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Research Project

Connecting the Community: Communication at the Heart of Greenstead

Principal Investigator

Professor Gina Yannitell Reinhardt

People gathered at a table discussing the Greenstead Project

We want to further community engagement in Greenstead

The Communication at the Heart of Greenstead Project provides a space and opportunity for Greenstead community members to come together to discuss and document communication and engagement issues in Greenstead, Colchester.

Those who are connected and engaged in their community life are more likely to feel a sense of belonging to a community, more likely to engage in and contribute to their community, and less likely to be lonely and socially isolated. With these connections, people become more aware of the resources that exist in their community to help improve their health and well-being. They also begin to reap knock-on effects of connectedness, such as being more physically active, having friends who check on them regularly, and building confidence and satisfaction with life and trust in others.

Professor Gina Yannitell Reinhardt, Department of Government at the University of Essex, works with local authorities and the voluntary sector to help understand how to create resilience and connectedness in communities. She particularly focuses on vulnerable groups, how they access their public services and democratic rights, and how those services improve people’s lives. She studies how citizens and policy makers make decisions under uncertainty, and how those decisions affect economic, social, and political development and subsequent policy outcomes.

The Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Essex, which includes the Department of Government, is one of Europe’s leading centres for theory-driven empirical research in the social sciences and renowned for its scholarly work.

We aim to understand

Communication channels - mapping out existing communication channels that connect Greenstead residents with each other and other communities and organisation within Greenstead and the University of Essex.
Engagement barriers - identifying the barrier that may lack awareness or understanding of how to engage and communicate effectively, potentially leading to low participation.
Knowledge and skills needed for effective engagement - providing training and co-production workshops that enable learning and knowledge exchange activities, professional and interpersonal skills and building relationships among diverse stakeholders within the community

Greenstead residents employed as Community researchers giving a presentation at one of the workshops’

Greenstead residents completing the survey online and in paper form

Greenstead residents attending the workshop and are gathered at a table

Residents gathered together to attend the workshop

Impact

This project provides an opportunity for Greenstead residents to work alongside the University of Essex researchers to gain a greater understanding of their community and the impact they can achieve with active engagement. It offers the opportunity for the community to come together and engage in learning and knowledge exchange activities and to strengthen community cohesion and community health and wellbeing. The project will enable residents to:

Get to know each other and build social networks.
Have a say regarding how internal and external organisations communicate with their community.
Build confidence and knowledge to actively shape their community’s voice and community life.

Method

A survey co-produced with Greenstead residents was carried out between 4 August and 31 August 2023, and we distributed the survey online and in paper format. We are now in the process of analysing the data. Residents also participate in a series of 12 workshops to encourage engagement and connecting with each other. The survey was co-created with the residents through these workshops. This will enable the following pressing needs to be addressed:

Access to information – a need for insight into where the community members get their information and what type of information is available to them.
Methods of communication – a need for knowledge about the channels that organisations use to communicate their events and opportunities for the members to engage in community activities.
Confidence and knowledge to engage and become active members of the community – a need for greater engagement potentially linked to the information awareness and communication channels. Overall, we aim to provide a clear plan of how to demonstrate the power of co-production and community engagement to make the Greenstead community a better place.

Partners

This project is being carried out in partnership with Community 360 - an organisation that coordinates activities and facilitates roles for residents in Greenstead to facilitate community engagement within Greenstead and in Colchester as a whole. Community 360 are working with the Assistant Engagement officer to support the projct with promotion and engagement with Greenstead residents.