RESILIENCE | The first of our six City of Culture energies

What does resilience mean to you?

Coventry City of Culture has chosen six energies to represent the personality of Coventry and be explored over this special year.

As one of their four community partners, we’re reflecting those energies this week with a look at our work in the city. Today we start with Resilience and our Healthy Communities Together programme.

We’re also promoting this inspiring video featuring Annette, Bill, Justine, Roze and our very own Mel Smith!

Mel leads our community organising and campaigning in the city. As she says, people often don’t believe they have the power to make change.

Healthy Communities Together invites Coventry residents to share lived experiences of mental health in the city with the aim of making things better for others turning to the voluntary and community sector and secondary and primary care services for help.

Collecting people’s stories helps hold a mirror up to services – opening up the opportunity to travel people’s journeys and clearly see the pinch points and disconnections blocking the road.

What makes the world a better place? Tackling health inequalities and improving health prospects by getting the most out of the combined capability of services to help people is a good start.

One of six partnerships in England chosen for phase one, we’re bringing the whole system together through a series of local conversations. What would an improved story look like? How do we create it together? Look out for more developments soon!

Healthy Communities Together was established and is funded by The King’s Fund and the National Lottery Community Fund and is part of our Shifting Power action strand.

Our partnership in Coventry is made up of Grapevine, Coventry and Warwickshire Primary Care Trust, Coventry City Council and Coventry and Warwickshire Health and Care Partnership.