Seven workstream groups sit underneath the County Durham Together Partnership. All are working towards the Vision and Ambitions of the Partnership in different ways. You can find out more about each workstream group and the work they are exploring below.
Joint Strategic Needs and Assets Assessment (JSNAA)
The JSNAA group also reports to the County Durham Health and Wellbeing Board. It brings together partnership data and strategic assets to build a detailed picture of current and future health and wellbeing needs of local people. The data collected is used to inform the Joint Local Health and Wellbeing Strategy, helps partners in County Durham Together to make the most of our assets and to inform the conversations we have with our communities. Find out more about the JSNAA.
Community Involvement group
The Community Involvement Group brings together partners from health services, voluntary and community organisations, housing providers, the police and Durham County Council. We aim to strengthen relationships with communities by:
- Co-developing resources and training to help group members and partners support people in having a say in decisions that affect their lives.
- Improving collaboration by sharing information about existing involvement activities and finding ways to work together more effectively.
- Advocating at a strategic level for community co-production, ensuring communities play a key role in shaping services, policies, and strategies.
It’s about making involvement more meaningful and integrated.
Digital Inclusion group
The Digital Inclusion Group brings together partners from Durham County Council, Voluntary and Community Organisations, NHS and Durham University to address some of the challenges faced by people in our communities who are digitally excluded. Together, we aim to:
- Scope digital work already underway across partner organisations.
- Identify the digital inclusion needs in our communities.
- Develop digital resources for local communities, sharing information about activities and assets.
Community Connectors
The Community Connectors group is about helping those connectors to be confident in their roles and use shared resources and language to offer consistent support to all our communities and helping people to be in control of their own plans. It brings together people who are involved in direct delivery as well as organisations. Together, we aim to:
- Co-develop training to help community connectors to build skills.
- Develop a young community health champions programme.
- Identify gaps in service provision and support connectors to fill them.
- Ensure clear pathways into and out of support services and holistic support.
- Share practice, skills and experience.
Voluntary Community & Social Enterprise (VCSE) Leadership Group
The VCSE Leadership Group is working towards a fundamental shift in culture, investment and process. By co-developing an investment framework and delivery plan for working with the VCSE sector and exploring and testing new ways of working together to invest in and commission the VCSE to deliver services, they hope to to make use of the sector’s insights and strengths to better meet the needs of people who life in County Durham and maximise and align cross-sector investment into the voluntary and community sector. Together, they aim to:
- Gain support for, implement and oversee, Employer Supported Volunteering Schemes.
- Identify opportunities that encourage collaboration and that support the co-design of solutions. building on local capacity and strengths.
- Increase knowledge and understanding of the contribution made by VCSE organisations at a local level.
- Maximise and align cross sector investment into the voluntary and community sector.
Resilient Communities group
The Resilient Communities Group leads community and VCSE engagement within the Community Mental Health Transformation (CMHT) Hubs, supporting the vision outlined in the NHS’s long-term plan for a place-based community mental health model that offers whole-person, whole-population approaches. This means engaging and co-creating the work programme with communities. Together, they aim to:
- Advocate for and support the implementation of the approach to wellbeing across the VCSE and within communities.
- Promote wellbeing in adults whilst reducing social exclusion by addressing stigma and discrimination.
- Use research, evidence and best practice to test and learn different approaches.
- Engage with workforce and business leads to improve access to information and support.
Poverty Truth Commission
The Durham Poverty Truth Commission brings together people experiencing poverty with decision-makers and organisational leaders to share stories and identify change that can make a difference. It seeks to discover the answer to the question, ‘what if people who struggled against poverty were involved in making decisions about tackling poverty?’. It aims to provide a strong base for identifying themes that require transformation and for co-production of sustainable models for the future to tackle poverty more effectively.
The vision is that people who are suffering from poverty will be able to influence the council and its partners approaches to alleviating poverty and will feel they are listened to, and their suggestions are acted upon.