Can Do Project update - February 2022
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This is our first monthly update since getting up and running at the start of 2022. Let’s start with the basics.
What is the Can Do Project?
This is phase two of the project, our first phase was focused on the foundational economy – catch up on the lessons we captured throughout phase one. The housing sector in Wales pioneered the Can Do Approach. In this second phase we’re aiming to build on that in five important ways.
We want to secure commitment for the Can Do Approach from sectors outside housing. We’re really keen to talk to people in health, social care and education.
We want to support local and bespoke co-production. This should be centred around the main players: clients, contractors and communities. We call these folk the 3Cs. They have a huge role in deciding what ‘value’ they want, how they are going to make it happen and what success will look like.
We’re going to base all the project’s work on the seven wellbeing goals and five ways of working to keep in step with the Future Generations Act. It’s here to stay, and we intend for the Can Do Approach to fit harmoniously with it.
We’re focused on bringing resources into the implementation gap – that tricky space between high-level ambitions and what happens on the ground.
And finally, and maybe most importantly for a project like this, we want to capture lessons rapidly and as we move forward, and then share them as widely as possible.
What we offer
All our support is bespoke, drawing on the skills and experience of the project team. We’ve developed a range of ways we can support organisations and get the Can Do Approach embedded in new sectors. We can facilitate high-level reviews for leadership teams on the approach, and how to adopt it. We can work on specific needs with organisations looking at stuff like:
Agreeing outcomes and how to measure them
Involving the community – the third C
Working with local suppliers
Developing partnership and collaboration with others
We can also arrange sector Can Do summits, to raise wider awareness and build commitment to the Can Do Approach – looking at you again health, social care and education (but we aren’t forgetting our housing roots!)
Finally, to fulfil that mission to capture and share lessons, we’ll be building up a bank of resources – tools, case studies, infographics and podcasts – to help you find the stuff that works in your local context.
What we’ve been up to so far
Since the start of the year we’ve been working with some organisations in health and social care. We’re working on bespoke actions with Hywel Dda Health Board, Cardiff and Vale Health Board, NHS Wales Shared Services and Digital Health and Care Wales.
We’ve met with five housing associations, with contact made with 20 overall. We’ve started working on specific initiatives with Trivallis, Bron Afon and Tai Tarian.
In the education sector we’ve engaged with Glyndwr University civic mission and procurement leads and are working on a list of actions.
We’ve met with Welsh Government leads on Net Zero, and will be facilitating a session with a group comprising 11 stock-holding councils and five housing associations. There’s also really exciting Welsh Government project and research work going around social value and how it is defined, the Buy Local Buy Social project, and nurturing the third sector in the foundational economy – a lot of which is through our host organisation Wales Cooperative Centre.
Finally, we gave a presentation to the Foundational Economy Network Wales, and will be following up with Vanguard Consulting and Bronllys Wellbeing Project as a result.
What emerging themes are coming out of the project?
So far we’ve confirmed a lot of the findings of our 2021 project, summarised in this Capturing Lessons report.
Starting with the big positive, interest in the Can Do approach is very strong. Given we started in housing, it’s really encouraging to have had such a positive response from the health sector as well, and we’re working on developing specific actions there.
Following these initial conversations the focus of the project is now turning to answering the ‘how to’ questions. A crucial step towards plugging the implementation gap.
We’re finding that partners are at very different stages of development in their thinking and activities in this space. As a consequence, each intervention by the project team is bespoke.
Finally, we’re doing further work on what the community aspect of the 3Cs means in practice, and how we can support partners to engage and deliver there.
What’s next?
Keep an eye out for more blog content – we’ll be sharing lessons learned, short updates about concepts that underpin the Can Do Approach (have you seen our update on measurement yet?), and hopefully some outcomes from the HQN Cymru-hosted Can Do Cymru event.
