Connecting Communities Across South Tees: How Our Event Sparked the Development of Together Connect

The session explored how we can build stronger links with local people through community assets, ambassadors and champion‑style roles, and how these approaches can help ensure that everyone—particularly those who face barriers—can access trusted and relevant information, feel supported, and have their voices heard.

Why We Held This Event

The event was shaped by a set of important questions we had been hearing across the system:

• How do we increase the number of community assets and champions?
• How can we ensure communities have trusted, relevant and accessible information?
• Are organisations repeatedly approaching the same people, or missing others entirely?
• How do we make sure services meet the diverse needs of all our communities?
• What impact does the current approach have, and is it working?
• Should we be collaborating differently?

These questions highlighted a shared desire to improve coordination, reduce duplication, and build a stronger, more connected community infrastructure.

What We Aimed to Achieve

The event set out to:

• Build a better shared understanding of how organisations currently work with communities
• Raise awareness of champion/connector approaches already in use
• Identify opportunities to collaborate and support one another
• Improve connections between organisations
• Learn from both challenges and good practice
• Share tools, resources and approaches

A key focus was understanding how different organisations collect and share local insight, and how community connectors can act as trusted bridges between residents and services.

About the Event

The session featured presentations from:

• Linda Sergeant, Project Lead, Healthwatch South Tees
• Neil Craig, Volunteer Development Officer, MVDA 

They shared how their organisations use community champions, the opportunities this creates, and the challenges that come with sustaining such models.

Conversations quickly revealed that many organisations—despite often working with the same communities—were not aware of each other's work. This highlighted the need for stronger networks, more visibility, and more consistent opportunities to join up.

Participants also explored creative ways of working together, sharing learning, and building a more coordinated approach to reaching people who may otherwise fall through the gaps.

What We Learned

A recurring theme across the event was that no single organisation can reach everyone, and that working in isolation limits our impact.

The group recognised the value of:

• Community-led approaches
• Shared local intelligence
• Champions and connectors who understand their communities’ needs
• Collaborative working that reduces duplication and improves trust
• Consistent, accessible information for residents

Participants expressed a clear appetite for working together more intentionally and practically.

How This Led to Together Connect

One of the most powerful outcomes of the event was a collective realisation:
we needed a stronger, shared network for everyone working in champion, connector or community-facing roles.

As a result, we made the decision to strengthen and relaunch our Community Champions network—now known as Together Connect.

Together Connect will:

• Bring organisations together more regularly
• Create opportunities to share information, insight and resources
• Help ensure communities receive consistent, trusted support
• Reduce duplication and improve coordination
• Support peer learning across organisations
• Strengthen our collective ability to reach underserved communities

The event was the catalyst for this work, giving us the clarity and shared commitment needed to move forward collaboratively.