Community Anchors Project Provides Activities & Support
What is a Community Anchor organisation?
It is an organisation supporting others to provide community activity and support.
Before Covid, Community Anchor organisations supported social prescribing. As Covid hit, they became a key part of the third sector’s response to Covid, supporting Mutual Aid Groups and others helping those in need.
This new project funds Community Anchor organisations to listen to communities, understand strengths and needs, provide advice and practical support to existing community organisations and to individuals who want to start new ones. The aim is to strengthen networks and support community activity and voice, and so improve health, wellbeing and resilience.
Social prescribing is supporting people into community activity which can help their health and wellbeing. This remains an activity that Community Anchors support.
Why is this work important? So what?
Our mental and physical health is affected by our environment and experiences and our social interaction and relationships have a huge impact on our health and our ability to recover from challenging periods in life. Community activities and organisations can help us feel useful, connected, involved and supported when we need it most. They help us work together to improve our communities and to cope when there are shocks and challenges, as we saw in the pandemic.
Community Anchor organisations help start, sustain and grow community activity and support to meet local needs. They help community groups to link up with services and to strengthen community voices in decisions affecting them. They help to create a fairer, healthier and more sustainable Kirklees.
Of course, community organisations understand that they are just one part of the jigsaw supporting community health. Community Anchors will work with public, private and third sector partners to understand and respond to community needs and strengths.
Which organisations are Community Anchors?
There are four Lead Anchors organisations, each covering one of the four Places across Kirklees. Lead Anchors support Local Anchor organisations. Lead and Local Anchors were chosen by a panel following an open application process.
Huddersfield
- Lead Anchor: Local Services 2 You www.ls2y.co.uk
- Local Anchors: The Branch, Locorum, Thornton Lodge Action Group, Huddersfield Mission
Dewsbury
- Lead Anchor: S2R Create Space www.s2r.org.uk
- Local Anchors: Ravensthorpe Community Centre and one other to be confirmed
Batley & Spen
- Lead Anchor: Yorkshire Children’s Centre www.yorkshirechildrenscentre.org.uk
- Indian Muslim Welfare Society, plus one other to be confirmed
Rural
- Lead Anchor: TIME Together (powered by the Denby Dale Centre) www.ddc.org.uk
- Local Anchors: not yet identified.
You can contact Ibrar Hussain, Community Anchors Lead at ibrar@tslkirklees.org.uk and 07443191205, or Bridget Hughes, Supporting Communities Lead at bridget@tslkirklees.org.uk, 07540 434573.