The locality leads model is a new approach to building community resilience in Barking & Dagenham. The borough has been divided into six localities, broadly mapped to the primary care networks and:

• Operates at the level of neighbourhoods of circa 40,000 residents
• Is supported by the GP health inequality leads in each locality
• Is linking networks of social sector organisations in each locality and
• Involving residents in the design and testing of prototypes, designed to:
• Address health inequalities and the cost of living

 The new model commenced in October 2022, and is using the first year – up to September 2023 to prove concept. Our ambition is a 10-year programme to improve healthy life expectancy by an average of four years.

 The approach builds community system resilience (the commitment and investment by everybody living, working, studying, running a business and regularly visiting has in ‘their’ neighbourhood). The work is underpinned by an international evidence base that shows that health outcomes are significantly influenced by:

• Residents’ sense of control over their destiny, and their sense of living in a community that has control over its destiny, and can hold government and public systems to account
• The strength of connection, trust and belonging (as measures of social capital and collective efficacy) to community that gives residents permission to both accept and give help to their neighbours
• A dynamic equilibrium between the 5% of work by healthcare systems and the 95% of support offered by family, friends, neighbours, work colleagues and other civil society support around healthcare interventions

The approach seeks to increase residents’ sense of control over their destiny, boost connection, trust and belonging, and break down barriers that impede the 95% of response from family and civil society.

 The locality lead organisations and the geography of their localities can be seen in the diagram: 

BD Collective Approach to Community System Resilience

FRIENDS AND PURPOSE PODCAST