Roundtable - doing things differently in the North

This event, held online on 14th July 2021, was hosted by Laura Seebohm, Better Way Convenor in the North, and brought together many people - public and voluntary sector, community businesses and private sector, including individuals and organisations who are connecting institutions and individuals - who are doing things differently in the North.

Introducing the topic, Laura explained that over the last year there has been much interest and some cynicism about the Government’s commitment to ‘levelling up’ and what this might mean for people in the North and Midlands.  At the same time, there are many places across the North and Midlands where people and communities are already doing ground-breaking things.  This is patchy and diverse, but momentum is building to do things in a very different way.  Several people had suggested that the Better Way model in Time for a Change captures the practices that will deliver real change, she explained, and the purpose of the event was to try and tease out if there were common threads from what is already happening in the north and midlands that could be applied elsewhere.

As well as lively discussion among the participants, there were four opening presentations and also two respondents , and you can watch these below.

Opening presentations:

Mark Smith, Director of Public Service Reform for Gateshead Council

Charlotte Carpenter, Executive Director Growth and Business Development, Karbon Homes

Sommer Springer, Trauma and Wellbeing Co-ordinator, Changing Lives, Wolverhampton

Samantha Abram, Asset Coach from The Brick, Wigan

Respondents

Rosie Lewis, Head of Policy for Imkaan

Sue Pearson, Chief Executive of Heeley City Farm, Sheffield

Concluding the discussion, Caroline Slocock, the national co-convenor for a Better Way, remarked on how each of the speakers in different ways had emphasised the importance of principles and process to delivering change. Their contribution and the input from participants had shown that it was possible to identify common threads from which others could learn. She grouped these under the four dimensions of the Better Way model, as these provided one framework for doing so:

• Listening to each other, with many of the speakers talking about the importance of listening to those least heard now, because that is the only way to find out what’s not working and what will.

• Sharing and building power, with the examples described vividly demonstrating that we have more power than we think to make change happen and we can also empower others to bring about change in their lives.

• Joining forces, across organisations, because very often we need to change the system not the person, the speakers had said, and we can’t do that alone.

• Putting relationships first, creating relationships as the norm in organisations, both with those who seek help and amongst ourselves and across organistions.

The speakers had also demonstrated the importance of the learning journey, sharing and learning as you go along with generosity of spirit, which underlined the value of events and networks like these.