Wycombe Wanderers Sports & Education Trust is delighted to announce the launch of an exciting new collaborative project called “Listen Learn Adapt”.
Working in partnership with four other Buckinghamshire based charities (Buckinghamshire Mind, The Oasis Partnership, Age UK Buckinghamshire, Citizens Advice Bucks) the projects ultimate aim is to enable all five organisations to better serve members of our community from minority ethnic backgrounds.
The Listen Learn Adapt project has been kindly funded by the Buckinghamshire Wellbeing Capacity Fund jointly commissioned by The Rothschild Foundation, Heart of Bucks and The Clare Foundation.
The grant was created to respond to the challenges Covid-19 has had on the wellbeing of Buckinghamshire residents, especially those who have been, and will continue to be, disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and the related effects. The one-off grant was offered to deliver a holistic project that works to create new capacity to support wellbeing across the county and make Buckinghamshire’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic sustainable, with reach into all communities.
The Listen Learn Adapt project partners came together in recognition of the fact that many people from minority ethnicity backgrounds have been disproportionality affected by the catastrophic consequences of the Covid virus from health, community and economical perspectives, but may be hesitant or reluctant to approach local services when they find themselves in need of support.
Our organisations recognised that our engagement levels with people from minority ethnicity backgrounds don’t correlate with the make-up of our local community when looking specifically at ethnicities, and we wanted to make strides to remedy this. As such our collective organisations have been funded to undertake a project that will allow us to:
· Listen
We will seek to capture our community’s thoughts and experiences with regards to engagements with local charities.
· Learn
We will use the information captured from the community research process to effectively appraise and challenge our current service offerings and how appealing they are to people from minority ethnicity backgrounds
We will also develop a learning report that details our findings with regards to better engaging minority ethnicity individuals and communities. This will be shared with other local charities and relevant groups.
· Adapt
Using the insight achieved via the Listen and Learn aspects of the project, we will seek to make relevant adaptations to our respective service provisions in order to ensure that barriers to engagement are minimised, and that all offerings are culturally relevant, inclusive, accessible and fit for today’s modern and diverse world.
Whilst the scope of this project is time limited, WWSET, along with the other project partners (as well as the funders), believe that this is merely the beginning of a county-wide collaborative journey of discovery – working in broader partnership with individuals, groups and communities – that will ultimately make Buckinghamshire an even better place for all people to live, work and flourish.
Head of WWSET Paul Foley had this to say about the launch of the Listen Learn Adapt project:
“This project is one that everybody at WWSET is really excited about. It’s innovative in its design and places partnership working at the very core of its approach. We’re confident that some hugely valuable learning is going to take place which will allow us to more effectively help local people from minority ethnicities to deal with the current and future challenges they face.”
Please note that effective engagement with minority ethnicity individuals and groups is critical to the success of the Listen Learn Adapt project. WWSET, as well as all the other project partners, would love to hear from anybody who would be willing to take part in the community research process (which is being undertaken by M·E·L Research, one of the UK’s leading social research and behavioural insights consultancies) that will begin in July 2021.
In order to express an interest in getting involved (or to ask questions/make comments) please feel free to contact Clare Samways, the Listen Learn Adapt Project Coordinator, on lla@oasispartnership.org. You can also find out more information about the Listen Learn Adapt project by visiting the dedicated webpage hosted by lead project organisation The Oasis Partnership: LLA WEBSITE PAGE
Finally, please note that as part of the Listen Learn Adapt project the partners are seeking to recruit a number of people to fill the following roles:
· Community Researcher (up to x4 posts available)
· Community Research Team Lead (x1 post available)
The full job adverts and person specifications for both the roles can be found by clicking: LLA EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITES
Finally, for more information on all of the delivery and funding organisations involved in the Listen Learn Adapt project please see the links below:
