Connect Learning Update: Building connections alongside residents
Our latest Connect learning report delves into what relationship-led, neighbourhood-based support looks like in practice, with resident updates, key figures and system learning.
Neighbourhood health becomes real when it shows up in the everyday.
Across Connect, we’ve been working alongside residents who are experiencing social isolation, often at points of change: worsening health, bereavement, anxiety, housing insecurity, or a sudden shrinking of the world to “four walls and appointments”.
What we’ve seen, again and again, is not quick fixes. It’s something sturdier: confidence returning, routines re-forming, relationships rebuilding, and people beginning to contribute to others around them. In other words, change that lasts.
This learning update brings together:
- Resident updates, including “what happened next?” follow-ups 7–10 months on
- Key figures on referrals and what we’re noticing through our SIGNAL Lifemaps
- Practical learning about what makes relationship-led, neighbourhood-based approaches work over time, and where the tensions are
What is Connect?
Connect is a partnership of Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) organisations working together in Barking & Dagenham to help residents find connection and belonging.
We’re exploring what needs to be present in people’s lives and neighbourhoods for meaningful connection to spark and sustain, and how communities, services and local organisations can work together to make that possible.
What we mean by “neighbourhood health”
In practice, neighbourhood health looks like:
- Working alongside people closer to home, at a pace that’s shaped by trust and readiness, not deadlines
- Support led by what matters to people (not only what’s easiest to measure), using tools like SIGNAL to surface priorities and build momentum
- Joining up support by drawing in the right local assets, rather than trying to “fix” people or make any single organisation carry everything
- Investing in prevention by helping people rebuild connection before crisis becomes the only option
Read the stories
- Lucy’s story shows how connection can strengthen family life and expand into wider community contribution.
- Joshua’s story includes growing confidence, volunteering, and building friendships that cut across difference, with benefits for health and social cohesion.
- Pat’s story highlights bereavement, stroke recovery, and the way dependable relationships can reduce the sense of being a “burden”.
- Delfa’s story highlights how consistent, relationship-led support can help someone navigate loss mention, ill-health and isolation, creating space for pride, belonging and contribution to return at their own pace.
- Gerald’s story shows how connection, shared interests and gentle encouragement can rebuild confidence later in life, turning long-held passions into new routines, friendships and a renewed sense of purpose.
Thank you to the residents who shared their journeys, and to the partners helping make this way of working possible – Ageable CIC, Community Resources, Independent Living Agency, Harmony House, Humourisk CIC, SIGNAL, Elevate Together, Suresteps Wellbeing and Dagenham Rhythms Community Choir.
