This report explores how collaborations and partnerships between user-led groups (ULGs) build resilience and sustainability.
It is the result of a project by The Teapot Collective, a collective of learning partners, facilitators, and yoga guides who focus on anti-oppressive and radical work, commissioned by NSUN and funded by Propel.
As well as the research report, two online resources for ULGs were produced as part of this project.
Alternatively, click here to download the report as a Word document
About the report
The purpose of this project was to understand how collaborations and partnerships between user-led groups build resilience and sustainability. The Teapot Collective, commissioned by NSUN, undertook collaborative research with six London-based ULGs through workshops that were designed to be of use to the participating groups themselves.
You might be interested in this report if you’re a member of a ULG looking to learn more about sustaining and developing your group, or if you are part of an organisation or initiative which funds or otherwise supports ULGs: there is a call to funders toward the end of the report, setting out how you may better support ULGs.
Findings
This report sets out four approaches to building resilience and sustainability which were drawn from conversations with London-based ULGs:
- Consistently centre the needs of the communities that you serve
- Seek out partners and collaborators (your co-conspirators) who hold similar values to your own
- Visioning, recognising your gifts and planning for the future can be used as a tool to build resilience
- Mapping as an exercise can assist you in understanding your community in depth
Based on those conversations, we’ve also produced two online resources for ULGs as part of this project: an animated self-guided visioning workshop and an online guide for mutual aid and food projects. These can be found below, and on our Resources for Groups webpage.
Project resources
Self-guided visioning workshop for user-led groups
Amy from The Teapot Collective takes you through our visioning workshop for your user-led group. You can take part in this workshop alone, or with your fellow organisers! We hope this workshop helps you to build your resilience, and bring your user-led group to where you want it to be.
In the workshop you’ll explore where you want your organisation or user-led group to be in the future, and what steps you’ll take to get there. We completed the exercises in this video with five London-based organisations and we’ll be sharing examples of what came out of our time together to support you in coming up with yours.
We’ll move through four parts:
- Visioning: visioning can build our resilience. Dreaming of the world we want to exist can create and maintain the hope we need to keep going. In this part you’ll work out where you want your user-led group to be in the future
- Headlines: write the newspaper headlines you’d need to see before your vision becomes a reality
- Identifying who we need: what partnerships or collaborators do you need to fulfil your vision?
- Zooming into your focus: identify what steps you’ll take for the next twelve months in order to make your vision a reality
Working collectively for food and mutual aid projects: a 3-step guide
This guide was made in collaboration with Spring Community Hub (a Southwark-based charity which aims to address the root causes of food poverty and food insecurity), The National Survivor User Network, and The Teapot Collective.
The support offered by user-led groups working in and around mental health often extends from peer/emotional support to all things practical, such as mutual aid and food provision. This 3-step guide is for groups working on such projects to use when doing local community development work.
It could also be adapted more broadly to support those who are looking to start — or have recently started — a new project, or feel that your existing project could be more embedded within the community. This guide is also for anyone who believes that working together brings us closer to living in a world that’s socially just.
The three steps within this short guide are:
- Capture: develop a community resource map
- Connect: visit local projects and community spaces
- Co-create: work together with local projects and the people you aim to support
Alternatively, click here to download the guide as a Word document