Every year programmes are run across the country focusing on ‘innovation’ in health, social care, and other public sector fields.
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The Capacity team sat down with Wirral Council’s Early Help leads to kick-off a new project to truly shift how the borough approached support for local families.
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We are thrilled to announce that we are Juno CIC partnered up with the university of central Lancashire [UCLAN] as we build our teams and service – with our first home due to open in late 2022/early 2023!
Continue readingCapacity has supported its partner, We are Juno CIC, to secure £1m in loan funding and over £600k grant funding to kick-off a transformational model of children’s residential care.
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With Katy Leeson, former MD of Social Chain, Lesley Dixon, CEO of PSS and Dave Sweeney Exec Director of Partnerships at Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership
Date: Thursday 16th June, 2pm – 4.30pm
What does ‘a great culture’ really mean, and how do you get one?
This topic comes up every working day at Capacity, whatever type of project we’re delivering it’s often the foundation that either enables or blocks change. In the last ten years we’ve all become more aware of its importance, of the need to create exciting and happy workplaces that make going to work enjoyable not a chore. That’s the expectation of most employees today, and right now, after the most pivotal change we have seen in working history, the ‘great resignation’ means we’ve got to think about the connections between great culture and great leadership and deliver on the promises we make.
We want to use this event to really understand this word ‘culture’. Often overused, (and often misunderstood) it’s one of those topics that can be difficult to plan for, after all it’s less about the ‘what we do’ and much more about ‘how we do it’. Search online today for ‘great company culture’ and you’ll find a hundred books you can read, TED talks you can watch and inspirational stories you can follow, but where do you even start? We all know it’s not something that happens overnight – it’s something that takes planning, graft and absolute unwavering commitment.
On the day, we’ll be talking to three leaders from the North West, people who know what it takes to build amazing places to work (don’t worry we checked they’re staff think it’s a great place to work too). As leaders who know a good bit about high levels of employee engagement and feedback, we’ll find out more about what it means to them and their teams, the work that they’ve done and the platforms and potholes they’ve found along the way.
Katy has an impressive record of leading and inspiring meaningful change both within her most recent role as MD of Social Change and through her client work. She believes culture and values are the most important thing a leader can focus on, that great ‘buzz’ of an ambitious workplace, one with clear ambition and vision. Katy supports organisations to think about the role of culture in attracting the best talent, and the importance for leaders to have a commitment to those ways of working to not only recruit but retain the people they want.
Lesley has been a CEO in the third sector in Liverpool for the last 10 years, transforming the now 103-year-old PSS in terms of direction and culture. With staff engagement levels to envy, Lesley will share her key insights from the journey she’s been on, the challenges along the way and what she thinks are the most important considerations if you truly want to create a place people love working in.
Dave has 24 years’ experience working in Health and Social care, and (put simply) his job is all about getting people to work well together, whether that’s within internal teams or across projects. Dave’s a true ‘people person’ with a unique approach to his public sector role. His ability to connect with others and keep them motivated is critical as his teams face the steep challenges that come with working within the NHS. s on, that great ‘buzz’ of an ambitious workplace, one with clear ambition and vision. Katy supports organisations to think about the role of culture in attracting the best talent, and the importance for leaders to have a commitment to those ways of working to not only recruit but retain the people they want.
How is it March already?!
This year is moving by quickly!
We’ve took the time to speak to many leaders over the past couple of years, and we don’t know one CEO, Director or Senior Manager that hasn’t spent a good bit of it in fire-fighting mode.
As we all know, that often means leaving those things you’d usually do (the things that are about developing yourself, your networks and thinking for the longerterm) off the ‘must-do’ list!
The feedback we’ve had has told us that hearing from some of the top voices in business, charity and public services was just what the doctor ordered – that it gave a touch of inspiration and advice when you needed it.
So, we’ve had a long think and we’ve decided – we’re not going to stop at speaker events, we’re turning REGROUP 2022 into a broader, more interactive range of events and tools that are free to anyone working in public and/or community services in the North West and Wales.
This year, we will be bringing you a mix of:
So, what to do now? Well, keep an eye on our website and socials for some new and exciting events to be announced very soon!
We’re on the lookout for some brilliant Associates to join the team…
Are you:
If you’d like to learn more about any of these opportunities, get in touch via joinus@thisiscapacity.co.uk to speak to one of our Project Leads, who will identify areas of need across our current projects and match them with your skillset and experience.
Joining Chris on the Board of trustees are:
David Warner, Chair of Local Trust said: “This is a crucially important time for Local Trust. Over the past few years, the charity has taken rich learning from the communities it supports across the country to drive change to champion community-led investment and drive even further change.“
“Now, with the end our strategy in sight, we are really pleased to be joined by four individuals from across the country with completely different experience and perspectives. Their knowledge and skills will be invaluable in helping us, not only meet our aims, but ensure that community power is firmly on the national agenda now and beyond 2026, so all neighbourhoods have the opportunity to flourish.”
Chris added: “I am thrilled to be joining the Local Trust Board. This is a very important time to work as closely as we can with our local communities and make sure we listen to the challenges they are facing.“
Through place-based investment we have the chance to make some real and impactful change and I look forward to working with Local Trust to achieve this.”
The appointments come at a strategically important time for the charity, as it seeks to maximise the impact of its work and secure a legacy beyond 2026, when its pioneering community-led investment programme Big Local, is set to complete.
Funded by the National Lottery Community Fund and delivered by Local Trust, Big Local is a resident-led funding programme providing people in 150 areas in England, that have historically missed out on funding, with £1.15m each to spend across 10 –15 years to create lasting change in their neighbourhoods.
The four new Trustees will be formally appointed at the organisation’s Annual General Meeting in November 2021
The last 18 months have been some of the most challenging our sectors have faced. We’ve seen families devasted, professionals burned out and systems overwhelmed, what good can come from that? It’s been a heavy price to pay but increasing recognition of our public and third sector (of long-standing underfunding and undervaluing of colleagues) has rocketed and that is something to we at Capacity want to help maintain. Therefore, we’ve decided to both celebrate and stimulate this recognition with a series of events that will run from September to November this year – the REGROUP ‘Never More Needed’ series.
The full programme is still being finalised and will be winging its way to your inbox shortly, but in the meantime, I’m delighted to announce our first speaker, Jon Yates. Jon has a vast amount experience on both the commissioner and provider side of youth services, playing key roles in national policy development and project leadership with the Department of Education, founding sector leading youth organisations and now working as Executive Director the Youth Endowment Fund. Jon’s was ahead of most in seeing the potential this pandemic had to achieve something positive and his perfectly timed book ‘Fractured’ presents us as designers, commissioners and providers of public services with much food for thought as we reflect on the pandemic and its ability to unite people across all walks of life. The book and Jon’s thinking is based on the principle that ‘what unites us is stronger than what divides us’ and we believe this thinking and way of living is a great mantra for us to take into the coming years as our societies, and our sectors, start to recover.
The event will take place via Zoom on Friday 10th September at 10am, so keep it free if you can. To save you the task of cut and pasting this information across we’ll send you a diary invite over the next few days.
We really hope you can join us to in the first of this new series, I look forward to seeing you there.
Just email Chris Witterick at chris.witterick@capacitylab.co.uk to book your place
The programme, which begins in February, will be delivered by the Capacity team across eight weekly workshops and will see students learn about:
At the end of the programme, students will pitch their social enterprise idea back to the community and lay down a realistic timeframe for its delivery. The overall aim of the programme will be to promote better awareness between students and their neighbours and will mark the start of a sustainable social enterprise that exists to educate students who move into these communities in the future.
Chris Witterick, Partnerships Manager at Capacity, said:
