A bit of background
Capacity are no strangers to working with Open Door Charity, having worked together on a number of projects before, including the Town Deal Project.
As part of an exciting project to rejuvenate and “level up” towns across the country, the Town Deal Investment Fund brings the opportunity to shake up new developments and new ways of thinking. With this, Open Door (OD), along with Wirral Community Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust (WCHC) submitted a bid and an outline business case to fund the development of a new centre of national excellence for well–being in the heart of Birkenhead.
The vision for a new centre named Joy will transform the Treasury Annexe building in Birkenhead into a thriving hub for arts, culture, health and wellbeing to help empower Wirral residents to shape change, raise aspirations and improve life and health quality.
Since 2022, we’ve been on a journey with Open Door to make this vision a reality.
Phase 1: Joy Discover
Initially, Open Door approached Capacity for our support to transform their ideas for Joy into a business case, focusing on two core aspects: project management, and greater communications. They wanted this business case to be well informed, well researched, and led by the voices of local people.
We worked with together with Open Door to build a plan that would respect the main aims of Joy:
- Shaping outcomes and improving health outcomes.
- Placing clinical and wider support services in a safe, attractive and inclusive setting.
- Supporting the most vulnerable members of the community who are too often left behind.
- Attracting new visitors to the area to engage with arts and culture.
We spent time listening to local communities including service providers, families, community groups and strategic partners to identify local health and wellbeing needs and codesigning what Joy should be and how it should operate. We spoke to over 350 people who live and work in Wirral and used these insights to develop a full business case for the centre.
As a result of this work, Open Door was able to successfully secure £3.8 million in capital funding, and the project started to become a reality.
Phase 2: Joy Design
During 2023, we continued our work with Open Door to bring the project to life. Moving into the planning and design phase of a big project like this is always tough. No matter how well you plan, unexpected challenges and barriers are bound to pop up. Given our experience and service design know-how, Capacity were able to support Open Door to move through the uncertainty and pin down the finer details required to make their vision a reality.
Building on our engagement with local people, we spent time listening to partners and tenants to get to grips with what they needed from ‘Joy’. These conversations gave us insight into the practical details of how it will operate.
During this period, we worked with Open Door to design and understand the give and take between:
- The operating model: getting into the nitty-gritty of how joy will deliver services, what partners will be involved, how spaces will be used and how the building will operate.
- The services model: giving a more detailed view of the services that will be provided, what they ‘feel like’ and what success looks like.
- The costing model: thinking through different scenarios and the realities of delivering the operating and services models.
Now, in 2024, we’ve continued our work with Open Door through our Social Climbers programme, which aims to support local, socially trading organisations to think about growth. This has involved providing strategic support to the Open Door team to work through the complexity required to move Joy into the next phase.
What happens next?
It’s safe to say we’re fully committed to seeing this project through, and we’re truly on a journey with Open Door. Our work doesn’t end here, we’re looking forward to getting our hands dirty in the phase 3 of the project ‘Joy Build’ – the renovation and physical construction of the building that will make the dream a reality.
