Listen, Learn, Adapt

Together with our partners, The Oasis Partnership, Buckinghamshire Mind, Citizens Advice Buckinghamshire and Wycombe Wanderers Foundation, Age UK Buckinghamshire have participated in a research project, working with MEL Research, to listen to the views of minority ethnic communities on charitable support in our county.

Using research including online and paper surveys, group discussions and interviews, the Listen, Learn, Adapt research project sought to discover how support services offered by local charities in Buckinghamshire could be more inclusive and welcoming to all communities. 

The research and report, funded by The Rothschilds Foundation, Heart of Bucks and The Clare Foundation, shares the views and experiences of the people we consulted with. We are extremely grateful to all the research participants for their time, openness, and candour. 

The project findings include insight that while many people from minority ethnic communities acknowledge the positive intent and great work of charities in Bucks, there is more work to do to ensure everyone is aware of the services they provide, that people feel able to access them, and that charity staff and volunteers are representative of the communities they serve. Together with our partners, Age UK Buckinghamshire is committed to evolving services and culture in order to better serve the needs of local people.

The full report can be downloaded from The Oasis Partnership website (scroll down).

We look forward to sharing our future progress with you, as we work hard to develop our charity and offer services that work for everyone across the county.

Images used from the Ageing Better Resource Space, collated to show realistic imagery of older people ageing better across the UK.

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2022 update: 

Buckinghamshire Listen Learn Adapt.mp4

Five Buckinghamshire based charities have launched an exciting new collaborative project called “Listen Learn Adapt”.

The ultimate aim of the charities involved (Buckinghamshire Mind, The Oasis Partnership, Age UK Buckinghamshire, Citizens Advice Bucks, Wycombe Wanderers Sports & Education Trust) is to learn about the needs and wants of local people from minority ethnicity backgrounds in order to better serve them.

Many thanks in advance for your support with this exciting community research project. The findings will help to improve support services provided across Buckinghamshire in the future. 

The Listen Learn Adapt project has been jointly commissioned by The Rothschild Foundation, Heart of Bucks and The Clare Foundation via their Buckinghamshire Wellbeing Capacity Fund.

The fund was created to respond to the challenges Covid-19 has had on the wellbeing of Buckinghamshire residents, especially those who have been, and will continue to be, disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and the related effects. The one-off grant was offered to enable the delivery of a holistic project that works to create new capacity to support wellbeing across the county and make Buckinghamshire’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic sustainable, with reach into all communities.

The Listen Learn Adapt project partners came together in recognition of the fact that many people from minority ethnicity backgrounds have been disproportionality affected by the catastrophic consequences of the Covid virus from health, community and economical perspectives, but may be hesitant or reluctant to approach local services when they find themselves in need of support.

The organisations recognised that their engagement levels with people from minority ethnicity backgrounds don’t correlate with the make-up of the local community when looking specifically at ethnicities and they wanted to make strides to remedy this. As such the organisations have been funded to undertake a project that will allow them to:

• Listen

The project will seek to capture the community’s thoughts and experiences with regards to engagements with local charities. The research will be undertaken by M·E·L Research, one of the UK’s leading social research and behavioural insights consultancies.

• Learn

Information captured from the community research process will be used to appraise and challenge current service offerings and ascertain how appealing they are to people from minority backgrounds.

An evaluation report that details findings with regards to better engaging minority individuals and communities will be produced. This will then be shared with other local charities and relevant groups.

• Adapt

Using the insight achieved via the Listen and Learn aspects of the project, the charities will seek to make relevant adaptations to their respective service provisions in order to ensure that barriers to engagement are minimised, and that all offerings are culturally relevant, inclusive, accessible and fit for today’s modern and diverse world.

Whilst the scope of the project is time limited, the project partners (as well as the funders), believe that this is merely the beginning of a county-wide collaborative journey of discovery – working in broader partnership with individuals, groups and communities – that will ultimately make Buckinghamshire an even better place for all people to live, work and flourish.

Paige Edwards, Head of Business for Age UK Bucks, had this to say about the launch of the Listen Learn Adapt project:

“We are so excited to be involved in the launch of the Listen Learn Adapt project. All five charirties want to ensure that the services we deliver are as appealing and inclusive as possible and this research project will be very valuable in terms of allowing us to achieve those aims.”

Please note that effective engagement with minority ethnicity individuals and groups is critical to the success of the Listen Learn Adapt project. As such, the project partners would love to hear from anybody who would be willing to take part in the community research process that will began in Autumn 2021.

In order to express an interest in getting involved (or to ask questions/make comments) please feel free to contact Clare Samways, the Listen Learn Adapt Project Coordinator, on lla@oasispartnership.org.