Building a community wellbeing data hub in Widnes
From a report by Civic Data Co-operative
The Liverpool City Region Civic Data Cooperative is a data governance project hosted by the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at the University of Liverpool. Its mission is to enable positive change in health and wellbeing through data and cooperation.
As part of that initiative, they led Round ‘ere - a community-led research project building a wellbeing data hub in Widnes. This was to test different ways of shifting power to communities on how their data is imagined, collected, and used.
They finished the first phase of the project in November 2023 and are now doing the second phase.
What is the project about? The support we’re all provided by the NHS, Councils and other agencies is designed using information they hold about us. But are they using the right information to understand what we need? How do they know we’re well? That data generally is made up of things like: smoking rates, how physically fit people are, whether people are out of work due to illness. and even how long people live. Organisations around us collect all this information to guide how they invest in and design local services and support.
Now those factors that determine whether you’re ‘well’ come from experts who work in research, medicine, social sciences – people who’ve pulled together information over decades and decided, "this is what it means to be well". That feels a bit odd though, doesn’t it?
The Civic Data Cooperative ran a test project in Widnes to help direct how this data is used. They recruited 15 community residents to talk to the people around them, helping to find out what "feeling well’" means to Widnes. That question has no right or wrong answers – they wanted to know what makes people feel good and happy, what makes their lives feel like it’s going well.
They trained the community residents in how to do research including things like listening skills, research methods, and wellbeing concepts. Over Summer 2023, the residents interviewed hundreds of friends, family, and community members on what makes them feel well. Then they looked at what we currently measure and compared it to what people said about wellbeing.
What did they find out? Here are some excerpts:
1. Personal Health
3 topics came up frequently as something that rooted people’s idea of good wellbeing:
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Emotional, mental, and social health - this was often connected to spending time with friends and family or some connection to others within a trusted social circle.
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Physical health - getting out for a walk, going to the gym or eating healthily gave residents a good sense of wellbeing.
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Spiritual health - faith, religion or a conscious connection to the cosmos also was also spoken about frequently as something that gave people a sense of peace, belonging, or satisfaction.
Less often, people mentioned having a good work-life balance, being able to help others and having hobbies (usually grounded in arts and culture). Security was mentioned, either in a financial or safety sense and a lot of people talked about how their physical surrounds affected their wellbeing, sometimes explored as a connection to nature or proximity to places where you could see natural environments.
There were some other more nuanced examples of activities people might do to lift themselves up. These were activity based, and based on personal interest, such as music, volunteering, cooking or arts and crafts. Some residents said that this would take their mind off things or just give them a rush to support their own personal wellbeing.
2. Human Connection
When asked ‘what makes you feel better’, overwhelmingly people spoke about needing other people to be around for a chat to get things off their chest, a trusted person who might re-assure them or to talk something over with.
3. Life Stage Variation
Anecdotally, older people held different views about personal wellbeing compared to younger residents. Older people’s sense of self was in a more optimistic place, they were satisfied with their achievements, their family, their community and articulated a rounded sense of feeling content.
Younger people were craving more, wanting more connection and achievement. Younger peoples measure of success was not as content or as clear cut, they are striving and wanting more from Widnes. This was articulated as more tangible things for example, activities to take part in over summer holidays.
Similarly, parents and grandparents with young children, emphasised that there could be more connection and choice available across Widnes for their families and there is a sense that there wasn’t as many activities as possible for different age ranges for them to enjoy or be engaged with.
4. Getting around to places
People experience challenges moving around Widnes. There was a recognition that transport links aren’t great, a dream for more hyper local amenities and a plea to services to stay physically present, not just relying on digital offers.
5. Community - People
The factors connected to people were expressed in detail such as having a supportive community and someone you could rely upon to talk to, and a sense of togetherness or community spirit. People wanted to feel connected to each other and show respect to their peers. People had a sense that some Widnes residents show signs of poor wellbeing, in the way they hold themselves or present themselves to others, but others really expressed that ‘Wids’ are generally positive people who are generally happy and satisfied.
For people to play a role in good community wellbeing, indicators were based on the way we interact with each other. Respect for and kindness towards one another were important foundations, as well as an understanding of ‘community values’ from a young age which would be instilled at the young age and maintained through life.
6. Community - Place
Public places, services, and privately owned assets need to be plentiful; people want to feel like they have a choice of things to do, see and visit, for adults and children. The enabling factors for assets to contribute to community wellbeing included accessibility (easy to travel to and open at the right times), affordability (cheap or free), availability (opportunities to be involved and we need to know about it).
Residents acknowledged that these factors were reliant upon ‘the system’, which is made up of decision makers such as the local council or national government, and a sense of community ownership and responsibility that things needed to be cared for and looked after in order to preserve them.
Poverty was spoken about. An ask to local agencies for these needs to be tackled first before ‘the bells and whistles’. An ask for universal help, a place for people to get the help they need. This was tempered with an acceptance that local government, although perceived as being responsible for this, does not have the resources to respond due to national decision making and funding cuts.
Lots of pride was spoken about the town, grown from the history of Widnes both its industrial heritage and rugby success. The generations closest to these periods of time were most proud, the nostalgia from this powered their hope for the future. Connected to this, any critique comes from a constructive place, people want Widnes to thrive, have its best interests at heart and have hope for ‘Widnes to be great again’. Paired with this was a fear that this community identity and pride is connected to the older generations and there was a rumbling of concern about how this pride is instilled in younger residents. An acknowledgment that the pride of the ‘glory days’, is connected to having lived them. For younger residents, their connection to this is through their family roots and for the pride to remain, we need to cultivate the next generation of successes.
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A general lack of power and autonomy came across in most of the interviews. Many of the interviewees felt neglected and unable to make changes in their local area themselves, either through being overworked, uninformed, or generally just not feeling involved in local decision making. None felt like they were empowered to make improvements themselves, but also didn’t feel confident that local leaders were properly considering their interests.
Residents showed little trust in both local and national decision makers, that the ‘powers that be’ don’t care about the town and have no interest in making it a better place to live for the whole community.
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From a report by Civic Data Co-operative, 08/10/2024