and joyous, but also because we saw the demand for creative outlets grow, in what has been one of the most challenging periods in recent times.
This has included micro performances in back gardens; open top bus cabaret tours for older people; car park performances; solo guided walks; a creative take on an outdoor dog show and even dancers performing in the sea. As many people have turned to hyper-local opportunities, we’ve been able to connect more with those on our doorstep, as well as having the potential for the positive environmental impacts that staying local brings with it.
New resources
To bring all this learning into one place, as a useful resource which everyone working in our sector can use, we’ve been working with Common Vision and Creative United.
They’ve spoken with creative and cultural organisations and individuals to compile examples and useful links for five different themes: connecting with your local community; creativity and culture at home; digital connections with communities; community culture outdoors; and community culture in partnership settings.
The resource aims to help with tools to identify local communities and how you can best engage them, taking you on a journey of activity from inside the home, to the doorstep, garden, street, local open spaces and of course, online. We’re publishing a series of articles now to help you get started, ahead of publishing full a playbook with further tips, learning and examples later this year.
Alongside this, we’ve also worked with Imogen Blood Associates to evaluate the impact of loneliness projects, which many of our Creative People and Places and Celebrating Age programmes delivered at incredibly short notice in response to the pandemic. These were funded with additional resources provided by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport for which we are very appreciative. This learning is based not only on what the cultural sector told us, but what we also heard from participants directly involved in the programme, including the impact on their wellbeing and sense of connection.
We’re extremely grateful to all of you who contributed to both of these resources, and especially to the individuals who were so open and honest about their own experiences. It once again shows just how important creative and cultural organisations are to the places in which they’re based, and the wonderful contribution they can make both to our civic life and the lives of individuals.
Together, these resources give a fascinating insight into what’s been happening and what learning we can take from it – we hope you find it useful.
