Reflections on Compassionate Communities and the Community Wellbeing Hub, five years on, by James Carlin

From a global scale to a local level 

When setting up 3SG, Bath and North East Somerset’s Third Sector group, James Carlin was aiming to do some real work on a local community level. What he, and the rest of the world, couldn’t have foreseen was that, just 3 weeks after the launch of ‘Compassionate Communities’ - a part of their organisation specifically designed to bring communities closer together - COVID-19 would take a firm grip globally, and did its best to separate individual people from day 1.

Local councils and government bodies were plunging into an unknown future, individuals and organisations went into panic, and fear and mistrust between even good friends began to creep in.  Emergency responses, volunteer coordination and societal damage control was needed at government and grassroots levels. But how to bring people together people when the situation demanded separation, when togetherness equated danger.... 

You could say it was fortunate then that James’ past experience at UNICEF gave him insight and strategies that could now be employed on a local scale. Instead of pressing ‘pause’ when lockdown began and social interaction was no longer allowed (surely an option?) he saw that he had exactly the structure in place that could, with a swift change of focus, be put to really positive local use, and it could be done quickly. James: “It was just a simple idea. The timing was bizarre. We had Compassionate Communities ready and waiting to go when people needed it at some unknown moment. Then it was suddenly really needed.” 

Having been involved himself in global organisations, he had witnessed just how fast it was possible to mobilise volunteers in response to enormous crisis situations, like in Haiti after the earthquake of 2010.  James was able to kickstart a chain of actions to assist and connect those most vulnerable and isolated, street by street, in the city of Bath. 

A helpline was set up for information and it became the first port of call for thousands of local people who were struggling to know what to do and where to go for help. He connected with Sarah Williams-Martin, and organisations such as Bath Mutual Aid, to maximise partnership strength and combine knowledge to come up with a joint plan of action.

A tsunami of volunteers

“We launched Compassionate Communities in February and put out a request for volunteers, aiming to train up maybe 50 people over the year to understand better how to support local communities.” 

The request went out just as the people started to see the size and impact of the pandemic.  “I think it was one Instagram post one weekend, the response was almost overwhelming”. 3SG went from being a one-person operation to having six full-time volunteers and almost 2,000 connectors or volunteers. “We had to turn the sign-up page off!”

“We not only had a flood of volunteers, but at the same time a flood of people needing help, information, and basics like access to food and medicines. Our inbox was quickly overwhelmed.” 3SG received 200 - 300 applications to become volunteers daily, so dealing with uploading data, cleaning data, staying in touch, getting them reading handbooks and agreeing to our way of working was like a huge staff induction programme in itself. 

They had already been building networks that were now ready to use and put the test. A sustainable food partnership was formed giving house-bound people access to information about finding food, creating ‘street champions’ who would help coordinate information and deliveries to those people who needed help most. 

“It’s been amazing to see how much good work can be done by people who don’t know each other,” says James. “Almost all of our volunteers are operating out of their own homes, many have never met and wouldn’t recognise each other in the street! What joins us together is compassion and a willingness to be part of the solution, and I’m immensely proud of each and every one of us. So it has become this virtual community. That’s been really unexpected.” 

From Christmas calls to vaccine centre marshalling

At Christmas, they ran a campaign focused on loneliness and isolation and arranged deliveries of Christmas lunch and a phone call from a volunteer just to chat, to those alone who requested it. Once again they were overwhelmed with offers of help. They linked up with Bath College so that every person offering to make a call received a 2 hour training course on compassionate conversation, which included a safety section. This level of investment in volunteers is unusual and made possible by the foundations that 3SG had set up to foster networks of organisations when they started out. It is paying dividends. Volunteers feel more valued and more engaged and more understanding of how they can help. 

When the Bath vaccine centre was set up, they said they’d find volunteers to help the NHS to look after people, direct them, smile, put them at ease. 600 signed up straight away and they had to start a waiting list! Fairly quickly they had to ask those volunteers to reduce the amount of shifts they did, so that all volunteers got a chance to help. What a problem to have!

“People wanted to help but didn’t know how. So it showed us that there was no lack of interest in helping but people don’t always know how to help or what help they can do depending on their own circumstances. We were able to enlist people and able to use their different skills, to make phone calls, deliver something, print posters, run the twitter account. I think it showed people just how much they could do.”

Looking back at the experience of 2020, the 3SG team nailed their mission to help community individuals, organisations and networks work better together. The speed with which they embraced the changing situation and adapted to meet the needs of their community to provide much needed assistance has been recognised through the city.  James is enthusiastic and positive about the future and the next steps, “It should be laying some solid groundwork for our community when this is finished. That could genuinely make our community a lot better. We’ve experienced a huge wave of people wanting to help each other, wanting to help the people who live on their own streets and in their own city.”  It was exactly the outcome that 3SG was built for but no one anticipated the path it would take to get there.  And that’s something to be celebrated. And something to build on. 

Written by James Carlin. Thank you James, you are amazing! Happy 5th Birthday Community Wellbeing Hub!