Social Prescribing, Assets and Relationships in Communities Network

The SPARC Network is a cross-institutional collaborative learning space of academic and practice partners. It is focused on how social prescribing can become a community-driven approach to addressing health inequalities. Our members are active in public health, local government, and voluntary and community organisations, across the UK and abroad. The SPARC Network offers space to share experiences, knowledge, and developments, identify opportunities for collaboration, research and change, and engage in ongoing relationship-building and learning.

The SPARC Network developed out of our shared interest in social prescribing, a health care innovation that has been widely adopted across the UK and abroad to address the wider determinants of health by referring people to community-based activities. We are particularly interested in understanding and improving the changing relationships between individuals, communities, voluntary and community organisations, local authorities and health care through the way social prescribing is practised. We have co-produced a unique approach focused on embedding relational spaces for connection, community voice, and learning in health and social care systems.

Our aim is to advance a community-driven approach to social prescribing that leads to more sustainable and less unequal health. Spurred by the pandemic, growing health inequalities have increased concern across the UK and internationally about the clinical effectiveness and financial sustainability of the way we provide care and support people to be well. Ranging from the WHO ‘Health For All’ Charter 1986 to the NHS England 10 Year Plan 2025, there are widespread policy ambitions to address health inequalities in and with communities. Social prescribing is widely adopted for this, but is usually an extension of the medical model rather than being driven by the assets and needs of communities.

While there is much innovation, evidence, and sense of momentum, it is often hard in practice to achieve real change in health inequalities and collaborative relationships. Place-based working in health and social care has a poor historical track record and the current context of finite resources, increasing demand, and declining community assets further aggravates the underlying struggle for power and resource. As a result, community-driven approaches remain pockets of innovation with limited influence and financial security.

Most social prescribing research focuses on evaluating the impact of social prescribing on individual health and its cost-effectiveness for health and social care providers. We have co-produced a unique community-driven approach to social prescribing that integrates our academic and practice expertise in community wellbeing, power, and change. Our aim is to embed this community-driven approach in health and social care systems so that the assets and needs of local people and places drive change of health inequalities.

Network partners

University of Birmingham

• Centre for Urban Wellbeing

Birmingham

• Birmingham City Council – Public Health
• Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust
• Birmingham Voluntary Services Council
• Flourish - West Birmingham Community Health Collaborative
• Gateway Family Services CIC
• The Active Wellbeing Society Birmingham

Local and Regional

• Bradford City Council - Neighbourhoods
• Lancaster Social Prescribing Unit
• Social Prescribing Solutions
• SPINDL CIC
• University of York - International Centre for Mental Health Social Research
• Wirral Health & Wellbeing Board Community Reference Group
• York Business School
• Wellbeing Enterprises CIC

National

• Earthwatch UK
• Health Foundation
• Local Government Association
• National Academy for Social Prescribing
• NHS Confederation
• Social Prescribing Network
• Wales School for Social Prescribing Research
• Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data

International

• Athena Institute, Free University Amsterdam
• Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam
• Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Amsterdam
• Landelijk Kennisnetwerk Welzijn op Recept
• LSA Bewoners
• WellFare: Nordic Research Center for Wellbeing and Social Sustainability 

Tackling Wellbeing Inequalities through Social Prescribing: Co-producing a Community-Driven Research and Learning Infrastructure – April 2023-2024

This project, funded by the Research England Participatory Research Fund, was a collaboration between the University of Birmingham and The Active Wellbeing Society.

We co-produced a community of practice for social prescribing to tackle health and wellbeing inequalities. Our action research focused on enabling community groups and partner organisations to develop their asset-based approaches to social prescribing in a disadvantaged neighbourhood in Birmingham. See our policy briefing on ‘Co-producing a Community of Practice’ for further information.

Co-producing a social model of health through Welzijn op Recept (social prescribing) – April 2023-2026

This project, funded by Dutch health care research funder ZonMw, is a collaboration between Erasmus University Rotterdam, University of Birmingham, Free University Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam, Landelijk Kennisnetwerk Welzijn op Recept, and LSA Bewoners.

While we know that individual wellbeing is socially produced, current preventative approaches to wellbeing in the Dutch health care system continue to be mainly individually-focused and to be considered as mainly the responsibility of institutionalized health care professionals. The goal of this project is to implement and institutionalize a social model of wellbeing: a broad community-based approach to wellbeing that recognizes the complex social genealogy of wellbeing and builds on inclusive collaboration across care, wellbeing and community organizations.

Connecting Caring Communities – September 2025-2028

This project, funded by the Fairer Futures Fund, is a collaboration between Murray Hall Community Trust, Compassionate Communities UK, Birmingham City Council Public Health, Evolve & Flourish, and the University of Birmingham.

We aim to strengthen community assets and service delivery to better support South Asian communities in Birmingham wards who experience significant health inequalities. We are creating 9-12 Communities of Practice across the city to offer grassroots spaces for community-driven learning and change. These will include enhanced (culturally-adapted) Talk, Listen and Connect (TLC) training to build skills and confidence to support people experiencing loneliness, isolation or distress. It will also include health system usage analysis and mapping of existing community assets, support networks, and provision gaps. Together, we hope this will create sustainable infrastructure for mental health support that respects cultural values while addressing systemic barriers to care.