Friendly Connected Communities

'Friendly Connected Communities' of Leicestershire is an initiative led by communities, supported by Leicestershire County Council to achieve greater inclusion of all residents, aiming to create cohesive, resilient and friendly environments where people can participate and collaborate regardless of their conditions and personal situations. This is achieved by talking to different people outside the main interest of a specific project or activity, encouraging cross collaboration and participation, which in return can help with greater sense of community.

In a post Co-Vid19 scenario, where communities came together regardless of their status or situation, Friendly Connected Communities model builds on those experiences and encourages residents to bring together stronger and more resilient communities across Leicestershire in a sustainable and low cost manner. A collective participation and inclusion can also help to create a sense of belonging, trust and community across the county.

The main focus is on low-level support and kind actions delivered by and within communities, from helping an elderly person to be part of the community by just checking on them to welcoming new people into their community, perhaps encouraging collaboration, inclusion and engagement of different parts of the community, seeking cross collaboration between existing projects or programmes. Initiatives such as the Dementia Friendly Action, Autism Friendly or Age Friendly Environments, as well as the Friendly Bench(r), of which you can see details about below, are good examples where residents organised in communities to support each other in an effective and inclusive way.

Communities that are friendly, cohesive and inclusive are more resilient and can better contribute to greater levels of well-being, helping people to feel less isolated or lonely. They can also help to create shared values by collaborating across groups and initiatives, and better understanding each other.

Examples like the Autism Friendly Kibworth below shows how the Friendly Connected Communities approach can be applied to different situations.

The MRC has embedded the FCC into their organisation across their different services; including their Feel-Good Café.

This has helped them to improve the satisfaction from their visitors, but also from the volunteers supporting the centre. Actions such as:

• Reception changes with new job description as 'Greeter' put in place from Jan 24.
• SMILE is the most important job; visitor focused rather than admin focused -The greeter sets the tone of the reception area.
• Improvements in the Feel-Good Factor Café consisting on the way they organise their advocacy services for instance.
• Volunteer champions took ownership within other projects, contributing towards their wellbeing and building their confidence. Their 'Sewcial Group' is one of these groups that benefited, for instance

Anyone can start a Friendly Connected Community, a local group, a group of individual residents that want a more inclusive and friendly community where they want to create a sense of belonging based on shared values. Local examples such as Autism Friendly Kibworth, helped to understand the diverse nature of friendly environments and the importance of collaboration and empathy as elements of healthy and inclusive environments.

There is more than one way to start a Friendly Connected Community initiative, but it is always a good idea to consider what people and groups are doing already, looking at ways to work closer and mutually support each other; perhaps including groups or individuals that have not had an opportunity to participate or being included in existing projects. You can check how an initiative like 'The Friendly Bench' helps communities to come together and bring different people with different interests into sharing and including each other, creating friendly connected communities.

This is the guide to Friendly Connected Communities. It will help you to start thinking about what you have in your community, what you can do to bring people together, and how the community could embrace actions that seek collaboration across groups and individual initiatives.

The Guide helps you to think about what could work, how you know it makes a difference and how different organisations and groups can contribute, together, to help communities to be more resilient, open and inclusive.