Thank you Oxfordshire - and keep on doing things differently!

Well. It is day 3 of my post-Aspire Oxfordshire, 'post-Oxfordshire community & social enterprise life' and I have one week of freedom before starting my new career – a rare moment of ‘in between times’. As there are many people I have not yet thanked properly for their brilliance, understanding and inspiration since I first moved to Oxfordshire in 2011, I wanted to share my ‘top 10’ celebratory reflections in this post to make some amends for that:

1.?????Homelessness prevention is necessary and is a ‘no brainer’ investment. It started with the ‘Trailblazer project’ in Oxfordshire in the wake of introducing the Homelessness Reduction Act in 2017-18. It heralded a brilliant moment of cross-sector collaboration, embedding reflective practice, empowering frontline colleagues, acknowledging the importance of lived experience to inform service design, basing services in accessible locations in communities, with a resolute focus on supporting people to develop their resilience so they can help themselves the next time. It came with a real commitment to a test, fail, learn and improve culture. And it resulted, eventually, in a step change in commissioning to accept that we need to work upstream of homelessness, that improving systems does matter, and that we can prevent needless trauma. Thank you National Lottery Reaching Communities fund, Paul Wilding , Nerys Parry, Brendan Lewis, Paul Reid , Jessica Collins , Karen Ferguson , Gregg Hodgkins , Barry Dalziel and Chris Keating .

2.?????Empty houses can become much needed homes. Transforming Becket St from a row of empty townhouses into dignified, supportive homes, followed by the trailblazing work of the HOME project to extend the model working with other landlords, has given people the opportunity to stabilise, rebuild and move on from homelessness. In a city experiencing such acute housing need such as Oxford, there is no need or excuse for empty homes. They can and must be brought back into use and we demonstrated with Becket St that this is possible and the benefits are huge. The landlord gets their property maintained and their running costs met; the local community avoid an eyesore and possible venue for anti-social behaviour; and most powerfully of all, people can live in secure, dignified homes, benefit from support and begin to seize the opportunities and future they’re entitled to. Thank you Nuffield College, Oxford City Council, Oxfordshire Community Foundation , Transition by Design Co-operative , Oxfordshire Homeless Movement (OHM) , Tim Grier , more recently with Alison Letts and countless others.

3.?????We can reduce reoffending. At Aspire we introduced a ‘through the gate’ service to support community-based rehabilitation for hundreds of prison leavers in the Thames Valley. And we started this in 2014-15 - before, throughout and since the disastrous Grayling privatisation of the probation service. We got the basics right – providing person-centred, trauma-informed support to help prison leavers access housing, peer support, get into employment opportunities with local employers and to navigate local services to support their sustained recovery. Working alongside probation colleagues and the prison leavers around a shared plan. As a result we got the reoffending rates down to incredibly low rates, consistently over many years. Thanks in particular to Christine Rolls , Tracy Harrison , Tom Bartlett , Claire Sly and Catherine Marriott .

4.?????Housing First works. Aspire helped introduce Housing First across the Oxfordshire Districts to arrest the rise in rough sleeping. Trailblazing the service first with Soha Housing - the most progressive and values-driven housing association in Oxfordshire (possibly the country) - and expanding the service in the teeth of the pandemic into other parts of Oxfordshire and then embedding it within the Oxfordshire Homeless Alliance. Thank you Bhavan Sagoo Davies , Nationwide Foundation, Kate Wareing , Jude McCaffrey , colleagues from local councils and Cottsway Housing. ?

5.?????You can’t achieve systemic change by working alone. ?Aspire entered into a multi-year, strategic partnership with Turning Point to introduce effective employment, training and education support into the drug & alcohol recovery hubs across Oxfordshire, combining this with access to digital inclusion, social prescribing and peer learning opportunities. Getting such a recovery asset into the heart of communities helped to see Oxfordshire transform from a national under performer to a national example of best practice for recovery outcomes. Thank you to Andy Symons, Ted Shepherd, Paul Reid, Nikki Aitchison , Molly Harvey . ?Similar thoughts spring to mind of how the county has responded to support so many more refugees and asylum seekers in recent times with great partnership working by Asylum Welcome, OHM, Connection Support, Refugee Resource and EMBS and local councils.

6.?????Digital exclusion can be eliminated to support a more inclusive economy. Launching Getting Oxfordshire Online during the pandemic to have since refurbished and distributed 1000s of digital devices to people and families experiencing digital exclusion, with the brilliant Richard Kennell , with great starting support from Oxfordshire Community Foundation , Nominet Trust, Citizens Advice and Bicester Green. Benefiting hugely from the leadership and professional brilliance of Ben Tuppen and from quietly determined colleagues like John Dennis .

7.?????Group physical activity is a powerful medicine. Piloting the ‘Active Body, Healthy Mind’ project with a Sport England grant (and similar funds over the years from Active Oxfordshire ), transforming and transitioning this project over the years to incorporate a social prescribing model to support personal recovery and transformation; it showed that if you plant a seed of possibility & hope in people, it will grow. Working with the thoroughly inspiring and sorely missed Jamie Hamilton. Striking a great partnership with Blenheim Palace to broaden access to their beautiful estate to benefit hundreds of people to improve their physical health and mental wellbeing. Being able to watch Ross Munro transform into a great Aspire manager and leader.

8.?????Often the best solution is a locally crafted one. Helping to coordinate an Oxfordshire ‘community of services’ partnership to bid for European Social Funds to introduce a community-based, alternative employment, training and education support service for young people across Oxfordshire who were deemed ‘entrenched NEET’ (not in education, employment or training). ?‘Unlocking Potential’ ran for years and empowered hundreds of young people, otherwise written off and misunderstood by society, with person-centred support to help them find their place and live independent lives. It has gone on to inspire the ‘No Limits’ community ETE project now delivered by Aspire, Sofea and the Oxfordshire LEP. Thank you to SOFEA , Christina Rofique , Lindsay Phillips , Matt Legget, Debbie Bayliss, Richard Kennell , Neil Holman and Michael Goodman.

9.?????Support needs to be accessible in our communities. Aspire has practised bringing employment, education and training support into community settings so that many hundreds of people experiencing long-term unemployment can take their first steps back towards and into employment again. Particularly powerful examples were the 'job clubs' we established in Children’s Centres and community centres (before the stranglehold of austerity), the many Job Fairs we organised from community venues and opening community hubs. All power to ‘baby steps’ Rosa Curness and to Martin Ousley !

10.?Give people and communities the power, money, resources and space to imagine. We have started to see what amazing things can happen. Seeing the multiplier effect in action in Oxfordshire has been truly awe inspiring, with a growing ripple of social impact coming from the wonderful examples of Flo's - The Place in the Park , The Lived Experience Advisory Forum (LEAF), Makespace Oxford , Team Oxford, Doughnut Economics, Oxfordshire Homeless Movement (OHM) , Damascus Rose Kitchen, Oxford Community Action , Owned by Oxford , Clore Social Leadership , Oxfordshire Inclusive Economy Partnership (OIEP) , OSEP CIC and Tap Social Movement . More power to your elbow Mark Gallagher , Annie Davy , Nadia Alomar , Andy Edwards , Hannah Mackie , Alice Hemming , Makena Lohr , Candida March , Yvonne Pinner , Cranston Jane , Jan Royall , Jeremy Long , Emma Coles , Grant Hayward , Juliet Cornford , Rosie Jacobs , Ana?s Bozetine , Nigel Carter, Chris Keating , Nuha Abdo , Siobhann Mansel-Pleydell and Lucy Stokes .

What do I take from all of these experiences? Put simply, we have proven again and again, at a community scale, that there is an 'alternative way of doing things'. We can reimagine and repurpose our local economic activity and prosperity to see real benefits flow to local people our communities in a more sustainable and responsible way. We can build community wealth. We can have an inclusive economy. We can test, iterate and build empowering new models and new movements. We can invest in our most important assets, our people, to help lead the changes we want to see. It comes down to making principled choices underpinned by shared values; keeping our social mission at the forefront of our minds; believing that change is both possible and desirable; and putting our faith in each other and our communities to make it happen.

I will dearly miss you all and I wish you the very best for the years to come!