, Author at Seeding Our Future

Beauty, outrage, shared humanity: all in Trafalgar Square

I’ve just had a rare visit to London, and one of my treats was a classical music concert in St Martin in the Fields, the beautiful old church on Trafalgar Square. Right across the road, in the big central area, was a vigil and protest for Ukraine, which is happening nightly. It was moving to … Read more

Climate Change, Uist, and Future Conversations

To change the future we need to change the present, but to do that we need to have the right conversations. That’s exactly what Alan Heeks and Pamela Candea understand when they work with local people using Future Conversations. Recently, Pamela worked with people from the Uist community, using Future Conversations to help outline a … Read more

Navigation aids for a world beyond normal

In the past two years, the world has been rocked by three huge events: covid, the rapid acceleration of the climate crisis, and now by Ukraine. Most of us did not see any of this coming: a few people did, and the ones I know are telling us to brace for more major shocks ahead. … Read more

Bridport Climate Fellowship Circle – September 8

Higher guidance and mutual support in uncertain times The worsening climate crisis is a valid reason for alarm, bewilderment, and other difficult feelings, and… this is also a chance to find spiritual insights, blessings and positive change amid the turbulence. The idea of the Fellowship Circle is to offer a safe and creative space to … Read more

Nature Immersion for Climate Distress: May 17-18

A workshop for therapists, counsellors and group leaders Tues May 17 – Wed May 18: Hazel Hill Wood, near Salisbury We can see that the climate crisis is worsening, and we need new ways to respond to rising climate distress. This experiential workshop is designed for therapists, counsellors, facilitators and other professionals, offering you a … Read more

Nature Immersion Course for GPs: March 21-22, 2022

The Devon venue and facilitators for these programmes will be the same as the October 2021 group described below, and the content will be broadly the same. Details of how to book will be available in early 2022. For details of the March course, see here. Please note that the course is only open to … Read more

Nature Immersion Course for GPs: March 23-24, 2023

The Devon venue and facilitators for these programmes will be the same as the October 2021 group described below, and the content will be broadly the same. Details of how to book will be available in early 2023. For indicative details, click here. Please note that the course is only open to Tamar and Wessex … Read more

Seven kinds of community

You and your communities If you define community quite widely, you are probably part of several. This briefing can help you assess the groups you’re in, and how well they fit your needs. I’ve listed seven kinds of community: as you read this, review how many of these you’re involved in. In some cases, you … Read more

Community insights from ecosystems

Cultivated ecosystems shape natural processes to achieve outputs for us humans: we can learn a lot from the community aspects of Nature. Here are some examples from different settings. Community on the farm Wild margins: This is one of my favourite principles in organic systems. To qualify for organic certification, a farm must leave some … Read more

2022 Climate Outlook: pray for miracles

The holiday time around New Year 2022 has been a chance for some of us to reflect on the outlook for the climate crisis, and it’s not a cheery prospect. I have been digging deep to find some constructive responses. In reviewing current information, I was startled to learn that, if you adjust for the … Read more

Featured Blog

How can we raise community resilience?

The Facing the 2020s report As the pressures on all of us keep rising, we can see mounting discord about best priorities and solutions. One of the few topics on which almost everyone agrees is that increasing the resilience of local communities is getting ever more vital. This has been a focus of my work since 2012, so I’m offering an overview of some of my insights. As part of a project called Facing the 2020s, in 2012 I commissioned a substantial piece of action research on UK community resilience by Reos Partners, which included over thirty diagnostic interviews, extensive desk research, and exploratory workshops in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff with potential stakeholders, including national and local government, NGOs and community organisations. This blog is a summary of the insights I gained from this research. The terms community and resilience are so heavily used that a short explanation of what I mean by community resilience may be wise: the collective capacity of a group of people to handle and grow through crises and challenges. I’ve set out below some of the main aspects of resilience in this context: part of this capacity could come from organisations, including local authority, public services and non-profit groups. Material: some capacity to respond locally to interruptions in food, energy supplies, especially for elderly and vulnerable people. Environmental: response to ecosystem damage, eg habitat loss, pollution and to extreme weather, eg floods, droughts.Wellbeing: for everyone’s emotional needs, especially those who have mental health or isolation issues.Inspirational: maintaining and renewing a sense of vision, cohesion and purpose in the community in the face of a crisis.Connective: good communication within the group, including the skills of hearing, voicing, reconciling strong differences in opinions and values. The main insights from the Facing the 2020s research are these: Reproducibility: On most aspects of community resilience, there are successful exemplar projects somewhere in the UK. For a concise, inspiring range of examples, see the book The New Road, by Alf and Ewan Young. Why have these not been widely reproduced? One reason is that many good community resilience initiatives have depended on a few superhuman people, who just kept going against impossible difficulties. How can such interventions be systematised so that regular humans could implement them in a bigger number of communities? Recording what was done in an accessible toolkit form would help a lot. Sustainable funding: Many good initiatives have also depended on funding that was not reproducible, e.g. a slab of one-off grant funding as part of a pilot programme by an NGO. Sustainable funding sources could include raising capital from local communities themselves, (eg crowdfunding), or a social enterprise model, or a couple of larger foundations offering a grant scheme plus support to use it. Professional services: Many community initiatives struggle to find professional support geared to their particular needs, in finance, legal, property, HR and other areas. The emergence of specialists for this sector would greatly assist reproductivity. Systemic catalysts: In my dream of raising UK community resilience, a focal role would be played by trained advocate-facilitators, who would go into a community to understand its needs and dynamics, help gather support and a project team and could provide access to reproducible role models, sustainable funding, professional services and more. Working with minority groups and communities of identity: Some communities will be more vulnerable to shocks than others, and history tells us that unresolved social tensions bubble up at times of stress. Resilient societies and communities rely heavily on social cohesion. The benefits of working on community resilience now include the opportunity to pre-empt more severe ruptures to social cohesion which are likely to arise from the major stresses ahead. It is important to involve minority communities in the resilience journey, and communities of identity such as LGBT, instead of focussing solely on geographic communities. Wider participation: Many places don’t have a strong sense of community, and in most of those that do, only a tiny percentage of people participate actively in community matters. How could larger numbers of communities, and larger numbers of people, have a motivation to participate in community resilience, including ethnic and low-income communities? This is a crucial issue, which will become more acute amid the pressures ahead: it would be great to see a couple of enlightened large NGOs fund pilot projects and gathering of best practice to move this forward. Engaging local authorities: As funding for services has moved from central government to local authorities, many local authorities have worked to further devolve decision-making and budgetary decisions to local communities. This means that in some parts of the country, local communities are strongly engaged with the local authority, and structures exist to support these partnerships. This move towards greater local control highlights the exciting potential to tackle many priorities (environmental, public service reform, etc.) by adopting a resilience approach and involving local people in community action and resilience building. In recent years, some local authorities have become real innovators in new forms of service delivery, partnership working and more. The replication issue applies here too. Is there currently an easy way to access best practice and role models in this area? Building national resilience: Most approaches towards community resilience take place at a geographic community level. However, examples from UK history and from other countries indicate real benefits in national-level approaches towards resilience. Some of the countries that are considered the most resilient, such as Japan, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, have a strong national resilience policy. If the UK had this too, it would make local initiatives more effective. Online resilience services: A massive opportunity for innovation! If I continue to dream, I imagine social entrepreneurs and progressive NGOs helping to create new apps and web services, alongside businesses.