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.