Kindred’s support helps to build healthier, more connected communities across the Liverpool City Region.
The largest share of STOs’ impact is delivered in health and wellbeing (55%), including improvements in physical health, mental wellbeing, confidence and social connection. Alongside this, STOs create jobs, sustain local services and generate wider social and economic value that is often not captured by traditional measures.
STOs are not peripheral to public services – they are a vital part of the wider health and social system.
Research from the National Academy for Social Prescribing shows that community-led interventions can generate significant economic benefits by reducing pressure on primary care and the wider health system. Social prescribing models have been shown to generate between £2.14 and £8.56 in social and economic value for every £1 invested – but need resourcing properly. Unless social prescribing interventions comes with resources, STOs are picking up demand in the system without resources to provide for it, leading to continued pressure applying for grants.
Based on this, investment in health and wellbeing-focused STOs has the potential to generate substantial social value, reinforcing their role as key enablers in building healthier, more resilient communities.
However, challenges remain. STOs continue to face barriers in accessing public contracts and commissioning, limiting their scale of impact despite strong local demand. A number of STOs talked about contracts and bids they had failed to win, and identified this as a barrier.
STOs in the health arena – three examples
• Peloton Liverpool partners with the midwifery team at Liverpool Women’s Hospital. It has identified short journeys to the hospital are problematic by car because of congestion, cost and parking for the driver and air quality to the wider public. Peloton is training midwives to use cargo bikes to provide local journeys, and leased bikes.
• Grow Wellbeing and the Green Garden Project: “We see regularly that people (re)-connecting with nature enhances their health and wellbeing. Sometimes it’s fleeting, but for other who regularly engage with nature, the impact is life changing – socially, skills wise and in a holistic health and wellbeing sense, leading to a greater sense of purpose and the possibility to achieve.”
• Me2U Centre worked with a mix of socially isolated young adults, not in employment, training or education. A high proportion of young men taking part were neurodiverse, with autism, and another cohort focused specifically on young people with learning difficulties and learning disabilities. It became increasingly evident that young people had been affected adversely by the pandemic and struggled to leave their homes. Participants worked with plywood offcuts from manufacturing waste, transforming this into objects ranging from bird houses to nesting stools, fusing bench-based making with digital manufacture.
One participant, a full-time carer, used offcuts to repair and transform a broken kitchenette in a local charity. Another demonstrated a highly productive and precise approach to making and finishing; a third developed skills and confidence in leadership of her cohort and a fourth started the programme with erratic attendance caused by sleeplessness and an addiction to gaming. His progression transformed to successful and punctual starts and a desire and commitment to looking for regular employment.