Welcome to our third quarterly newsletter!

We have been busy since our last update in July and we have been able to bring you more updates with the addition of two members to Macc’s Policy and Influence team. Welcome to our new Health and Care Development Worker, Chelsea Murphy, and our new Policy and Influence Manager, Karen Dyson. We are looking forward to their future involvement in policy across the city.

You will find updates on our work around mental health, health and social care, creative health, leadership, and forming a Memorandum of Understanding between the VCSE sector and the Manchester Local Care Organisation. Also, registration is now open for our Community Development Conference on 31 October at Levenshulme Methodist Church. Further details are available below.

Finally, don’t forget our next Policy Network Meeting is on 17 October from 1-2.30pm here at Macc. You can book your place via our website.

Until next time,
Claire, Nigel, Helen, Chelsea and Karen
 

What have we been doing?
Voluntary Sector Assembly
You can now book a place at the next Voluntary Sector Assembly, which will take place in the afternoon of 13 November. It will focus on how the sector can use digital technologies to work more effectively and speakers will include Reason Digital and Google. To see the agenda and book your place, please visit the VSA page on our website

Leadership 
This week, Macc are starting systems leadership conversations in North and Central Manchester following on from an approach that we’ve been taking in South Manchester for the last two years in partnership with Wythenshawe Hospital. This is about how we lead when we’re not in charge and what relationships, behaviours and values are required to build trust and create change across our usual organisational boundaries.

Health FM
Macc have been supporting some work with Radio Regen to explore the opportunities to build health partnerships with community radio stations. The conversations to date have focussed on the role of community radio in sharing the voice of local people, engaging communities in new ways and having different conversations with new audiences about health.

Timebanking
Our Strategic Lead for Collaboration is working with Manchester City Council to explore and develop the role of Timebanking across the city. This will involve creating a space that brings together the existing Timebanks in Manchester, alongside groups that have an interest in Timebanking but have struggled to make a start in their local community. A time-based currency, or social coin will be developed as part of this approach.

MHCC
Manchester Health and Care Commissioning elected Dr Ruth Bromley as their new chair in July 2018. Ruth is a GP in Wythenshawe, and is Clinical Lead for Homelessness and Lead for Ethics and Law at Manchester Medical School. Ruth also set up #TwitterDisco and has a particular interest in creative health and the role of the arts in health and wellbeing.

South Manchester GP Federation
Our Strategic Lead for Collaboration is currently working one day a week with South Manchester GP Federation to support transformation and look at new ways of working in south Manchester. This involves working closely with the GP Transformation Leads to develop neighbourhood partnerships.

Community Explorers
Community Explorers continue to meet at a locality level and are a useful space to meet people, build relationships, make connections, share information and find out what is going on. The forums are intentionally informal and currently meet monthly in North Manchester and bi-monthly in Central and South Manchester, where they sit alongside the neighbourhood partnerships facilitated by the GP Federations. A recent city-wide event in August was attended by almost 100 people with a focus on building relationships with Manchester Local Care Organisation.

Creative Health
Chelsea and Claire recently linked up with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing and local professionals working in health, academia and the VCSE sector for discussion on creative approaches to health and wellbeing. The aim of the cross-sector event was to share ideas about how to increase the visibility of the benefits of creativity within healthcare provision and medical education, in line with the ambitions of devolution and the evolution of our Local Care Organisation.

North Manchester General Hospital
As part of the Single Hospital project in Manchester, there is an intention to develop the North Manchester General Hospital site. Many of the existing buildings are beyond their working lifetime or unsuitable. Macc is involved in the Health and Wellbeing sub-group which is focusing on ideas for a health and wellbeing centre and more broadly about how the entire site and buildings can promote health and wellbeing.

Manchester Public Information Group
This group is focussed on improving the way that citizens and workers can access the information they need to support health and wellbeing. The group had developed a vision of what needs to happen in Manchester and is proposing to share and discuss this vision at a public meeting in January and encourage others to become involved in making it happen.

Memorandum of Understanding
Negotiations are continuing between Manchester Local Care Organisation and VCSE representatives to develop an MOU. The areas of discussion include: building strong relationships at every level; engaging in a way that works for all, financially and in other ways supporting the VCSE sector; joint workforce planning; VCSE-friendly commissioning; effective representation; sharing information; and working on joint strategies.

Health and Social Care Integration
Big Life, working with a number of other organisations, has been commissioned as the Be Well (social prescribing) service provider for Central and South Manchester. They are recruiting staff at present. The GP Federations in South and Central Manchester have carried out interviews to select eight Health Development Co-ordinators to cover eight neighbourhoods. Their main role will be to support joint working between health and social care staff and neighbourhood organisations. They will work closely with the 12 Neighbourhood Leads. These posts will be advertised shortly.

Our Manchester
Manchester City Council has been successful in securing some funding to work with the VCSE sector to develop a further set of Our Manchester, strength-based training initiatives. These include: a general module explaining what the Our Manchester approach is about; a leadership programme; and continuing the Person, Partner, Place training. Macc is also involved in a MCC group discussing what the Our Manchester approach means for resident engagement.

Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Trust
Macc had a very positive meeting with the Chief Executive of the trust and a senior manager to discuss how the trust and the VCSE can work more effectively work with each other. It was agreed that we would develop a number of joint projects and further meetings will take place to discuss the detail and to involve the wider sector.

Our Manchester VCS Funding Programme 
There are ongoing discussion about a further round of targeted funding. Some of this has already been allocated and is likely to focus on older people, a further amount has still to be finally decided. The programme board has agreed a co-design process that will be applied to the development of these and other funds.

Community Development Conference - 31st October 2018
Manchester’s Community Development Work Practice Group has organised a day conference for Community Development Workers. The focus is on fun and learning new skills. Registration is here.

Health and Wellbeing Funding
The Population Health and Wellbeing Commissioning Team have held two meetings to discuss approaches to promoting health and wellbeing in neighbourhoods with a view to retendering the contract currently held by Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Trust (Buzz). However they have announced that this retendering is no longer going to happen and in its place there will be a re-negotiation of the existing contract.
 

 

Northern Gateway
Manchester City Council, working with FEC (Far East Consortium), has just finished a consultation on a framework for the regeneration of a large area north of the city centre from Angel Meadow to Queens Park. There has been considerable concern from Collyhurst residents.

New Chief Executive for Young Manchester
The new chief executive of Young Manchester is Justin Watson, who has formerly worked in campaigning both in Oxfam and Save the Children.

Manchester Climate Change Conference
Manchester Climate Change Agency held their 5th annual conference on 17 July at which they launched their annual report detailing the progress that Manchester is making toward reaching its carbon emission targets.

Housing Action
In response to the lack of appropriate and affordable housing in Greater Manchester, Greater Manchester Housing Action are working with a wide range of agencies to promote community-led alternatives.

 

What are we reading?
Health as a Social Movement: Theory into Practice 
The Health as a Social Movement project attempts to learn from the power of people working together to drive transformational change, with a focus on communities. NHS England, New Economics Foundation and the RSA produced this programme report on their transformation work in six areas of England. 

Cause and Consequence: Mental Health and Homelessness in Manchester 
The Mental Health Action Group works with individuals with lived experience and professionals who can influence systems change in the city and is part of Manchester’s Homelessness Charter. This report shares the group’s journey of co-production and provides evidence into how things can be better. 

Navca - Civil Society Strategy 
This response to the civil society strategy outlines their key policy asks of government, analysing how they might impact on local infrastructure and where government needs to do further work to address policy gaps. The document includes a call for including communities in strategic decision making on devolution. 

From Developer Regeneration to Civic Futures
This report was launched at a public meeting on September 17 in Central Manchester. Its core argument is that developer (private sector funding) regeneration has been the dominant approach to both housing and transport and that it is time to change the model to one focused on providing decent housing, transport and social infrastructure for all. 

The Future for Communities: Perspectives on Power
This report was written by IVAR (Institute for Voluntary Action Research), and details the learning from a research project focused on “What needs to happen for communities to feel and be powerful in the 2020s?”. It explores three key themes of place, power and identity in a poorer and more fragmented society. 

Acevo report on racial diversity and leadership
ACEVO and the Institute of Fundraising are asking civil society leaders to commit to eight principles to address the diversity deficit in charity leadership. 

State of the City Report 
The State of the City report 2018 has just been released. We will be producing further information about this shortly.

 

Our Manchester
A brief overview of the Our Manchester Strategy and approach and then a detailed opportunity to consider what a strength-based approach means for voluntary sector organisations. 7 November, 10am-1pm. Contact Nigel for further information at [email protected]

Health and Social Care Strategy
An overview of drivers, structures and issues in health and social care in Manchester and Greater Manchester. 5 December, 10am-1pm. Contact Nigel for further information at [email protected]
 

The Death and Life of Manchester – Nigel Rose https://www.manchestercommunitycentral.org/death-and-life-manchester 

Living Policy and the VCSE Sector – Nigel Rose https://www.manchestercommunitycentral.org/living-policy-and-vcse-sector 

My Journey in Community Development Work – Nigel Rose https://www.manchestercommunitycentral.org/my-journey-community-development-work

 

 

To get in touch
Telephone: 0161 834 9823