Social Prescribing, Assets and Relationships in Communities Network

The Social Prescribing, Assets and Relationships in Communities (SPARC) Network is a cross-institutional collaborative learning space of academic and practice partners. It is focused on understanding and advancing social prescribing as a community-driven approach to addressing health inequalities and enabling health creation. Our members are active in public health, local government, and the voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) sector 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 internationally 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, VCFSE organisations and public bodies through the way social prescribing is practised and supported. We have co-produced a unique relational approach focused on embedding community-driven change in social prescribing practice and health and care ecosystems.

Our aim is to advance a community-driven approach to social prescribing that enables the development of health creating communities. Spurred by the COVID-19 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 purpose, based on increased recognition of the relational work that VCFSE organisations do to enable people to feel well.

However, it is often hard in practice to achieve real change in health inequalities and collaborative relationships. Place-based working in health and 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. Structural barriers in power, financial security, and accountability mean that community-driven approaches remain pockets of innovation unable to shift the dial on health inequalities.

As a result, social prescribing usually ends us as an extension of the medical system rather than being driven by the assets and desires of communities. Yet, the dominant focus in policy and research is on evaluating the impact of social prescribing on individual health and its cost-effectiveness for health and care providers. Instead, our community-driven approach to social prescribing aims to grow, sustain, and embed ‘health creation’: enabling individuals and communities to gain greater purpose, hope, mastery, and control over their lives and environments.

Network partners

University of Birmingham

• Centre for Urban Wellbeing

Birmingham

• Birmingham City Council – Public Health
• Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust
• Birmingham Voluntary Services Council
• Disability Resource Centre
• Flourish - West Birmingham Community Health Collaborative
• Gateway Family Services CIC
• Murray Hall Community Trust
• Newbigin Community Trust
• Re. Future Collective
• St Paul’s Trust
• The Springfield Project
• The Active Wellbeing Society Birmingham

Local and Regional

• Bradford City Council - Neighbourhoods
• Grow Wellbeing
• International Centre for Mental Health Social Research – University of York
• Lancaster Social Prescribing Unit
• Nottingham Community and Voluntary Service
• Open Door Charity
• SPINDL CIC[KB1]
• Torbay Communities
• York Business School
• Wellbeing Enterprises CIC

National

• Earthwatch UK
• Health Foundation
• Local Government Association
• Innovation Unit
• National Academy for Social Prescribing
• Social Prescribing Network
• The Health Creation Alliance (THCA)
• The King’s Fund
• The NHS Alliance
• Wales School for Social Prescribing Research
• Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data

International

• Athena Institute, Free University Amsterdam
• Center for Studies in Epidemiology and Care in Transmissible Infections and Human Health Problems – Federal University of Goiás
• 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 inequalities in Birmingham. Our action research focused on enabling previously disconnected community members, VCFSE workers, and public officials to develop a shared practice for addressing health inequalities driven by community assets and needs. 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- September 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 depends on connections to local people and places, the relational work by community members and professionals is insufficiently recognised and supported. In addition, there is lots of collaboration across community organisations and public bodies, but it proves challenging to join forces in ways driven by the assets and desires of communities. The goal of this project was to implement and embed a community-driven approach to wellbeing that recognises the complex social genealogy of wellbeing, enhances the visibility of relational work, and enables collaboration across care, wellbeing and community organisations.

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.