Churches and Christian Charities met with Civic leaders from across East Midlands including the newly formed Mayoral Combined County Authority
Responding to a Changing Landscape
The East Midlands devolution last year saw the very first Mayoral Combined County Authority created, giving new powers to the area to take the decisions which matter for their region, on transport, skills, and housing, with a new long-term investment fund totalling £1.14 billion over 30 years.
In 2022 Simon Cartwright and Nigel Adams from Transforming Notts Together with old friend Simon Shaw from Derby City Vision talked through the upcoming devolution with Steve Botham during round table discussions at the Gather Movement National Summit. They felt drawn to the concept of Your City, Your Summit as a strategic way to engage with the changes in the region.
We caught up with Simon Cartwright and Nigel Adams to hear about Together for the Region which happened on 9th October.
Simon: “With the Integrated Care Board now going regional, with the Police and Crime Commissioner going regional, with schools and employment and training and transport and housing all going regional, and local government reorganisation, we really needed to be part of the strategic conversation.”
Nigel: “We really saw this as a great opportunity to do something for our region to bring together church, local authority, NHS and others. We’ve been trying to encourage those kind of partnerships for some time. We wanted to take it up a notch, and the conference, I think, has helped us do that.”
Understanding the New Region
Together for the Region gathered more than 150 leaders for the first time across Notts and Derby. 25% were church leaders from a diverse spread of denominations including URC, Baptist, Methodist, Catholic and Black-led churches. 25% were civic leaders from the local authority, integrated care board and the NHS. 50% were from Christian Charities in the area and 22 of those charities exhibited, providing a backdrop showcasing the real transformation which is already happening.
The day began with worship and interviews, statistics and stories which helped set the context of the gathering. The newly appointed East Midlands Mayor, Claire Ward sent a video message.
Simon: “We had five streams of activity, which was housing, affordable and ethical housing, health and wellbeing, vulnerable children and families, poverty and inclusive growth, and opportunities for young people. We chose those areas where the church is already working actively and we could give examples of collaboration and good practice.” Each area had a round table conversation producing questions which were fed back to a Q&A panel with city leaders.
Nigel: “That gave the chance for everybody in the room to share their thoughts and ask some probing questions about the principles of trying to work together. In the afternoon, that’s when we got down to the real work. There were workshops on affordable housing, on health and wellbeing, on youth and employment and skills development, particularly on vulnerable families.”
Simon: “We were deliberately showcasing the work of the charity sector that are already doing the work to share their good practice. We had Christians Against Poverty, Message Trust, the Good Faith Partnership, Safe Families, and Hope Interaction and Pathway Housing Solutions, which are putting together a consortium in Nottingham around ethical and social housing. They all led the first set of workshops.
The final workshop was basically asking, ‘so what? Why are we doing this? What’s it about? And can we think of some practical ideas of what we can do together?’”
Real Stories of Transformation
Nigel: “Part of our partnership work has enabled the development of a not-for-profit letting agency that provides ethical housing for people that wouldn’t normally get into housing.
A highlight of the day was when one of the tenants was able to share their story of how they’d first of all been helped with support from the local church, put in touch with a charity that provided supported accommodation, and then they in turn put them in touch with this letting agency who could provide move-on accommodation.
That tenant was able to tell their whole story from arriving as an asylum seeker to eventually being housed and getting support from churches and charities and the local authority along the way. That story really helped us to crystallise the benefits of working together and collaborating in this way.”
Opening Doors for the Future
Simon: “Some practical ideas did emerge from the day and some great ideas are coming forward. One example is that we’ve got real problems with take-up of vaccinations at the moment. Only 6% of under fives are taking up vaccinations. As Roger Sutton shared in his opening message, 75% of under fives attend church-run toddler groups. So, why not bring children and family workers together with health work visitors to do an education programme around vaccinations? It’s one very simple way we can bring our resources together with the regional resources to make this happen.”
New Friends and Working with Mayor Claire
Simon: “We gave a good hour and a quarter for lunch just to make opportunities for networking. There was a big buzz around the room. Lots of people have fed back that lots of ideas have emerged after that networking. A lot of people were new, so, a lot of people were learning from each other for the first time and making connections.
It was also the first time that Derby and Nottingham had done something together for a long, long time. There’s always been a bit of a friendly rivalry between the two cities. To see them sitting down and doing things in unity was really encouraging. That’s already leading to some opportunities in strategic commissioning with family hubs and with the ICB.”
Nigel: “It was a really great event! A great opportunity to connect with old friends and to make new ones, in terms of the work that we’re trying to do together. It feels like we’ve created a whole lot more work for ourselves because of those opportunities that are there. One of the things we’ll be enjoying in the months ahead of us is to really pick out what we can do next together.
One of the things that we want to try and look into is to establish a stronger directory, focusing on different areas at different times. In the past, we’ve tried to cover everything, but we want to explore whether we can break that down into different areas of work like health and wellbeing or housing so that people can find more easily both the support they’re looking for and the partners that they’re looking for. That’s certainly one of the next steps for us.”
Simon: “We had a meeting yesterday with the Mayor Claire, she couldn’t make it to the event, but she insisted that she met us and wanted to know what happened. So we went through the event report with her, and she’s committed herself to working with us to take forward this programme.
We’re also having conversations with Gather Movement about the possibility of a faith forum and a mapping exercise for our region, similar to what is happening in Greater Manchester. We picked up our learning from there. That’s why I love Gather so much, we can magpie each other’s ideas!”
If you want to find out more about Your City, Your Summit, visit our Summit Page for more information.
