Context
In spring 2020, as the pandemic reached Kirklees, a diversity of responses erupted spontaneously and were in contest with each other for various reasons - community spontaneous responses were critical of the structured approach of the statutory bodies. Statutory bodies were reluctant to trust community responses because they lacked the credentials to match their enthusiasm. Mutual aid groups were forming overnight, council teams were stretched thin, and the relationships were not present to enable these groups to work in synergy.
Following previous work on spontaneous volunteering in response to emergencies, my role was to help build relationships and bridges between the distinct styles of response; connecting council coordinators, community groups, and volunteers into something that functioned as one system rather than dozens of separate, well-meaning efforts working in opposition of each other.
Approach
Focussing on the principle that building effective relationships creates the conditions where collaboration then occurs more autonomously, we radically changed the focus from designing a system and attempting to accredit people - and used the assumption that spontaneous volunteering was going to proceed... spontaneously, and that the key driver of a success would be building effective relationships between the parts of the system which did not know each other.
In a rapidly evolving situation, relationships become the glue which holds the system together, and repairs-on-the-fly the fractures which inevitably emerge during stressful times.
Thereby, a human driven flow of intent could be supported by the statutory resource and enabled where appropriate. Any requirements which were beyond the capability of spontaneous community responders would be more easily referred to the appropriate statutory teams.
What emerged
The result was a more efficient distribution of labour, maintenance of enthusiasm, the support of the mutual aid spontaneous volunteering response rather than the replacement of it and overall a more effective and a more human centred response to the challenges, and a trajectory which supported closer working between community level actors and the statutory bodies than before. This also freed up capacity with the statutory actors enabling them to focus their energy and work where it was most needed.
Reflection
This approach in Kirklees led to it being one of only a small handful (around 5) municipalities in the UK where the spontaneous volunteering response was able to continue alongside the statutory response and thereby build relationship and enhance benefit for everyone, not only during covid but also continuing into the future. I'm also proud to know that during even the most stressful and sombre circumstances, focussing on building relationships as a pre-condition to improving the likelihood of collaboration is proven.