Tackling inequalities through a collaborative approach
Community and neighbourhood integration
Public, voluntary and community sector organisations are working together through trusted relationships to understand and address the priorities and needs of residents and the community. This includes enabling accessibility through integrating and collocating services in community venues to provide immediate, holistic, person-centred support, partnering with local school leaders and youth organisations to better enable them to help families and vulnerable young people in need. Partners are focusing on the cost of living, crime, health and wellbeing initiatives and events.
There are many examples of how working in this way is making a difference to the lives of local people. For instance, a partnership approach to targeting interventions to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour in neighbourhoods, is helping residents to feel safe and secure where they live.
Opportunities have also been taken to integrate and co-locate services in community venues. This integration of services means that more residents have been able to access support when they need it, in known and trusted places. This support has included helping people to find a place to live; improving access to education; enabling them to secure training and employment; supporting them to become more financially resilient and improving their health and wellbeing.
Engagement with local stakeholder groups
The Council’s Community Resilience team works closely with community groups and organisations across the city; enabling new groups to be created and sustained and in turn to
Prioritising work with community groups and organisations who support people; for example, friendship groups and peer mental help support groups as this helps to alleviate the burden on social care as well as health services.
Helping individuals who have a good idea for a group or charity to get established and/or supporting existing groups to ‘keep going in these difficult times’.This is done by tailoring support to the group in question – it could be they are helped with setting up a constitution or legal governing document for their organisation or helped by connecting them to similar community groups across the city or with a local area so that they can work together.
Supporting with communication and marketing so that the group can recruit new volunteers or trustees as well as address the ever-present problem of funding.The team support community organisations to attract funding; during the period April 2023-March 2024 the team supported a total of 160 applications and secured over £1.4 million of external funding for groups in Coventry.
Community Messengers
The Community Messengers network was established in the summer of 2020 so that community leaders could work with public health team around covid prevention and vaccination take up.
The group comprises of well-connected community leaders and influencers from various voluntary, community, resident, and faith organisations. These individuals collectively form the Community Messengers group.
Community messengers work best when there is genuine co-production and collaboration on projects and examples include work on the response to the COVID pandemic and, more recently, The Improving Lives for Older peoples work. It is important that the group asked for feedback at a stage where their input can still influence the outcomes. The group acts as a genuine ‘critical friend’ and provides real anecdotal information and community stories that have positively influenced plans and practices. The group is founded on a mutual understanding that individuals’ time and feedback will be respected and acted upon.
Meeting the public sector equality duty
The Council has continued at pace to deliver on its obligations under the Public Sector Equality Duty and advance the growth of its diversity and inclusion agenda more broadly. Work to progress the Council’s Equality Objectives for 2022- 2025 has continued; the five objectives outline how the Council will meet requirements to eliminate unlawful discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people of different groups.
Between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024, Coventry City Council completed 37 Equality Impact Assessments, of which 4 were internally focused EIA’s and 33 were external EIA’s relating to service provision.
An additional 17 Equality Impact Assessments were complete as part of the budget setting process for 2024 to 2025
National Highways and Transport resident survey showed a slightly decreased satisfaction with accessibility, both overall and for those with disabilities. The Council’s Disability Equality Action Partnership continues to work on equality and inclusion for people with disabilities - bringing together Coventry residents, charities, voluntary organisations, service users and public sector partners from across the city and region. The DEAP meetings held during 2023-24 considered a wide range of issues including those relating to transport and accessibility – and was consulted on major projects including Blue Ribbon Roundabout and City Centre Traffic Improvement schemes.
A key highlight from the past year has been the installation and opening of an additional five new Changing Places Toilets in the city as part of a grant received from the Department for Levelling Up’s funding programme – taking the city-wide total to twelve of these facilities now available for use by people with the most complex disabilities
Case Study – Changing Places toilets
A new Changing Places toilet was opened in Spring 2024 at the War Memorial Park. The unit is one of the most advanced forms of accessible toilets. It includes specialist equipment with plenty of room for the user and carer.
The Council has installed five new Changing Places Toilets at the War Memorial Park, Coombe Abbey Park, Shop Mobility, Albany Theatre and at Tesco – Cross Point.
Visitors have been impressed. Bushra Shah, who is in Y9 at Sherbourne Fields School, was one of the first people to visit the facility at the Memorial Park. She said: “It’s amazing. It’s also useful and it’s got everything you need. You don’t have to go home and can enjoy more time out.”
Marie Geary, a teacher at Sherbourne Fields School, added: “We all know how important it is to get outside and enjoy a day in the park in the fresh air. It’s great that we have this venue because we don’t have to make extra plans, we can be more spontaneous and spend all day here. It makes a big difference.”
Changing Places are toilet facilities for people with profound and multiple disabilities. The toilets are fitted with specialist equipment such as a hoist and changing bench. They provide sufficient space for up to two carers to support the person with a disability to use the Changing Place.
The toilet facilities will ensure that people with severe disabilities and their families or carers will not have to worry about whether there are suitable toilet facilities when they go out shopping, plan a day out or travel.
Coventry City Council were awarded more than £260,000 of government funding to install the five new Changing Places toilets in the city to help improve lives of severely disabled residents.
There are also seven other Changing Places toilets registered in Coventry, at: The Reel Store; Wilfred Spencer Centre; Asda Whitley; Central Library; University of Warwick Sports and Wellness Hub – Dry Sports and University of Warwick Sports and Wellness Hub – Pool side and Coventry University.
The Wave and the Coventry Railway Station also have the facilities.