Multisector collaboration to improve community wellbeing

The Wales Centre for Public Policy (WCPP) and the Resourceful Communities Partnership (RCP) have been working together on research to better understand the role of multisector collaboration in improving community action and wellbeing.

The project had two phases:

Phase one entailed a review of evidence drawing on practice-based case studies, UK-based grey literature, and academic literature published since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic on how multisector collaboration influences community action and wellbeing.

The evidence review identified a range of actions that aid in developing multisector collaboration to support community action and wellbeing. These actions are categorised into activities that help to develop a shared purpose within a collaboration, governance arrangements that are flexible and evolve through action towards achieving that shared purpose, and financial mechanisms that support collaborative working

Phase two involved a workshop to engage with key findings from the evidence review, explore their relevance to different practice and policy contexts, and incorporate practice-based experience and expertise into the evidence base.

The findings from both the review of the evidence and the workshop have been developed into a report – Multisector collaboration to improve community wellbeing’.

An accompanying summary of pre-pandemic evidence on this topic was developed by Leeds Beckett University and has been published alongside the main report.

The findings from the evidence review and the workshop have been developed into a ‘Framework for Action’ resource aimed at helping to identify tangible actions that can be taken in different contexts to develop multisector collaboration that enhances community action and wellbeing. Rather than merely describing what good multisector collaboration looks like, it aims to outline some options for achieving it.