Following the launch of the Skills for Care programme on community skills development and workforce planning in 2011, an independent evaluation was commissioned to identify the learning from the programme.
The innovative programme sought to promote the development of individual and community assets and social capital, and to explore the contribution of a skills-led approach building on some tools and templates designed for local application.
Fifteen projects were supported to examine multiple contexts and to develop initiatives in diverse neighbourhoods and environments. An independent evaluation was commissioned from Melanie Henwood Associates to identify the learning from the programme and to explore the contribution that it could make to social care and support and to improving local health and wellbeing.
[The 2012 report shows that] the experience of the Skills for Care’s Empowering Communities programme confirms that there is much that communities can contribute, and that an asset or skill-based approach has particular value. However… The very nature of community-based social capital is that it cannot be created overnight or simply switched on. …but such developments [social capital and supportive communities] cannot be seen as an optional add-on, so much as an integral part of the strategic vision for whole communities and for the benefit of all citizens.1
1 M Henwood (2012) ‘Empowering Communities: Community skills development and neighbourhood workforce planning – A summary of the Early Adopter programme for Skills for Care, Melanie Henwood Associates, pp. 1, 6.
