A shared vision for building connection in Norfolk, led and co-produced by the VCS
Across the UK, people are experiencing isolation and loneliness, which is having a negative impact on health, equality, and social cohesion. As a rural county, loneliness in a priority in Norfolk.
This summer, we partnered with Community Action Norfolk (CAN) and Norfolk County Council (NCC) to deliver Capacity Building workshops to 35 grassroots voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations and statutory professionals in Norfolk, who are motivated to tackle the isolation and loneliness we see in our communities.
Over two half-mornings, participants used their lived experiences and expertise in supporting communities to foster a shared understanding of the causes and consequences of loneliness, building long-lasting collaborative relationships with one another.
We also used the workshop series as an opportunity to co-produce a place-based loneliness strategy. Participants, through sharing their learning, opinions and priorities, produced a Norfolk-wide shared vision for building connection and community. The process was authentic, organic and truly VCS-led; the shared vision is strategic and doable. A network of active change-makers are mobilised to realise this vision as part of an unified effort, and we are continuing to support them by chairing, regularly reconvening, growing and supporting the group as part of 32 Steps to Togetherness.
A report capturing the shared vision, along with the findings and ideas that got us there is now published, here.
The first step
The Backstory
As part of our Lottery-funded 32 Steps to Togetherness initiative, which aims to empower the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) to foster stronger connections within and across communities, we’re delivering Building Connections Workshops in various parts of the UK, including Tees Valley, Northern Manchester, and Stoke. The learning materials (previously called ‘Loneliness Reduction Training’) were originally developed in collaboration with the Campaign to End Loneliness (CtEL) in 2020. The original training was piloted with grassroots organisations across these same localities, thanks to National Lottery Community Fund funding.
Our partnership
In Norfolk, Community Action Norfolk (CAN) has been a key in addressing loneliness through their Social Isolation and Loneliness Support project and their work delivering capacity-building support to local VCS organisations.
Meanwhile, Norfolk County Council (NCC) has been exploring ways to coordinate efforts on loneliness while avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach. By gathering community intelligence, NCC sought to refine its role and strengthen partnerships to address social isolation effectively.
Recognising the vital role of the VCS in reducing social isolation, we joined forces with CAN and NCC to deliver the Building Connections Workshops in Norfolk - an adapted version to build on all the existing work in Norfolk and maximise impact.
The workshops
Over two mornings participants:
Deepened their expertise, by leveraging a range of personal and professional experiences;
Fostered a shared understanding of loneliness across sectors and across Norfolk, collaboratively discussing causes, solutions and barriers that would lead into a shared vision for Norfolk’s strategic approach, and
Built and strengthened their relationships with other VCS and statutory professionals.
After the workshops, we effectively had the beginnings of a strategy. We worked collaboratively with CAN and NCC to summarise the insights, suggestions and notable conclusions that emerged from discussions. We reconvened the participants for multiple meetings to iteratively review and discuss what we’d captured, establishing a shared vision for Norfolk’s strategic approach. The vision is underpinned by two key pillars, and broken down into four key action areas. The co-productive process has mobilised a network of change-makers in a unified effort to work together in a coordinated yet bottom up approach to reducing loneliness. We want to do what we can to support them!
Norfolk’s shared vision
The vision?
A bottom-up approach, with the statutory system’s role being to ‘steward’ and ‘water’ a garden of community-led initiatives
Getting on the front foot with prevention, by stimulating behavioural and cultural change.
Four key action areas:
1. “Watering the garden” and, in particular, what’s working.
Support activities that are working and growing new ones
Support organisations to develop pathways for service users to graduate on to becoming volunteers
2. Promote key narratives that reframe loneliness as enhancing community life and encourage a behavioural and cultural shift
Re-frame and de-medicalise loneliness across the board
Capture and share stories in a joint, grassroots social media campaign
3. An enabling environment for enriched community life - for VCS organisations and community members to practise neighbourliness.
Early identification, support at critical life stages, improved referral pathways
Enable volunteer-led initiatives
Nurture the network
Explore, pilot and scale community-led transport initiatives:
4. Extra support in some cases
Social confidence:
Home-based options
Improved referral pathways
Our next step
Upon reviewing the shared vision collaboratively, the need for a behavioural and cultural shift shone through as the most important tenant. The long-term solution to tackling loneliness in Norfolk is supporting people to move from passive recipients of support to active participants in their communities. 32 Steps to Togetherness is a resource designed to be a tool to help VCS organisations help individuals do just that. So we’re sticking around to offer as much support as we can!
As above, we’re helping to ‘nurture the network’ by regularly reconvening meetings. We’re offering free catch up workshops and Train the Trainers to anyone who wants to join the network, but missed the Building Connections training in the Summer.
We’re also delivering free film-making workshops to support the network to capture and share stories of togetherness and change. Over the course of Spring and Summer 2025, we’ll be facilitating the network to roll out a joint, grassroots social media campaign. The stories will:
Celebrate community leadership, volunteering, neighbourliness and collaboration.
Capture stories of change of people who have experienced chronic loneliness, to demonstrate their journey to feeling greater belonging and connectedness.
Inspire further nature-based initiatives and intergenerational work.
We hope that collaborating on a joint social media campaign will further ‘nurture the network’, by strengthening the relationships between the VCS and fostering a culture of collaboration.
Contact natasha@civilsocietyconsulting.co.uk for more information, or if you’re Norfolk-based and would like to be involved.
Click below to read the full report and a more detailed breakdown of the shared vision.
