Social Prescribing, Assets and Relationships in Communities Network
The Social Prescribing, Assets and Relationships in Communities (SPARC) Network is a cross-institutional initiative led by academic partners from the University of Birmingham, the Open University, York St. John’s University and practice partners from the Active Wellbeing Society (TAWS) Birmingham, Wirral ABCD Network, and Gwent Public Health. It includes members working in local government, public health, housing across the UK and abroad.
SPARC is concerned with asset-based approaches to social prescribing, addressing health inequalities, and coproducing a social model of wellbeing. The network is a space for members to share experiences, knowledge, and developments, identify opportunities for collaboration, research and change, and engage in ongoing relationship-building and learning.
The 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 developing our understanding of the changing relationships between individuals, communities, voluntary and community organisations, local authorities and health care as a result of social prescribing, and whether these changes are moving towards the aspired transformation of health and social care systems towards a social model of wellbeing. Most social prescribing research focuses on evaluating the impact of SP on individual health and its cost-effectiveness for health and social care providers, with less attention paid to its relational nature and transformative dynamics.
Aims and Approach
We are interested in advancing a social model of wellbeing and more sustainable and less unequal health and social care. The pandemic and new legislation offer possibilities for systems change, but there is limited guidance on how to address a range of structural barriers to co-production and evaluation.
We have adopted an asset-based approach to integrate the knowledge of our academic partners about community co-production with the innovative approaches to social prescribing of our practice partners. Our aim is to examine ways in which asset-based approaches to social prescribing can enable local communities to coproduce better health and wellbeing outcomes and transformative and sustainable change.
We take an asset-based approach to action research to facilitate joint inquiry, learning and interventions driven by the assets and needs of communities. We believe this will create community-driven research and learning infrastructures that empower communities and establish effective cross-sector partnerships.
Core partners
- Koen Bartels – INLOGOV, University of Birmingham, k.p.r.bartels@bham.ac.uk
- Emma Davies-McIntosh – Integrated Wellbeing Networks, Gwent Public Health, emma.davies-mcintosh@wales.nhs.uk
- Keiran McKenzie – The Active Wellbeing Society Birmingham, keiran.mckenzie@theaws.org
- Elke Loeffler – The Open University Business School, elke.loeffler@open.ac.uk
- Owen Powell – York Business School, York St. John’s University, o.powell@yorksj.ac.uk
- Jessica Pykett – School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, J.Pykett@bham.ac.uk
- Chris Shaw – Wirral ABCD Network, cshawcommunity@gmail.com
- Elizabeth Woodcock – INLOGOV, University of Birmingham, e.woodcock@bham.ac.uk
Network partners
Network partners
Wales School for Social Prescribing Research
Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data
Resources
Articles
'Social prescribing as a springboard to better wellbeing for local government', (3 October 2023)
Policy briefings
Creating a ‘Wild Pathways’ strategy: A - policy brief for Local Nature Partnerships
Crafting a collaborative Public Services Board culture: A policy briefing for Public Services Boards
Projects
This project, funded by the Research England Participatory Research Fund, is a collaboration between the University of Birmingham and The Active Wellbeing Society.
We will co-produce a community-driven research and learning infrastructure for social prescribing to tackle health and wellbeing inequalities. Our action research will focus on enabling community groups and partner organisations to develop their asset-based approaches to social prescribing in a disadvantaged neighbourhood in Birmingham.
This project, funded by Dutch health care research funder ZonMw, is a collaboration between Erasmus University Rotterdam, University of Birmingham, the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies, 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.
How to engage with us
Dates of future network sessions will be added soon.