Project: Withernsea, UK.

Withernsea is a small coastal town in Yorkshire, UK with entrenched issues of poor health, low aspirations (especially in the young) and low engagement in initiatives that have happened to alleviate these in the past.

Active Withernsea is a government funded project with a focus on getting people more active physically, mentally and socially. We are taking an approach that has engagement with the community at the centre.  We have been collecting the experiences of people: what they enjoy, like, dislike, notice around them - with all their complexities, for the past year. We are sharing these back with the community to help strengthen how they see and connect with themselves and each other, and for them to build their confidence in shaping their own lives.

But we wanted to bring a more “systems” level to this approach without losing the humanity of our intention. We asked Nora Bateson to come and help us to expand and explore this space with the community together, using Warm Data Labs. Nora visited and hosted four Labs with community members and community leaders in parallel which were extremely powerful, especially with the community members. In just a couple of hours, the people in the room moved from being in angry and in competition for funding, to bringing the heart back into Withernsea.  It was amazing! Needless to say, they are very keen to continue to come together to explore how they want their lives, and place, to be.

As we were planning the third set of sessions, Covid-19 hit. This has accelerated all that we were trying to do, and so we are embracing the development of People Need People online. This will allow space for the community to continue to explore their interdependencies and where these lead them, whilst keeping safe and adhering to government advice on social distancing. 

My personal vision is that using the questions and contexts in the People Need People Online method will bring even more depth of exploration to this community, in a time where there is such space for change – the changes they want to make and see in their own lives.

- Esther Hall, Public Health Specialist - Systems and Strategic Change