9. Wellington and Wiveliscombe Neighbourhood Team

Connect Somerset Champion Peter shares how the community in Wellington are working together to develop a new early help hub

The Kings Arms building was empty for some time. Plans are already in place for the middle and top floor by Falcon Housing to provide affordable housing for residents of Wellington, leaving the ground floor as a space dedicated to the wider community needs. A working group, including Wellington Town Council, Churches Together, Spark,
Falcon Rural Housing and the Connect Somerset Area Champion, has been set up to ensure the ground floor can be used to support the community and to discuss what could be provided. With an increase in demand for statutory services at present, it was agreed that an early help hub should be set up to support local adults, children, families and young people who may be vulnerable.

By working collaboratively, support will be available to address needs at the earliest opportunity, costs and expertise will be shared and escalation to statutory services can be prevented.

Well, it certainly was not a Blue Monday for the Wellington community neighbourhood team!

On Monday 20th January 2025, Wellington’s neighbourhood meeting took place at Court Fields School. Refreshments (bacon rolls) were provided by the community through our local butcher, Tim Potter.

When you try to pull a meeting like this together the concerns are always around who will turn up? Will we get the right people there? The meeting was set for 90 minutes at the beginning of the week. Whilst an agenda was set, we wanted to ensure that this was fluid so that everyone could take advantage of this networking opportunity.

We wanted people to feel listened to, we wanted to ensure that where possible the attendees could support each other in dealing with priorities. We also wished to ensure that the voice of Young People was heard… and all of this on “Blue Monday”.

We were not disappointed.

At 8.30 people started arriving. Over 50 people in the Court Fields staff room, ranging from Strategic Leads from Local Authority, Town Council, Schools and Primary Care together with community mobilisers from the Churches Together Alliance, Best Before Food Store, Rotary Club, SASP, Village Agent’s EY providers, Community Safety, FIS and Inclusion Services etc to students from Court Fields. All had their part to play in taking neighbourhood working to the next level. It soon became clear that the agenda needed to become fluid and to start the ball rolling introductions were made and an exercise which continued throughout the meeting. We asked attendees to highlight work they were doing and where they felt they needed support from anyone in the room.

The second part of this exercise was for anyone who felt they could help to complete a slip with their contact details. There was a huge response, and this information will be collated to match up those who feel they can support with the requests made.

An update on neighbourhood working under the Connect Somerset programme was given by the Early Help lead for Somerset Council, which very much set the scene for how as a community we wished to move forward. We are keen to ensure that everyone’s priorities are shared and that as a neighbourhood we can address these in a joined-up way.

The voice of Young People, through the inspiring group of students that presented on the work they are doing on creating a Young Peoples Independent Advisory Group to the Police and also helping to design the Community Hub at the Kings Arms so that it is Young People friendly. An update on work at the Kings Arms was given by Helen Acreman from Wellington Town Council, she also being an ex Courtfields student.

Another very recent ex Courtfields student then spoke about an offer by Young Somerset for young people which lead to numerous conversations on how we can ensure that this offer is taken up.

Finally, Polly Matthews, Head Teacher at Court Fields updated on Cradle to Career. A huge amount of data and a mapping of services in Wellington had been undertaken as part of this process. Polly was able to drill down potential areas to be addressed by Post Code and look at how potential issues can be addressed at the earliest opportunity. Cradle to Career is far more than a few sentences and all information will be shared with all involved in neighbourhood working.
There is so much that can be said about this meeting and how we are trying to link with other meetings such as Local Community Networks.

A few quotes sum up what the community feel:

Today’s focus had the right balance of community vs strategic input. The passion, energy, and willingness in the room, combined with the compassionate and dedicated leaders from multiple agencies was the perfect recipe. And to have the young people’s input was just the cherry on the cake!

Great event today, so very well organised and informative, looking forward to seeing the slides, I really love everything that is going on and would love to volunteer at the Kings Arms in the future

By working like this we can ensure that we all help with each other’s priorities and more importantly support young people and vulnerable adults and children at the earliest opportunity in a more joined up way.

Building Neighbourhood/Locality Teams is part of the Connect Somerset programme.

Connect Somerset is a partnership between Somerset Council, Somerset NHS, Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprises (VCFSEs), schools, colleges, and early years settings, which aims to make it easier for Somerset residents to get the help they need and to get it early.